5.1 السلام عليكم: Greetings and Their Answers — Epoché
What you will be able to do Give and return the greeting whose answer is fixed word for word. Use the three levels of hello and say which is safe with a stranger. Say good morning and good evening, and see that both are possessive chains. Thank somebody, and answer being thanked. Take your leave in two ways, and say which one implies you will not meet again soon. Prerequisites : 4.6 and the function words The conversation volume begins, and it begins with the part of Arabic conversation that is least like English: the fixed exchange. A great many Arabic greetings and courtesies come in pairs, and the second half of the pair is not a matter of choice. If somebody says the first half to you, there is one thing to say back, and everyone in the room knows what it is. This is a gift to a learner, because it means that the commonest social situations can be handled with certainty rather than with invention. It is also a trap, because a learner who answers with something reasonable but not the fixed form sounds far stranger than his grammar would suggest. Learn the pairs as pairs. The dialogue Meeting someone for the first time Two people meet on a university corridor. Both are being slightly formal, which is what a first meeting calls for. Every line is a sentence from the corpus. السلام عليكم! [1] Peace be upon you! وعليكم السلام! [2] And upon you be peace! أهلا وسهلا! [3] Welcome! كيف الحال؟ [4] How are you? أنا بخير. [5] I am okay. ما اسمك؟ [6] What's your name? اسمي أحمد. [7] My name is Ahmad. شكرا لك! [8] Thank you! Meeting an acquaintance, and parting The same two people the next morning, less formally, and then saying goodbye. صباح الخير. [9] Good morning! مرحبا يا صديق! [10] Hi, friend! عفوا، كم الساعة؟ [11] Excuse me, what time is it? جيد، شكرا. [12] Good, thanks. شكرا جزيلا! [13] Thanks a lot! إلى اللقاء. [14] See you again. ليلة سعيدة. [15] Good night. The same lines with the vowels supplied The dialogue again, this time marked. Read the left column aloud until it runs. With the vowels supplied English Where it is used السََّلَام عَلَيْكُمْ Peace be upon you! any meeting; the most formal and the most universal وَعَلَيْكُمُ السََّلَام And upon you be peace! the fixed answer to the last, and the only one أَهْلاً وَسَهْلاً Welcome! welcoming somebody who has arrived كَيْفَ الْحَال How are you? after the greeting, always أَنَا بِخَيْر I am okay. the ordinary answer مَا اسْمُك What's your name? a first meeting اسْمِي أَحْمَد My name is Ahmad. the answer, with any name شُكْراً لَكَ Thank you! thanking one man; the ending changes for a woman صَبَاح الْخَيْر Good morning! until about noon مَرحَباً يَا صَدِيق Hi, friend! informal, to somebody you know عَفْواً كَمْ السََّاعَة Excuse me, what time is it? opening a request to a stranger شُكْراً جَزِيلاً Thanks a lot! a warmer thank you إِلَى اللِّقَاء See you again. parting, expecting to meet again لَيْلَة سَعِيدَة Good night. at night, on leaving The pattern The answer is fixed The first exchange of the dialogue is the one to learn before anything else in this volume. The greeting is a whole sentence meaning peace be upon you, and the answer is the same words in the other order with the conjunction of 4.6 in front: and upon you be peace. There is no other answer. A learner who says thank you, or hello, or how are you, has not made a mistake of grammar but has stepped outside the exchange. Two details are worth noticing. The pronoun ending is the plural one of 3.6 even when only one person is being greeted, because the greeting was addressed to a person and those with him. And the greeting is identical in the spoken dialects and in the written standard, which is not true of much else in this volume; 12.1 will say why that matters. Two greetings that are chains Good morning and good evening are not adjectives with nouns. They are possessive chains of 3.5: morning of the good, evening of the good. The first word is bare because it is the first term of a chain, and the second carries the article. The answer to either of them is the same chain with a different second word, one meaning light or one meaning roses, and both are warmer than the greeting they answer. That upgrading of the answer is a habit of Arabic politeness and it appears again in the next lesson. Three levels of hello The greeting of peace is the most formal and the safest; it is used everywhere and by everyone, and it carries a religious form that non-Muslims in the Arab world use as freely as anyone else. The word for welcome is used to somebody who has arrived, and it is the natural thing to say when a guest comes through a door. The informal hello, which is the tenth line of the dialogue, is for people you know. It is what a friend says, and it is the one a learner will hear most often in a city. How are you, and the answer The question is literally how is the condition, with the noun of 3.10 and the question word of the same lesson. The answer in the dialogue is the plain one: I am well, with the single-letter preposition of 3.7 in front of the noun for good. There is a commoner answer, and it is fixed in the way the greeting is: praise be to God, whatever the state of affairs. It is said by people who are ill and by people who have just been promoted, and it is not an evasion; it is the expected form. Saying it politely Four practical rules for this lesson, and each of them will save an awkwardness. Return the greeting before doing anything else. An Arabic conversation does not begin until the pair of greetings has been completed. A learner who answers a greeting with his question will be answered, but the exchange will have started badly. Use the ending that fits the person. The word for thank you in the dialogue has the ending meaning to you addressed to a man. To a woman the vowel changes, and to a group the ending changes; those are the endings of 3.6 and they matter here because thanking somebody with the wrong one is noticeable. The excuse-me word is also the answer to t