Hello is a
salutationA salutation is a greeting, in particular a formal greeting used in a letter. Salutations usually take the form "Dear X", or sometimes simply "X", usually followed by a comma or a colon.-English:...
or greeting in the
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. It is attested in writing as early as the 1830s.
Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833. These include an 1833 American book called
The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee, which was reprinted that same year in
The London Literary GazetteThe Literary Gazette was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Literary Gazette". It was founded by the publisher Henry Colburn,...
.
The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s.
According to the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
,
hello is an alteration of
hallo,
hollo, which came from
Old High GermanThe term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
"
halâ,
holâ, emphatic imper[ative] of
halôn,
holôn to fetch, used esp[ecially] in hailing a ferryman." It also connects the development of
hello to the influence of an earlier form,
holla, whose origin is in the French
holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French
là 'there').
The use of
hello as a
telephoneThe telephone is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. It is one of the most common household appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to business, industry and government...
greeting has been credited to
Thomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison was an American inventor, scientist and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb...
; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard
Hullo.
Hello is a
salutationA salutation is a greeting, in particular a formal greeting used in a letter. Salutations usually take the form "Dear X", or sometimes simply "X", usually followed by a comma or a colon.-English:...
or greeting in the
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. It is attested in writing as early as the 1830s.
First use
Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833. These include an 1833 American book called
The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee, which was reprinted that same year in
The London Literary GazetteThe Literary Gazette was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Literary Gazette". It was founded by the publisher Henry Colburn,...
.
The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s.
Etymology
According to the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
,
hello is an alteration of
hallo,
hollo, which came from
Old High GermanThe term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
"
halâ,
holâ, emphatic imper[ative] of
halôn,
holôn to fetch, used esp[ecially] in hailing a ferryman." It also connects the development of
hello to the influence of an earlier form,
holla, whose origin is in the French
holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French
là 'there').
Telephone
The use of
hello as a
telephoneThe telephone is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. It is one of the most common household appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to business, industry and government...
greeting has been credited to
Thomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison was an American inventor, scientist and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb...
; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard
Hullo.
Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
initially used
Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting. However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of
PittsburghPittsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the second largest city in the state. Its population was 334,563 at the 2000 census; by 2006, it was estimated to have fallen to 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is...
:
By 1889, central telephone exchange operators were known as 'hello-girls' due to the association between the greeting and the telephone.
Hullo
Hello may be derived from
Hullo, which the American
Merriam-WebsterMerriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language...
dictionary describes as a "chiefly British variant of hello," and which was originally used as an exclamation to call attention, an expression of surprise, or a greeting.
Hullo is found in publications as early as 1803. The word
hullo is still in use, with the meaning
hello.
Hallo
Hello is alternatively thought to come from the word
hallo (1840) via
hollo (also
holla,
holloa,
halloo,
halloa). The definition of
hollo is to shout or an
exclamationExclamation may refer to:* Exclamation mark, the punctuation mark "!"* Exclamation, an emphatic sentence* Exclamation, an emphatic interjection* Exclamation, a statement against penal interest in criminal law...
originally shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted: Fowler's has it that "hallo" is first recorded "as a shout to call attention" in 1864.
It is used by
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets...
's famous poem
The Rime of the Ancient MarinerThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1797–98 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 . The modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss...
written in 1798
Hallo is also
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
,
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
and
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
for Hello.
Webster's dictionaryWebster's Dictionary is the name given to a common type of English language dictionary in the United States. The name is derived from lexicographer Noah Webster and has become a genericized trademark for this type of dictionary....
from 1913 traces the etymology of
holloa to the Old English
halow and suggests: "Perhaps from ah + lo; compare Anglo Saxon ealā."
According to the
American Heritage Dictionary,
hallo is a modification of the obsolete
holla (
stop!), perhaps from Old French
hola (
ho, ho! +
la, there, from Latin
illac, that way).
Hallo is also used by many famous authors like Enid Blyton.
Example:"Hallo!", chorused the 600 children.
The Old English verb, hǽlan (1. wv/t1b 1 to heal, cure, save; greet, salute; gehǽl! Hosanna!), may be the ultimate origin of the word. Hǽlan is likely a cognate of German Heil and other similar words of Germanic origin.
Bill BrysonWilliam McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects. Born an American, he was a resident of North Yorkshire, England, for most of his professional life before moving back to the US in...
asserts in his book
Mother Tongue that "hello" comes from Old English
hál béo þu ("Hale be thou", or "whole be thou", meaning a wish for good health).
Cognates
"Hello" is found as a
loanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from one language and incorporated into another.-General:By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.The word loanword is itself a calque of the German...
in many other languages. It is often only used when answering the telephone, or as an informal greeting.
| Language |
Cognate |
Usage |
| Afrikaans Afrikaans is an Indo-European language derived from Dutch and thus classified as Low Franconian West Germanic. It is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers living in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Australia, New Zealand, the United...
|
hallo |
|
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
|
allo?, Hala? |
when answering the telephone |
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages....
|
haelo! |
when answering the telephone |
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except the Macedonian language, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite...
|
ало (alo) |
when answering the telephone |
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià , as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of...
|
hola! |
friendly (informal) greeting |
CroatianCroatian is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Croatian minorities in some neighbouring countries, in the Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croatian diaspora....
|
halo? |
when answering the telephone |
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language. "1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
|
hallo! |
|
| Estonian Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
|
hallo; halloo |
when answering the telephone |
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
|
haloo? |
when answering the telephone |
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
|
allô? |
when answering the telephone |
| German German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
|
hallo! |
|
GujaratiGujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family...
|
hello! |
when answering the telephone |
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
|
helló! |
friendly (informal) greeting |
| halló! |
when answering the telephone |
| Hebrew Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
|
הָלוֹ (hallo) |
when answering the telephone |
KannadaKannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas , number roughly 38 million, making it the 27th most spoken language in the world...
|
halloa |
when answering the telephone |
| Lithuanian |
alio? |
when answering the telephone |
MacedonianMacedonian is the official language of Republic of Macedonia and is a part of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages. Macedonian is closely related to and shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with the Bulgarian language and to a certain extent with Serbian and Croatian...
|
ало (alo) |
when answering the telephone |
MarathiMarathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are 90 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi is the 4th most spoken language in India and the 15th most spoken language in the world...
|
hello |
when answering the telephone |
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
|
hallo! |
General greeting |
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
|
alô? |
when answering the telephone |
RomanianRomanian or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia...
|
alo |
when answering the telephone |
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
|
алло (allo), алё |
when answering the telephone |
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
|
¡hola! |
friendly (informal) greeting |
| ¿aló? |
(Latin America) when answering the telephone |
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
|
hallå! |
|
TagalogTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...
|
helo! |
|
| Turkish Turkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
|
alo! |
when answering the telephone |
"Hello, World" computer program
Students learning a new computer programming language will often begin by writing a
"Hello, world!" programA "Hello World" program is a computer program which prints out "Hello, world!" on a display device. It is used in many introductory tutorials for teaching a programming language. Such a program is typically one of the simplest programs possible in a computer language...
, which outputs that greeting to a display screen or printer. The widespread use of this tradition arose from an introductory chapter of the book
The C Programming LanguageThe C Programming Language is a well-known programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language The C Programming Language (sometimes referred to as K&R, or the white bible, or K&R2 for the second edition) is a...
by Kernighan & Ritchie, which reused the following example taken from earlier memos by Brian Kernighan at Bell Labs:
Controversy
In 1997, Leonso Canales Jr. from
Kingsville, TexasKingsville is a city in and the county seat of Kleberg County, Texas, United States. The population was 25,575 at the 2000 census. It is the principal city of the Kingsville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the larger Corpus Christi-Kingsville Combined Statistical Area.Kingsville was...
convinced
Kleberg CountyKleberg County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000, its population was 31,549. The county seat is Kingsville and it is part of the Kingsville Micropolitan Statistical Area. The county is named for Robert J. Kleberg, an early settler...
commissioners to designate "heaven-o" as the county's official greeting, on the grounds that the greeting "hello" contains the word "
hellIn many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless...
", and that the proposed alternative sounds more "positive". "Hello", however, is not etymologically related to "hell".
Perception of “Hello” in other nations
In some other nations, especially the ones that had little contact with foreigners at the time, Westerners were often viewed as people who constantly said “hello” and little else.
Jung ChangJung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in mainland China....
describes this view as follows:
Of course, in many other nations “hello” is no longer considered foreign, as evidenced by the number of people that have adopted it into their own language (as in French
allô).
See also
Greetings in other languages
- As-Salamu Alaykum
As-Salāmu `Alaykum is an Arabic spoken greeting used by Muslims and to a lesser extent by Arab Christians and Jews. The term salam in Arabic means "peace". The greeting may also be transliterated as Asalaam 'Alaykum which means "peace be upon you". The traditional response is Wa `Alaykum...
- Namaste
Namaste, Namaskara or Namaskaram is a common spoken greeting or salutation in South Asia...
- Ni hao
Ni hao is the Mandarin Chinese word for 'hello'. It literally translates to 'you good' but is not a question unless the 'question word' 'ma ' is added to the end to form Ni hao ma? . It is unclear when in Chinese history this became the most popular Chinese greeting...
- Shalom
Shalom Ashkenazi Hebrew/Yiddish is a Hebrew word meaning peace, completeness, and welfare and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye...
External links