I'm currently researching different greetings for a linguistics project and I'm having trouble finding information as to the history of the phrase, "How are you," or those of equivalent structures. I noticed one post (what are the origins of hi, hey, hello?) which is a step in the right direction, but doesn't quite answer my question.
For my project, we want to compare and contrast greetings in different languages. For example, in English we may say, "How are you?" or, "How do you do?" when first greeting someone, whereas in Mandarin, it is common to say, "Have you eaten?" – "吃了吗" (google translate, hope it's right!)
When I first heard this I was surprised, to say the least. I thought it an odd expression for when you first greet somebody. Likewise when my Chinese friends were learning English they said they found it difficult to answer the expression, "How are you?" and when they asked, I said I wasn't really sure either….
When we are asked "How are you", we nearly never respond to the question with a genuine answer. In fact one of the only situations where it seems to make sense is deep in conversation or where pragmatics suggests something other than "I'm fine." So, Why don't we say something a bit more concrete for greetings like, "have you eaten?" which has an answer that is a bit more tangible. To me it actually seems to make a bit more sense!
So why is it that we say, "how are you?" and where does it come from? When did this greeting start to gain traction and what other greetings did it replace (if any)? How do you respond to this when asked?
Best Answer
'How are you?' and its rivals in the 1600s
One early instance of "How are you?" as a greeting appears in William Killigrew, Selindra: A Tragy-Comedy (1666):
However, that wording does not seem to have been the most common form of greeting at that time in England. Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels Into Africa & Asia the Great (1638) provides a series of common English introductory greetings in English, with their Persian equivalents, and "How are you?" does not appear. Here is the English version of the dialogue:
and so on.
A similar series of French/English dialogues appears in Mrs. Mirge et Boyer, Nouvelle Grammaire Angloise (supposedly from 1600, but undated in the photocopied book and perhaps as late as the early 1700s), including this exchange (English version only):
and so on.
In this exchange (or series of possible exchanges), the question How are you?" is elaborated as "How are you in health?" which might be the full version of the original question that became truncated to "How are you?" sometime later, but I found very little evidence to substantiate that hypothesis. In any event, the more common inquiry in this period seems to have been either "How do you?" (asked twice in Herbert's dialogue) or "How do you do?" (asked twice in Mirge et Boyer's dialogue.
'How are you?' in the first half of the eighteenth century
In the first half of 1700s, "How are you?" seems to have become fairly well established. Two examples come from Jonathan Swift's letters. First, from a letter from Swift to Sheridan (August 3, 1723) in Swift, Miscellanies, volume 10 (1745):
And second, from a letter from Swift to Lady Acheson (April 1, 1732), in Letters Written by Him and Several of His Friends (1768):
From a table of words of one syllable in P. Sproson, The Art of Reading: Or, the English Tongue Made Familiar and Easy to the Meanest Capacity (1740):
From The Trial in Ejectment Between Campbell Craig, Lessee of James Annesley, Esq; Plaintiff and the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Anglesey, Defendant (1744):
And from a 1748 translation of Terrance's Comedies:
A translator's note to these lines remarks
Conclusions
"How are you?" appears in Google Books search results as stand-alone question going back to 1666. At the time "How do you?" may have been considerably more common as a salutation; and "How do you do?" provided further competition later on.
Two of the pre-1750 matches that I found for "How are you?" complete the question with "in health?" so it may be that "How are you in health?" was actually the earlier question, shortened to "How are you?" after the phrase became commonplace. It is not clear to me from the data Google Books provides, however, that this process occurred. The only conclusions I can state with confidence is that "How are you?" has been standing alone in inquiries after to a person's health or well-being for more than 350 years.
Update (May 30, 2020):
Earlier instances of "How are you?" as an inquiry after one's state of mind or being
A search of Early English Books Online turns up some matches for "How are you?" that are earlier than the example from 1666 cited in my original answer. Here are the earliest instances, in chronological order.
From Philip Sidney, His Astrophel and Stella Wherein the Excellence of Sweete Poesie Is Concluded (1591):
In this earliest match, Sidney doesn't seem to be asking how the absent Stella is doing, but he is asking "how art thou?" as a freestanding question. On that basis, and not as a proto-example of the greeting, I include it here.
From George Chapman, The Gentleman Usher (1606):
Although one might suggest that the question is not "how are you [feeling], my Lord?" but "how are you [acording to God's plan] my Lord?" later vsions of the play punctuate the line consistently with the first interpretation. Thus, in an 1874 edition of the play, we find the line punctuated as follows:
And the identical punctuation appears in a 1970 edition of the play.
From Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women (by 1627/1657):
Leanto. I feel a better ease Madam.
From a 1655 translation of Madeleine de Scudéry, Artamenes, or, The Grand Cyrus, An Excellent New Romance:
This is an odd instance, and I'm not sure how to interpret it. But it seems to use "how are you" in an open-ended way similar to the modern sense, albeit with a followup narrowing of the scope of the inquiry, as though to say "How are you in this particular respect?"
From Margaret Cavendish, Marchioness of Newcastle, Youths Glory, and Deaths Banquet (by 1662):
And from Margaret Cavendish, Marchioness of Newcastle, Matrimonial Trouble: A Come-Tragedy (by 1662)"
From Thomas Porter, The Villain: A Tragedy (1663):
These examples show that use of the open-ended expression "How are you?" as a polite inquiry after a person's health in the general sense of "how are you doing?" or "how are you feeling?" goes back at least as far as 1606. Although none of these early examples seem exactly on point as instances using "how are you?" as a simple form of greeting, one can see how small a step in usage that would have been by the middle 1660s.