the.com/salaam
One word doing triple duty as hello, goodbye, and peace be upon you.
means A greeting of peace used across Arabic and Persian-influenced cultures, often accompanied by a hand gesture or bow, meaning roughly 'peace' as both hail and farewell.
from From Arabic 'salām' meaning 'peace,' the same root that gives Hebrew its 'shalom' — both descending from a shared Semitic root (s-l-m) tied to wholeness and safety. 'Salaam' traveled into Persian, Urdu, and Turkish as a full greeting in its own right, often paired with the fuller phrase 'as-salāmu ʿalaykum,' peace be upon you, which it quietly abbreviates in everyday speech.
- literal root
- shares roots with 'islam' and 'shalom'
- full phrase
- short for 'assalamu alaikum', peace be upon you
- the gesture
- often paired with a hand to the chest or bow
- cross-language cousin
- hebrew shalom means the exact same thing