Before I tell you how to say ‘Hello’ in 30 languages, let me tell you that ‘Alexander Graham Bell‘, the inventor of Telephone initially used ‘Ahoy‘ which later became ‘Hullo‘ and then ‘Hello‘. An interesting myth states that Mr. Bell had a girl friend named ‘Margaret Hello‘ after whom the word ‘Hello‘ came up. Interesting to read though, it still remains a myth.
So, here it is in the world’s 30 most common languages (except English of course):
1. Spanish (Espanol): Hola
2. Dutch (Nederlands): Hallo
3. French (Francaise): Bonjour, Salut (Pronounced as ‘Saleoo’), Allo
4. German (Deutsche): Guten Tag, Hallo
5. Hungarian (Magyar): Hello, Szia, Hallo, Szervusz
6. Icelandic: Hello
7. Indonesian (Indonesia): Halo, Salam
8. Irish (Gaeilge): Dia duit
9. Italian (Italiano): Ciao, salve, pronto, piacere
10. Latin (Latina): Salve, ave, avete
11. Latvian (Latvijas): Sveiki, hallo, sveicinati
12. Lithuanian (Lietuvos): Sveiki, sveikas, alio
13. Norwegian (Norsk): Hallo
14. Polish (Polski): Halo, czesc
15. Portugese (Portugues): Ola, oi, alo
16. Romanian (Roman): Alo, Buna ziua, hei
17. Slovak (Slovencina): Ahoj (pronounced as ‘ahoy’), Halo
18. Slovenian (Slovenski jezik): Pozdravlijeni
19. Swahili (Kiswahili): Wapendwa
20. Swedish (Svenska): Halla (pronounced a ‘alloa’), hej, hejsan
21. Turkish (Turk): Merhaba, Selam, Alo
22. Vietnamese (Viet): Chao, cau chao, tieng chao
23. Welsh (Cymraeg): Helo
24. Albanian (Shqiptar): Pershendetje
25. Hindi (हिंदी): नमस्ते (Pronounced as ‘Namaste’)
26. Chinese (Simplified): 你好 (Pronouned as ‘Ni Hao’)
27. Estonian (Eesti): Tere, Halloo
28. Danish (Dansk): Hej
29. Japanese:もしもし(Pronounced as ‘Moshi Moshi’)
30. Thai: สวัสดี (Pronounced as ‘Sawadee’)
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Gaurav Bhatnagar
Travel Writer, Photographer, Public Speaker, Entrepreneur @ www.thefolktales.com
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