Arabic greeting (was: Re: Somewhat Off-Topic: thinking in conlangs)
| From: | Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, September 30, 2008, 12:57 |
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The greetings used sparked some questions in my mind:
1. What's the difference between the two forms quoted (with and without
"wa-")?
2. I hear "Assalaamu alaikum" all the time in Malaysia and Indonesia -- is
there any difference with _this_ one?
3. Do the normal regional sound changes in modern forms of Arabic apply?
E.g. Is it in Iran "selam-e-leikom"?
And a general musing -- peace indeed seems to be the foremost well-wish.
Korean "Annyeong haseyo" means literally "please be peaceful"; the various
Chinese time-of-day salutations literally correspond to "peace in the
morning/afternoon/evening"; and of course we have "Salut" and its cognate
"salutary".
Obconlang: How many of the greetings on CALS are actually variations of
"peace"?
(And may I thus suggest a field to input translations of greetings?)
Eugene
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 4:30 AM, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:
>
> Amusing incident one day back in Ann Arbor:
> Phone rings.
> Me: hello?
> Phone: Salaam alaikum!
> Me: (thinking it was an Indonesian whom I might know) wasalaam alaikum!
> Phone: babble in (I suppose) Arabic.....
> Me: Uhhh.... followed by good-humored explanations on both sides. It was,
> of course, a wrong number.
>
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