World Hello Day, observed annually on November 21st, is a global celebration of human connection and understanding. This simple yet profound initiative encourages people worldwide to greet at least ten individuals throughout the day, fostering a sense of community and promoting peace through communication.
A lovely friendship or relationship can begin with a simple "hello." A simple hello can occasionally prevent a great deal of violence and promote peace. Saying hello is the first step in simple, informal communication that can have a big impact. In the world and in all types of relationships, communication is essential. We can prevent a great deal of confusion and violence by simply saying hello to others and striking up a conversation. The story of how World Hello Day got its start is fascinating because it explains the value of communication and its role in promoting world peace.
The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of 'hello' goes back only to 1827. And it wasn't mainly a greeting back then. Ammon(Author ofThe First Telephone Book: Hello is a new word ) says people in the 1830's said hello to attract attention ('Hello, what do you think you're doing?'), or to express surprise ('Hello, what have we here?'). Hello didn't become 'hi' until the telephone arrived.
The dictionary says it was Thomas Edison who put hello into common usage. He urged the people who used his phone to say 'hello' when answering. His rival, Alexander Graham Bell, thought the better word was 'ahoy'.
HISTORY:
World Hello Day began in 1973 as a simple response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel. The conflict was called the Yom Kippur War. Two brothers, Brian McCormack and Michael McCormack, founded World Hello Day. They mailed 1360 letters in 7 languages to encourage world leaders to participate. Today it is a global expression of peace in 180 countries.
31winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have stated that World Hello Day carries substantial value as an instrument for preserving peace, and as an occasion that makes it possible for anyone in the world, individual, organization or government, to contribute to the process of creating peace.
Great 'Hello' Mystery Is Solved:
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. But Thomas Alva Edison coined the greeting. The word "hello," it appears, came straight from the fertile brain of the wizard of Menlo Park, N.J., who concocted the sonorous syllables to resolve one of the first crises of techno-etiquette: What do you say to start a telephone conversation? Two contemporaries of Edison credited him with the word, but too vaguely for Allen Koenigsberg, a classics professor at Brooklyn College who has a passion for early phonographs and their history. Resolved to sort out the "hello" mystery, Mr. Koenigsberg embarked on a tortuous search five years ago that led him, finally and triumphantly, to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company Archives in lower Manhattan, where he found an unpublished letter by Edison.
Do you have any ways to say 'Hello' in a different language?
- Spanish - Hola
- Afrikaans (Southern Africa) - Goeie dag
- Amungme (Indonesia) - Amole Kitaitirivi
- Arabic - Marhaba, Ahlan
- India - Namaste
- Ugandan - Yoga
- Bole (Nigerian) - Use
- French - Bonjour
- German - Guten Tag
- Japanese – Konnichiwa
