Hello!

When did people first start saying, “Hello,” to one another?
 
When the word hello first appeared in the early 19th century, it was a way of getting someone’s attention (“Hello! Get away from there!”) or a way to express surprise (“Hello! What have we here?”). However, by 1848, hello was also becoming a popular greeting between persons meeting one another, especially in the frontier country of the American West.
 
What did people say before that when they met each other?
 
The origins of the word hello are uncertain. Hello is a variation on holla or hollo (a shout to attract attention) from, perhaps, the late 14th century. Or perhaps hello comes from Middle English halouen (a shout during a chase while hunting). Or from Old High German hala, hola (to fetch; particularly when hailing a ferryman). Or Anglo-Saxon hal (hale; as in ‘hale and hearty’). Or from Old Norse heill (health, prosperity, good luck) or Old English waes haeil (“Be healthy”); i.e., wassail, “Here we come a-wassailing”, as in the Christmas carol.
 
Perhaps hello comes from 12th century heilen (hail; to call from a distance), the source of ‘to hail’ (to greet or to address; e.g., “Hail Mary” or “Hail to the Chief”; and, to drink toasts; e.g., “Let’s hail the New Year!”). “Hail fellow well met” is a greeting from the 1580s.
 
There are numerous ancient variations of the word hello—halloo, hallo, halloa, halloo, hillo, hilloa, holla, holler, hollo, holloa, hollow, hullo, and others.
 
The invention of the telephone in the 1870s raised a puzzling question: When answering the phone, what do you say? Some early responses might have included: “Yes?” or “Welcome” or “Jane here” or “Good morning” or “What?” or “Are you there?” or “Who is this?” Hmmm…
 
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, advocated for the answer, “Ahoy” (from Dutch hoi = hello). However, Thomas Edison favored the use of “Hello”, the word being used more and more at that time in American English as a greeting and so used his influence to ensure that ‘hello’ is what got stuck into the language.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
Crystal, D. (2011).  The story of English in 100 words. New York: Picador, 163.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/02/17/133785829/a-shockingly-short-history-of-hello
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