Etymology of Yo

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hi guys, this is Steve from Dallas.

Hi Steve, what’s up?

A friend of mine and I were talking about the word yo, and it came up recently, well recently, like in the last 10 years or so in pop culture, hey yo, as a, I guess a slang expression.

And I am from the New York area, of a Jewish background, and he is actually black from Canada. So I was really kind of, you know, I put off when he said, hey, the origin of yo is actually from the Lower East Side in the New York area about the turn of the century, and figured that you guys may have some insight on that.

So your friend said this.

My friend said this, yes.

And you’re about how old?

I’m about 38.

Okay.

My dad, who was a bit older for a dad, for someone who was 38, was actually born in 1926. After we had this conversation, I remember hearing my dad say yo a lot, and then thought, well, you know what, maybe there is some truth that it played into the Jewish culture at the turn of the century.

And your friend, he was from Canada, a black man from Canada?

He grew up in Canada. He’s a bit of a pop culture person, hip-hop. And he actually grew up in a Jewish suburb in Toronto. So he was kind of knowledgeable about some of the same things that I was. Obviously, we come from certainly backgrounds that vary. But, yeah, he was the one who told me about that.

It’s really interesting to hear that. It’s not a theory that I know, which is why it’s interesting.

And there has been a little bit of work done on Yeo.

And I know all the major historical dictionaries have some treatment of it.

It’s not an origin story that I’ve ever heard, that it ever came out of.

But here’s some background that kind of might explain why somebody might think that.

Okay.

As far back as the 1930s, we have in the written record instances of yo being used, for example, in roll calls in the military.

There are books about life in the Army, for example, where they go through the list of all these guys, and one says yes, and the other one says yeah, and the next one says yo when their name is called, right?

And so you’ll still find that today.

You’ll even see that in modern classrooms.

Kids sometimes, as a goof or a joke, will just say yo when the teacher calls their name.

That’s true, yeah.

Or present.

Or present, yeah.

It’s strictly a roll call thing.

But the history of yo is so complex because it’s such a simple word that I don’t think that we could even say that that’s the origin of it.

For example, in the printed record, we see it being used as a greeting as far back as the 1950s.

We see it appear a little bit later in the yo-vinnie stereotype, which is a lot of – for a lot of people, that’s why they think it’s associated with New York because they know yo-vinnie from all these stereotypes that have been –

Welcome back, Carter.

Yeah, sure.

Vinny Barbarino.

For true or not, I’m not going to say, I don’t know.

I don’t know enough about it.

But let’s just say it’s a stereotype.

And for a lot of people, it’s fixed in their minds as if it’s true.

And then we have the yo in hip-hop, which also, as far as I know, also came out of New York.

Very rich history here.

But it’s no coincidence that all of these stories, including the one your friend told you, come from New York.

Because this has been for more than 100 years kind of a gateway for all American culture.

Let me ask you, the use of yo by your father, is this just a greeting of yo?

Like, yo, Steve, what’s up?

Is it that kind of yo?

No, it was more to get someone’s attention.

Hey, yo, over here.

Yo, yo, yo.

Stop the truck.

Stop the truck.

That kind of yo.

My dad was an old Jewish guy.

He didn’t exactly do it that way.

Right, okay.

Hey, yo.

It was more like that.

Okay.

But that kind of use of yo is even older than all of the yo’s that we’ve been talking about.

Okay.

That goes back hundreds of years.

Really?

The yo used to catch people’s attention or to, say, goad a person to do something or even an animal to do something, say, if you’re hunting or working on a farm.

That kind of yo goes back easily to the 1600s.

Really?

Maybe even older.

Yeah, because it’s a short, simple utterance of a single – really a single thing is happening there.

And those kinds of things come naturally and pass easily from person to person.

Interesting.

So not specifically Yiddish or anything like that?

No.

Necessarily.

There’s nothing in any of the reference work that I’ve ever seen that connects this to Yiddish.

But, you know, I’m always open to new evidence.

And if you talk to your friend about this and he says, you know, I’ve got a book that he should read, let me know.

I’d love to read it.

Okay.

Fantastic, guys.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

You’re welcome, Steve.

Thank you for calling.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Oh, Martha, as you can hear, this is always an interesting topic because it plugs into so many places in American history.

Yo.

What are we talking?

We’re talking about the stereotype of Italian New Yorkers.

We’re talking about hip-hop.

We’re talking about the military.

We’re talking about the Jewish quarter in the Lower East Side of New York, right?

Love it.

Love it.

It’s great.

It’s super duper.

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