Tuesday, August 10, 2010

It Is a 5 Post Saga About Greeting in English



READING SECTION

Did you know that Maori, indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, greet each other by rubbing or touching of noses? It is called "Hongi". The literal meaning of "Hongi" is "sharing of breath". Are you surprised or shocked? Don't be. It's something akin to the Western custom of kissing someone on the cheeks by the way of greeting. But along with non verbal signals, people from the West tend to use verbal language; they say "Hi", "How are you?" or "Good day, Mr." (of course, titles are different for men and women; and honorifics are based on status of a person in society or age).

Also the majority of our feelings and intentions are sent through non verbal communication (the spoken language makes up less than 35% of communication).We will discover the theme "non verbal greetings", e.g. wave, hand shake, eye communication in our next post.
Our today's topic of the blog is verbal greeting.
Let's check synonyms of the word "greeting"

English Collins Dictionary
noun greeting
1.address, hail, reception, salutation, salute, welcome
2.best wishes, compliments, devoirs, good wishes, regards, respects, salutations
(source: English Collins Dictionary-English Definition & Thesaurus )

Thesaurus noun greeting
Salutation, welcome, welcoming, reception, acknowledgment, address(source: Thesaurus )


Brief glance at different ways of greetings

Ave Atque Vale

The Romans used ave and avete by themselves for saying hello or goodbye. Later ave was a morning greeting, and vale was used when leaving someone in the evening. In classical Latin, ave
atque vale came to be a formulaic farewell to the dead (produced in accordance with a slavishly followed rule or style; predictable, e.g. much romantic fiction is stylized, formulaic, and unrealistic)


Chaire and chairete

Like ave were the classical Greek chaire and chairete, which were used both on meeting and on leaving a person. Their root meaning was "Rejoice! Be happy" (Feel or show great joy or delight, e. g. he rejoiced when he saw his friend alive or he rejoiced in her spontaneity and directness)

Hello

Hello appears to have arisen in its first instance as an imitation by hunters of a hunting dog's yowl. It is marked "echolic" in many dictionaries, which then add its early forms like halloo from medieval French halloer, to pursue game with shouts and cries. Compare, too, the Old High German verb halĂ´n, "to hail a ferryman by shouting halloo across the water." Halloo, hullo, hello are a few of many variants that include the reduplicated hullabaloo (source: billcasselman.com)

LISTENING SECTION

Do you want more information? We think that it is time to master your listening skill.




The first part of the saga "About Greeting" is finished. Now…practise your writing:)

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