page_title: Ahoy (greeting)
section_title: Watersport
hierarchical_section_title: Ahoy (greeting) / Distribution and use / The use of ahoi in German / Watersport
context_page_description: Ahoy is a signal word used to call to a ship or boat, stemming from the Middle English cry, 'Hoy!'. The word had fallen into obsolescence before rising from obscurity as the sport of sailing rose in popularity. 'Ahoy' can also be used as a greeting, a warning, or a farewell.
  The word can be found with similar pronunciation and writing in several other languages. In Czech and Slovak also, ahoj is a common, colloquial greeting, while 'Hoi' is used in Modern Dutch and Swiss German, and ‘oi’ in Brazilian Portuguese, as an informal greeting equivalent to the English 'hi' or 'hey'. 'Ohøj' is used in Danish almost identically to the aforementioned usages. It stems from the sea-faring world, used as an interjection to catch the attention of other crew members, and as a general greeting. It can sometimes also be found on land spoken as a general greeting, again, especially in a maritime context.
  Alexander Graham Bell originally suggested 'ahoy' be adopted as the standard greeting when answering a telephone, before 'hello' became common.
context_section_description: People who sail as a hobby adopted ahoi from those who sail as a living. From 1884 to 1887 the publication Ahoi! initially appeared as Zeitschrift für deutsche Segler (Magazine for German sailors), later as Zeitschrift für den Wassersport (Magazine for Watersport). In 1892 the Berlin sailing club Ahoi was founded. There's evidence of ahoi as a "sailor's call" in the area of Lake Constance in the 1920s. With the watersport's increasing popularity it came back into existence in the 1960s. Since then ahoi is also used as a formal greeting to officials on board, e.g. "Käptn ahoi!", or without an additional element. The use is considered by professionals unseamenlike and you should completely avoid the cry ("ahoi!"). Its use is severely marked down on board and can destroy the whole level of newly formed, hard-earned trust. This already dying word has been revamped by lyricists once more. A rubber dinghy shipyard distributed from 1964 to 1992 their customer magazine Wiking ahoi (Viking ahoy).
caption: Albrecht Dürer's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) (1495). In carnival parades the crew of a ship of fools greets the audience with ahoy!
exif: {}