[3] It may derive ultimately from an English pidgin such as that spoken by Native Americans or Chinese, or as an imitation of such.
Two primary etymological explanations exist:The expression might be derived from Native American Pidgin English, as close variations of the expression appear in at least two novels from 1900, both attributed to Native American characters.Alternatively, it might be a calque of the Mandarin Chinese phrase 好久不见 (pinyin: hǎojiǔbújiàn; simplified Chinese: 好久不见; traditional Chinese: 好久不見),[4] lit.Tooltip literal translation 'very long no see'.
"[5] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe in 1892, spoken by a woman who, in speaking to a man of Chinese descent, "from constant association had..fallen into the habit of talking pigeon[sic] English to the Chinamen", stating "Maybe.
Interestingly, only two years later, in an 1894 piece once again in the Boston Daily Globe, the phrase was used in the context of a Native American speaker, in the phraseology of "Come to my tepee.
"[2] Subsequently, as the phrase gained in popularity around the turn of the century, it was found in the 1900 Western entitled Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West, by author W. F. Drannan, which recorded a Native American man greeting the narrator by saying, "Good morning.