Where did the word hello come from?

Question

I just wann'a know

Answer 1

Variant of hallo. This variant of hallo is sometimes falsely credited to Thomas Edison, or to one of his employees, as a coinage (or as a variant of Hungarian hallom) for telephone use. However, Edison in fact favoured "ahoy!" and hello pre-dates the invention of the telephone by over 300 years. [Wiktionary]
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). [Online Etymology Dictionary]
"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]

Answer 2

There are many different theories to the origins of the word. It may be a contraction of archaic English "whole be thou". Another source may be the phrase "Hail, Thou", as in the Bible; Luke 1:28 and Matthew 27:14.The Germanic languages share an ancient phoneme that may be the origin of hello: English, hail; German, heil; Scandinavian, hei; old Norse, heill. The core meaning may be something like "safe, healthy" and related to the English word "whole", i.e. physically sound. (cf. "hale and hearty").