Comment by spyrja

To be fair, the origins of "hello" go back much further than 600 years. Variations of it appear in Old Icelandic from almost 1000 years ago, and if you look at Old English texts from hundreds of years before that you will find greetings such as "Wes þū hāl!" (or roughly, "May you be well!"). In other words, all are based on salutations which have most likely been in use in one form or another for at least two millenia (if not longer).