Salutations of Many Lands

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 5, 6 November 1931, Page 9

Salutations of Many Lands

To one who has not ventured beyond the borders of his native land, the customs of other peoples in the matter of greeting and salutations may seem curious and strange. In England and America the salutation usually consists of a brief but chefery “How do you do?” and it might be thought that the only thing needful to learn the customary greeting of, say, the Chinese, would be to translate our “How do you do?” word by word into Chinese.

This, however, is not quite the case, for many countries have their own peculiar greeting which serves the same purpose for them as our phrase does for us. Let us translate a few national greetings into English and see what they look like : The French say, “How do you carry yourself?” The Spanish ask, more simply, “How are you?” The Italians want to know “How do you stand?” The German says, “How do you find yourself?” and the Dutch “May you eat a hearty dinner!” The Swedish ask, “How can you?” The Egyptians seek to know, “How do you perspire?” In far-off China the questions are, “How is your stomach ? Have you eaten your rice?” The Polish want to know “How do you have yourself?” and the Russian “How do you live on?” The Persian greets you with the hopeful wish, “May your shadow never grow less!” and the Brahman will salute you with the phrase, “Mayest thou be long-lived, O gentle one!” Not only do the words employed as salutations differ among different peoples, but the formalities of meeting and greeting are also different. The scrupulous and flowery politeness of the Far East is well known and, among certain peoples, the salutation and its attendant formalities may occupy not less than a full quarter of an hour, We would find it difficult to imagine Americans spending that amount of time in greetings, when in their opinion, a cheery “How do you do?” serves the purpose just as well, but, on the other hand, an Oriental might view our brief and breezy salutation as equally hard to understand, and far from adequate.