I was just thinking earlier on today where the word "hello" comes from. Has anyone got any ideas?
According to wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hello:
"The word itself is rather a unique invention, derviving as a varient spelling of Hullo, enlisted to be a word which one would use on the telephone. Apparently this was invented by 'Thomas Eddison', although I can't find a source for this. - Neo 13:58, May 23, 2005 (UTC)"
Re: Hello - I have heard of a native English origin for it: "Whole be thou" with "Hello" being a contraction. I respect Dictionary.com very much but I question their Latin / French etymology for the word.
<<I question their Latin / French etymology for the word.>>
Why? It's used in Spanish and Portuguese.
All sites that I read on a yahoo search (about 15 of them) say it is either the definition that I provided from Wikipedia or what mjd provided.
From etymonline.com:
"hello - 1883, alt. of hallo (1840), itself an alt. of holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, first recorded 1588. Perhaps from holla! "stop, cease." Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators were known as hello-girls (1889)."
(This source doesn't even mention where hello, hallo, holla, and hollo originated.)
Re: An etymology for "hello"
Please see the web site below:
Biill Bryson "The Mother Tongue"
from notes on "The Mother Tongue" p.88
Bill Bryson is not the only lexicographer who mentions this possible etymology for "hello" I have seen a couple of others before.
One must also take into consideration the fact that just because French has a similar word is not positive proof that it is the donor language in this case. French has borrowed from English too. For example, their word for 'boat' "bateau" is an Anglo-Saxon loan word (A.S. bat) as are their words for the four directions "Nord (North) Sud (South) Est (East) and Ouest (West). Le leader "The leader" and Le ren "The reindeer" are definitely loans from English ditto Spanish El Líder and El reno.
More correctly Le renne "The reindeer."
Brennus,
I don't think the origin of Fr <bateau> = En <boat> is necessarily Anglo-Saxon. OF <batel> and Normand <bat> seem to be linked together and look like Old Dutch <bæt>.
*<Le ren> doesn't mean anything in French. However Fr <renne> = En <reindeer> is derived from a Norwegian or Swedish equivalent, not an English one. The now extinct (except in heraldry) etymon OF <rengier> / <rangier> was borrowed from Danish <rendyr> and has nothing to do with English.
I agree with Germanic cardinal points : they derive from Anglo-Saxon and the borrowing was first recorded in writing in "L'histoire des Anglais" (or "L'estoire des Angleis" in OF) by Geoffroi Gaimar. These Germanic etymons were competing with Latin ones : Fr <septentrion>, Fr <méridion>, Fr <occident> and Fr <orient>.
Fr <allo> derives from En <hello>. According to French sources, En <hello> is akin to En <hallow> (cynegetic term used to shout to incite hounds). The latter is iitself derived from OF <halloer> = En <chase while shouting>.
Joan Corominas says in his Diccionario Crítico Etimológico: common to several european languages: french holà, XV century, eng. hallo - hello, german hallo or holla, etc. In Spanish could come from hala.
He thinks probably it's a kind of expresive creation of parallel formation without direct relationship. See Corominas, art: hala and hola
While I am certain the origin of hello has been stated, the first common usage of hello in English started with the use of the telephone. As mentioned previously, Bell wanted people to say "ahoy ahoy" but hello won out. It was originally considered rude to say hello because one noted operator would say "hello, sucker". If you have ever watch The Simpsons, Mr Burns will answer the phone with "ahoy ahoy" thus showing how out of touch with things past the 1930s he is.
Ahoy is much harder to say than hello, that might be one reason why hello won out.
I know that "hallo" (not "hello") is used not just in English English, but also in Dutch and German, so that unless it's a loanword into them from English, I'd assume that it'd be of common West Germanic origin then. I'd also assume that "hello" is just a variant upon "hallo" that just happened to displace it within North American English.
