What will you hear instead of the Russian “Hello!” In other countries?

If, while in Tokyo and dialing a local number, you hear a strange phrase for the Russian ear, the phrase “mosi mosi”, do not be surprised – this is the Japanese equivalent of our “Hello!” …

What will you hear instead of the Russian “Hello!” In other countries?

Russian, by the way, and the French telephone greeting “Hello!” (Sometimes pronounced as “Ale” in Russia) – derived from the English Hello – “hello.” There were other options for starting a telephone conversation in Russian. In the pre-war Soviet films, you can hear “At the Apparatus”, “At the Phone”, followed by the last name or title of the position.

The word Hello, for the first time at the end of the 19th century, began to be used as a telephone greeting by the famous American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, which was the first word recorded in the phonograph and mechanically reproduced in world history. Interestingly, the inventor of the phone, Alexander Bell, offered another option – Hi, something like “Hey, you are there!”, But the word did not stick.

And then different people each went their own way. The Germans used the American word in an almost “original” form and call “Hullo”, but only if a conversation is supposed between relatives or friends. For serious negotiations, there is another form: the speaker says “Ja” (yes), and then gives his last name, title or name of the institution in which he works.

The French also borrowed Hello, but the peculiarities of language phonetics (the absence of the sound “x” in French) turned it into “Hello”. There is a version that the Russian “Hello!” And “Ale!” Are pronounced this way because they came to us through the French language in due time.

In the countries of Central Asia – Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran it is customary to answer by phone “Labby”. This short word has an expanded meaning and means roughly “are you being listened to, what do you want?”. As well as the Turkish telephone address “Efendi” (lord), which is pronounced necessarily with interrogative intonation and means “What does the master please?”

The Serbian-Croatian word “Pray” does not have a religious tone and means only “I ask”, as the residents of the former Yugoslavia – Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and other Balkan countries usually begin a telephone conversation. Their neighbors, the Greeks, use the same word, but in Greek “I ask” sounds a little frightening – “Parakalo”.

Mexicans and people from other Latin American countries greet each other by phone with the life-affirming word “Bueno!”, Which literally translates as “good.” And the touching Japanese “Mosi Mosi,” mentioned at the beginning of the article, means only a double “speak”.