# origin of ahoy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [October 10, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315 "2009-10-10T16:00:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kristinjoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@kristinjoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kristinjoy)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/1 "2009-10-10T16:00:21Z")
can’t it be that it’s from the czech language, because ahoi means hello in the czech republic. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/2 "2009-10-10T16:11:14Z")
[link](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2027/whats-the-origin-of-ahoy) I’d also think that it would be odd for a nautical term to have originated in a landlocked country, but stranger things have happened. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/3 "2009-10-10T16:33:29Z")
It’s customary to give a link to the column on which you’re commenting. Here ya go. [What’s the origin of “ahoy”?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2027/whats-the-origin-of-ahoy) BTW I’m delghted to see that Cecil is a lover of _Peregrine Pickle_. It’s one of my favourite books too. Sorry, **Švejk** , didn’t notice you’d already linked. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/4 "2009-10-10T17:51:01Z")
As often comes up in Shakespeare circles, Bohemia (or at least the territory ruled by the King of Bohemia) did, briefly, have a coastline. As to _Peregrine Pickle_, it’s mostly cool, but that embedded “true confessions” of an upper-class slut that he embedded is mighty difficult to slog through. All those pages and pages and pages of “It wasn’t my fault”, “I lost my true love”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “My husband was a perfect beast”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “Love made me do it”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “I could have behaved much worse, but I didn’t”, “It wasn’t my fault” may have been fascinating to the salaciously minded of the age, but it’s just bloody boring now. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/5 "2009-10-10T18:52:57Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > As often comes up in Shakespeare circles, Bohemia (or at least the territory ruled by the King of Bohemia) did, briefly, have a coastline. > > As to _Peregrine Pickle_, it’s mostly cool, but that embedded “true confessions” of an upper-class slut that he embedded is mighty difficult to slog through. All those pages and pages and pages of “It wasn’t my fault”, “I lost my true love”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “My husband was a perfect beast”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “Love made me do it”, “It wasn’t my fault”, “I could have behaved much worse, but I didn’t”, “It wasn’t my fault” may have been fascinating to the salaciously minded of the age, but it’s just bloody boring now. Ha, I remember that chunk. Memoirs of a Lady of Quality or some such thing. I completely skipped it, it has no connection with the rest of the novel, Smollett inserted it just to boost sales, I think, shrewd Scot that he was. Coincidentally I just finished Travels Through France and Italy a few months ago and enjoyed it as much as his novels. (In fact the testy Smollett, constantly inveighing against cheating landlords and knavish ostlers, could be a character straight out of one of his novels!) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/6 "2009-10-10T23:04:32Z")
> [@kristinjoy](#): > > can’t it be that it’s from the Czech language, because ahoi means hello in the Czech republic. How do the Czechs pronounce _ahoi_? ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/7 "2009-10-10T23:27:25Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > As often comes up in Shakespeare circles, Bohemia (or at least the territory ruled by the King of Bohemia) did, briefly, have a coastline. Bohemia never had a coast line, its borders have been pretty much set since the days of the Holy Roman Empire; maybe the King of Bohemia ruled some territory that did have a coastline but not in the capacity of being the king of Bohemia. Just because the guy running Bohemia was also running some other place does not change where Bohemia _is_, which is hundreds of kilometers away from the closest sea. [QUOTE=samclem] How do the Czechs pronounce ahoi? [/QUOTE] The stress is on the first syllable (as is always the case in Czech). I don’t know how to describe the a-sound to an Anglophone audience, but its like /a/ in German or French. -hoj (it’s spelled with a j) is pronounced /hoi/. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/8 "2009-10-11T00:24:20Z")
It 'twasn’t Cecil as wrote that, it was I. Or, in other terms, it was me. Thus, I’m moving this thread from CoCC to CoSR. I dunno if Cecil has read_Peregrine Pickle_, but 'twas I wot quoted it. I have no clue about Czech influence, but Ave! is Latin so it’s not surprising that there are lots of related words meaning “hello there” in various European languages. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/9 "2009-10-11T01:51:36Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Bohemia never had a coast line, its borders have been pretty much set since the days of the Holy Roman Empire; maybe the King of Bohemia ruled some territory that did have a coastline but not in the capacity of being the king of Bohemia. Just because the guy running Bohemia was also running some other place does not change where Bohemia _is_, which is hundreds of kilometers away from the closest sea. To be specific, Ottakar II ruled over Styria, which reaches to the Adriatic. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/10 "2009-10-12T15:57:06Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > To be specific, Ottakar II ruled over Styria, which reaches to the Adriatic. Still, to say that Bohemia had a coastline because Otakar II ruled over Styria is to say that England is in the Pacific because it ruled over Australia. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/11 "2009-10-12T18:10:00Z")
FWIW > [@](#): > > [I have heard that ahoy derives from a Czech greeting…](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-aho1.htm) — from the Czech ahoj, meaning ‘hello’. > > [A] You’ve brightened my day by supplying yet another folk etymology to add to my growing collection. Ahoj, said the same way as ahoy, is indeed used informally in Czech, and more widely still, I’m told, in Slovak. > … > In fact, your informant has it exactly backwards. Jan Čulík, Senior Lecturer in Czech Studies at the University of Glasgow, tells me that Czech ahoj is a modern introduction from English, borrowed from the sailor’s hail. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/12 "2009-10-12T22:17:20Z")
It only occurs to me now to ask whether “ahoj” does, in fact, mean “hello”. Present-day English is the only natural language I know of that actually has such a word. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/13 "2009-10-13T06:32:43Z")
> [@kristinjoy](#): > > can’t it be that it’s from the czech language, because ahoi means hello in the czech republic. Why would the Czech word in a country with no maritime history become a sea greeting for English speakers? Even the Austrian Empire (which Bohemia was part of) didn’t have much of a navy. It’s more likely the other way: An English sea greeting infecting the Czech vocabulary rather than the Czech word for “Hello” becoming the standard sea greeting in English. England did have a large navy, heavily patrolled the Mediterranean, and it is very possible that someone from Bohemia picked up the word from a trip aboard an English vessel. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/14 "2009-10-13T11:51:44Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > It only occurs to me now to ask whether “ahoj” does, in fact, mean “hello”. Present-day English is the only natural language I know of that actually has such a word. You can find it in Swedish as well as a loan from English, although a bit archaic nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/15 "2009-10-13T19:02:35Z")
I’d read awhile back that Alexander Graham Bell had actually suggested “ahoy-hoy” (not “ahoy”) as the standard phone greeting, which is why Mr. Burns uses it on _The Simpsons_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/16 "2009-10-13T20:58:03Z")
Yes. There were existing English words “Hallo”, “Hillo”, “Hollo”, and “Hullo”, with a range of meanings from “Hey!” to “Over (t)here!”, “Wow!”, or “What the \_\_\_?”, but “Hello” was invented by Thomas Edison (!) specifically to answer the telephone with instead of “Ahoy!”. (“Hello girls” was once slang for “telephone operators”.) It then spread into daily non-telephone use. “Hello” is also exceptional in that many languages use a different word just for the telephone. Italian, for example, uses “Pronto!” (“Ready!”), which, when used as a greeting on the street instead of on the telephone, means something like “Hello, sailor!”, which I suppose brings us back around to “Ahoy!” Present-day English speakers think of “Hello” as a perfectly ordinary word, but, in fact, it is very rare to have a word that serves as a neutral greeting or salutation without actually meaning something. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/17 "2009-10-13T22:09:24Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > “Hello” was invented by Thomas Edison (!) specifically to answer the telephone with instead of “Ahoy!”. Wikipedia says there were publications with “hello” as early as 1833, well before Edison was born. It does give Edison credit for suggesting “hello” as the standard telephone greeting. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/18 "2009-10-13T23:00:31Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’d read awhile back that Alexander Graham Bell had actually suggested “ahoy-hoy” (not “ahoy”) as the standard phone greeting, which is why Mr. Burns uses it on _The Simpsons_. Wasn’t that inspired by the poor and weak sound of early systems (well, specifically of the earpieces)? Don’t imagine a slender Victorian lady picking up the phone and warbling “Ahoy-hoy” in a gentle voice. You had to yell into early phones, more like “Ahoy!! Hoy!!”. You see this behavior sometimes in P.G. Wodehouse stories of the 1930s, mostly by older, obnoxious characters who clearly haven’t updated their telephone technique. The Duke of Dunstable was always prone to shout “Hoy!!” into telephones, usually after the other person had hung up. Edison might have suggested changing over to “hello”, but it doesn’t seem to me one of his better accomplishments. Certainly it’s not one of his ninety-nine percent perspiration efforts. Variants of “hello” had long been used usually in the context of communication under difficult circumstances. If you wanted to check if somebody was stuck at the bottom of a well, you might say _Hello down there!_. Or _Hello up there_, or _Hello, over there_ if the other person was above you, or across a river from you, and so on. I’m not convinced that the differences among “hello”, “hallo”, or “hillo” are significant in any case. The accent in all those calling-over-distances situations is on the second syllable. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/19 "2009-10-14T03:06:22Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Wikipedia says there were publications with “hello” as early as 1833, well before Edison was born. Since they do not indicate how it is used, it could as easily be only a variant spelling of “H[aiou]llo” as anything else.. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315/20 "2009-10-14T03:07:29Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’m not convinced that the differences among “hello”, “hallo”, or “hillo” are significant in any case. The accent in all those calling-over-distances situations is on the second syllable. The OED gives each of “Hallo”, “Hillo”, “Hollo”, and “Hullo” a separate entry. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-ahoy/513315.md?page=2)