What is the origin of hello?

Answer 1

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).

"Hello, formerly an Americanism, is now nearly as common as hullo in Britain (Say who you are; do not just say 'hello' is the warning given in our telephone directories) and the Englishman cannot be expected to give up the right to say hello if he likes it better than his native hullo. [H.W. Fowler, "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage," 1926]

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hello

It is true that Bell advocated the use of "ahoy" as a telephonic greeting (an idea which has considerable charm), but Edison didn't invent "hello" by a long shot. As a matter of fact, "hello" antedates the telephone by several centuries. Folks in Chaucer's time greeted each other with "hallow," which may have come from the Old French "hola," meaning essentially "stop!" or "whoa!" By the time the telephone came along, Americans were saying "hullo" to each other every day, so it was a short jump to "hello."

I had a friend years ago who persisted in answering his telephone by saying "telephone," a daring innovation which made perfect sense to me but which I, sadly, lacked the courage to help popularize. In any case, "hello" as a telephone greeting now seems to be nearly worldwide. A few years ago I dialed a long-distance call to what I thought was Connecticut, but the man who answered the phone spoke no English beyond "hello." This is not terribly unusual these days, but when I received my phone bill, I found that I had inadvertently discovered yet another place where they answer the telephone with "hello" -- Cairo, Egypt.

http://www.word-detective.com/back-l2.html#hello

Alexander Graham Bell encouraged the use of 'ahoy, ahoy' when answering his "electrical speech machine." Although Bell was not a sailor, 'ahoy' is thought to have nautical roots, perhaps giving us the popular 'hi."

Ahoy, ahoy' was used by operators at the world's first telephone exchange set up in Connecticut in 1878. By 1889 however, telephone operators had become known as 'hello-girls.

'Hello or hullo is commonly used today. Legend suggests that Thomas Edison first used 'hello' on the telephone but hello's etymology predates the telephone. There are innumerable theories about where the word 'hello' comes from. One suggestion is that it is an adaptation of the old French, 'hola', meaning stop or cease. Another is that its origin is 'halloo', a once common call to a passing ferry boat operator. It may even have a biblical source, as a contraction of 'whole be thou' or 'Hail! Thou." By the 1880's hello was ubiquitous in everyday speech.

http://earliestlark.com/2007/09/06/ahoy-ahoy/