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I heard native speakers saying "Helau" as a greeting, What's the etymology of the word?

3 Answers 3

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There is another quite interesting explanation given on Karneval.org:

Die Ursprünge des Düsseldorfer Karnevals gehen – wie auch der Fasching in Köln oder Mainz – vermutlich bis zu den Römern zurück. Offiziell nachweisen lässt sich der Fasching in Düsseldorf allerdings erst ab 1833. Hier fand erstmals ein Maskenspiel auf dem Burgplatz statt, das den Titel „Verlobung des Hanswursten unter Helau und Habuh mit Anna Dorothea Petronella Weichbusen“ trug.

By this the carnival greeting "Helau" originated from a burlesque ("Fastnachtsspiel") played in Düsseldorf in 1833, the date when carnival beacame officially mentioned there.

Digging the etymology further down to the question why they used "Helau" in the burlesque may come to the point that it simply was a salutation. We have a nice Wikipedia summary on the origin of the English "Hello" (pronounced very similarly):

Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833.
[...]
hello is an alteration of hallo, hollo, which came from Old High German "halâ, holâ, emphatic imperative of halôn, holôn to fetch, used especially in hailing a ferryman." It also connects the development of hello to the influence of an earlier form, holla, whose origin is in the French holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French là 'there'). As in addition to hello, hallo and hollo, hullo and (rarely) hillo also exist as variants or related words, the word can be spelt using any of all five vowels.

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Der Ruf „Helau“ ist in vielen Karnevalshochburgen verbreitet und somit der bekannteste unter den Narrenrufen. Oft wird er auch mit „ll“ geschrieben. Über seine Entstehung gibt es zahlreiche Erklärungsversuche: Am Niederrhein soll das „Helau“ einmal ein Hirtenruf gewesen sein. Eine weitere Erklärung leitet „Helau“ von Halleluja ab. Manche behaupten auch, dass „Helau“ auch „Hölle auf“ oder „hel auf“ (hel = germanische Göttin der Unterwelt, hieraus hat sich Hölle entwickelt) bedeuten kann; denn Karneval wird ja schon seit sehr langer Zeit gefeiert, um den Winter und die bösen Geister, die bei der Öffnung der Hölle auf die Erde kamen, zu vertreiben. Man machte sich mit Kostümen über sie lustig (siehe alemannische Fastnacht). (WIKIPEDIA)

But here a -imho- better explanation:

Helau stems from Hellauf which means hell auflachen. The f is elided.(WISSEN)
This leads also to hellauf begeistert sein.

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  • In comparison with Kölle Alaaf I think it's likely that f is from w and that w vocalized to u, which may anyway be rendered with u/v in medieval orthographies, which indicates just how old it is and, not in favor of this answer, possibly older than hellauf (as late as 18th century, per DWDS.de)
    – vectory
    Jun 24, 2023 at 14:30
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For German "Helau" sounds like "Hello", so they use it instead of "Hello" as a joke. But the origin of "Helau" is Fasching/Fastnacht, where you shout this on Fasching parades or -parties.

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  • That is errosion. It may be nothing new, but there is no indication that this is the etymology. In particular, hallo is considered to be a fairly recent loan proposed for telefon networking, possibly younger than the word in question.
    – vectory
    Jun 23, 2023 at 18:49

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