Quote Originally Posted by Mike_Oettle View Post
John (English Bloke) dropped a mention of OK . . . well, strictly speaking this should not be initialese. I always write it as okay. It is a word of West African origin (it has cognates in at least four different languages spoken in that region) and was carried to the Americas by slaves.
In Jamaica it pops up as akay.
That is certainly one of the claims, but it seems to be undocumented.

I much prefer the theory that it came from the Scots "och aye".