This is a “not too serious” look at hallow from a very early morning internet search. It made me think what translators get to deal with. When you do an internet search for hallow the first thing you will probably see is Halloween. That went down some interesting trails. I will not have references, but please fact check me. Use more than one site as different sites focus on different things.

Please humor me and think deciphering American English in the year 3024 and no dictionary survived, just pieces of text from books.

Hallo can be used in the place of hello, especially in British English and stories where characters have an accent.

Hallow = holy

• Hall is a passageway in a building.
• Low is not high.
• Hal can be used as a name.
• Ow hurts me to go there.
• What if the “h” is really silent. Allow = oly.

Halloween = a celebration of some kind where people were threatened if they did not supply a sweet treat made from a sacrificed pumpkin. Hiding one’s identity behind a mask was a standard practice. It may mean holy evening. 

• Hallow – holy
• Een – a seldom used set of letters for evening. Also written as e’en.
• Hallo = hello
• Ween – to transition an infant from milk to solid food. To move past a dependance on something or someone.

Halloween 1a. is associated with a very ancient religion (not Christianity) and the start of their new year. It was believed that the spirits of family members could be observed on this day.

• In ancient Ireland the king had all fires extinguished, and he starts one on a special hill, then everyone would relight their fires for the year from his.
• One explanation is this commemorates the death of the first king’s daughter as she gave birth to triplites from having been raped by the three sons of Simon, a sorcerer. (see the Bible, Acts 8:9)
• A Christian Saint, Patrick, challenged that practice and lit his fire first on a different hill. His group of followers magically appeared as deer to a group of warriors sent to kill them.