Legos-- small interconnectable bricks of a material called acrylonitrile butadiene styrene that are manufactured in Denmark, Hungary, Croatia, Germany and China-- can be found (usually by accident, on the floor, barefoot, in the dark) virtually anywhere in the world. It therefore behooves the cosmopolitan citizen of the planet to have handy a list of ways to express the eventuality of unexpectedly encountering such an object in a variety of languages. Native English speakers are not really required to say anything other than "Ouch!" on such occasions, but if you express yourself in the idiom of the district you are visiting, the locals will appreciate the effort. What follows is a collection of ways to express pain in a multitude of tongues.
(Corrections and additions are welcome. Transliterations are in Italics)
Arabic - !أوه (Auh!) or !آخ (Akh!),
Albanian - Uf!
Basque - Ai! or Aupa!
Chinese - 哎哟 (Āiyō!)
Croatian - Jao! (Yow!)
Danish - Av!
Finnish - Aijai! (Aye-yi!)
French - Aïe! (Ah-EE!)
German - Aua!
Greek - Ωχ! (Okh!)
Hawaiian - Auē!
Hungarian - Jaj! (Yoy!)
Icelandic -Átjs!
Indonesian (and Malay) - Aduh!
Italian - Ahi!
Japanese - 痛い! (Itai!)
Korean - 아야! (Aya!) or 아이구! (Aigu!)
Latin - Heus!
Navajo - Ayáo!
Quechua - Atatáu! or Atatáy!
Romanian - Vai!
Russian (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian) - Oй! (Oy!)
Spanish - Ay!
Swahili - Eh! (customarily responded to with "Pole!")
Swedish - Aj!
Tagalog - Aray!
Turkish - Ah!
Vietnamese -Ục ục! (Ook ook!)
Yiddish - !וי (Oy!)
Yoruba - Yéèpàrìpà! or Yee!
Zulu - Hawu!
I nominate Quechua for the universal expression.
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