Hullo!

I took a short communication skill lesson before and I was taught how to say hello on a proper way. my trainer says it's not 'hal-low' or 'hu-low', the proper way to pronounce it is 'hell-low'.. which is nice to hear in fact. I guess different tone of saying hello just matters on people's slang or language. and i completely do not have the idea who said it first. hehehe..

The word comes from the Old French 'ho lá', meaning something like 'Listen there!' It was, for a long time, a shout rather than a greeting. In hunting (on horseback) it is often shown as 'Haloo!', with a lengthening of the 'o' sound to make it carry a longer distance. It is supposed to be the first thing that Alexander Bell said (in 1853) over his new invention, the telephone, and it is said that that is where its use as a greeting comes from. Personally, I find that hard to believe. I think that it may have been used as a close-up greeting (rather than one at a distance) before then. It is written variously as 'Hallo' or 'Hullo' in 19th Century literature. In English, the sounds 'a', 'u' and 'e' can sound very similar in an unstressed syllable, so probably all are correct, though it is more often written 'Hello' today. Another origin may be from the old English word 'hallow' meaning (as a verb) to bless or to sanctify. It's quite possible that it originally was used as the French call and then, by association with 'hallow', used as a greeting meaning 'bless you'.