Haynes.tv

Who invented the word “yo”? Who knows? Who cares? I do. Yo is one of the most versatile words in our modern English language. It can be used as a friendly greeting, “Yo, whats up my . . . “, to answer a question in a positive way, “yo, for real,” and in a negative way, “yo, what you talking ’bout,” and with the exception of baby, it is the most common word in contemporary music. All these facts make this word very appealing to a bored, middle class white guy. So I decided to to some research.

The 2006 Merriam-Webster dictionary defined yo as an interjection used especially to draw attention or express affirmation. While this may be what some old professor may interpret the meaning of the word to be, it is not a proper definition of what a yo response may indicate. This definition equates yo to words such as “hey”, and “yes”, but it obviously has a more important meaning to the world. MTV did not reach out to a generation and an era by saying “Hey we rap”, they simply said “Yo MTV Raps”, and by doing so they reached millions of Americans.

An online etymology(the study of the origins of linguistic styles) dictionary gave this response,
“as a greeting, 1859, but the word is attested as a sailor’s or huntsman’s utterance since c.1420. Modern popularity dates from World War II (when, it is said, it was a common response at roll calls) and seems to have been most intense in Philadelphia. ” So I decided to do some research. Why did philadelphians say yo so frequently, and why were sailors and “huntsmen” uttering the word in the 15th century.

The answer to the second question exists in the Greek language. Apparently the Greek word “loa” was used in the same context as our beloved yo. And apparently when English folk heard the word they anglicanized it by changing the “L” sound to a similar “Y” and came up with yo. And as mentioned, this translation is credited with occurring in the 15th century. I still don’t know why the definition credits sailors and huntsman, perhaps sailor commonly sailed to Greece, and picked up the word in that manner. And maybe huntsman just wanted to sound cool.

In the Military sense the word comes from the danish word for yes “yo” which rapidly became slang for here during role call. Its likely the word was picked up by the British who came to the aid of Denmark and Norway when the Nazis invaded in 1940.

However the American word yo is documented as originating in Philadelphia due to a large Italian and African American population that contracted the words you and your to simply yo. Its first documented use was, as mentioned, during role calls in the military. However it did not rise in popularity until the 1970s when Rocky Balboa famously declared, “Yo! Adrian.” Since then the word received common use, and with the popularity of hip hop it has become one of the most recognizable words on earth.