This is surprising because normally unrelated languages will use very different words to describe the same thing.
For instance, the Japanese for ‘dog’ is ‘inu’, while the French is ‘chien’.
It is thought that languages around the world have developed their own version of ‘huh?’ because the sound is quick and simple to form, as well as being easily understood.
Or, in words of the EU-funded researchers, it is a ‘simple, minimal, quick-to-produce questioning syllable’.
Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, they said that while the sound may seem almost primitive in its simplicity, it still has to be learnt.
In fact, it takes children until the age of five to master its use.
The researchers, from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen said: ‘”Huh?” is not trivial.
‘It might seem frivolous or even trivial to carry out scientific research into a world like ‘huh?’ but in fact this little word is an indispensable tool in human communication.’
They also have an answer for those who claim that ‘huh?’ isn’t a word.
They say that it qualifies because of the subtle changes made to its sound to make it fit with each language.
It also is something we learn to say, rather than a grunt or cry that we are born knowing how to make.
据英国《每日邮报》11月8日报道,荷兰研究人员研究发现,英语中最气人的词“huh”(哼!哈!啊!——表示疑问、惊讶或异议等)已经成为世界各种语言“不可缺少的”组成部分。
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