Why do people say "yo"?

Answer 1

because people thought it was cool in the 80's and 90's. i think that rap really is what got the "word" going. it was a good filler in a song, and it sounded tough. it is a sort of street slang... kind of like saying "hey, you" but with less words.

Answer 2

Actually "yo" goes back to ancient Rome. "yo" was an interjection that showed excitement. It was also used as a greeting. Because the ancient Roman alphabet didn't yet have the "y", yo was spelled "io", but it was pronounced "yo". Because parchment and paper were rare and expensive back in the ancient world, scribes tried to save space. Instead of writing the i next to the o, they would write the i over the o. Over the centuries this evolved into our modern exclamation point. ! Next time you hear some hommies saying "yo yo yo!" just think that you might have heard the same thing two thousands years ago with Marcus Antonius shouting to Cesaer across the forum, "Yo! Julius!"

Answer 3

it's just like the term "oi" for brits.
"oi" is a replacement for "hey!"
and "yo" is an american replacement for "you!" or "hey you"

the movie rocky with the boxer guy is how it got really popular because he says "yo" every 5 seconds.

also In the 1930's a large proportion of the residents of South Philadelphia were Italian immigrants, mostly from the Campania region of southern Italy, the principal city of which is Naples.

In the Neapolitan dialect "guaglione" (pronounced guahl-YO-nay) signified a young man. The chiefly unlettered immigrants shortened that to guahl-YO, which they pronounced whal-YO. That was inevitably further shortened to yo. The common greeting among young Italian-American males was "Hey, whal-YO!", and then simply, "Yo!" And so it remains today

Answer 4

If it is other countries, then the reason could be easy to pronounce and extend the sound long and loud to reach distance...
If it is South of India, the word Ayya (meaning Sir,) got deformed as a dialect and got shortened into yya, yo.... and the Britishers called locals "you", not knowing the name (also difficult to pronounce,), and so the 'you' and 'yo' seemed to match and merge !

Answer 5

Two possible reasons, both could be true: 1) 'yo' is a shortening for the word 'you' ('you'-'u'='yo') 2) 'yo' is the first person singular in Latin for "I".

Slang is not false, it is a continuation of language evolution, e.g. Latin to French, Latin and French to English, Gaul and old English to newer English etc..

Answer 6

I was reading a question earlier, and it something like thi(z)

Wen I get mah dogz spayed.... r u spozedta

I almost pooped my pants because in some crazy way I understood it. The only word they got right was "I Get" well I guess that was a series of words but I think you may get the point. But the point in which I'm trying to get to you is that people are lazy SOB's who have no better time on their hands than to sit and think of ways to spell words out how they speak. How hard is it to put an S where the Z is? Its the same amount of letters. Come on.
Ok I'm done but I know how you feel. Thank you for allowing me to vent on your question.

Answer 7

The word "yo" is used to call to someone and get your attention. You have to remember, slang is only false vocabulary usually used used to replace other words. But remember, it's not a bad thing to use slang, only to use it at the wrong times.

Answer 8

People are just like sheeps. They all flock together following eachother. Remember when the in thing use to be "Wazzup". Well Yo is just like that. Everyone says it because everyone else is saying it. Also they say it alot in rap and people like rap.

Answer 9

For the same reason people say "Hello" or "Hi" or "Nice to meet you" or "I am glad to make your acquaintance". It is simply a greeting an acknowledgment of a person you are about to talk to.

Answer 10

Just a slang for Hey, every generations think of slang names .