When visiting a foreign country, or even of different region of your own country, you may notice that people greet each other in different ways. For example, in the UK we generally shake hands when meeting people for the first time, especially in formal situations, but in informal situations, and with friends and acquaintances, there’s quite a bit of variation. We may just say hello, hi or something similar, we may kiss one another on the cheeks a few times (this is becoming more common), we may hug, or use a combination of these.
Language textbooks teach you what to say when greeting people, but few go into much detail about the gestures and actions you use, which are just as important. Some greeting practices are rather complex and difficult to learn if you haven’t grown up in the country / culture where they’re used, but it will usually be appreciated if you at least try to use them.
I already have phrases in many languages on Omniglot that include greeting and parting expressions, but it would be great to have more details of how they’re used and any rituals, gestures and actions associated with them.
You can help with this by explaining how to greet people in your language / culture / country / region.
– What words do you use to greet people?
– Are there different expressions depending on the time of day, age, sex, social standing, familiarity, or other factors?
– Do you shake hands, bow, kiss, hug, or use another gesture or action?
– If you kiss on the cheek, for example, how many times and on which side do you start? Do people of all ages and sexes do the same?
– How do you initiate a conversation with a stranger?
– What topics are acceptable for such a conversation, for example, the weather, food, etc.
– When leaving what words, gestures and/or actions do you use?
There are some online guides to this, but I don’t know how accurate they are:
https://www.moveoneinc.com/blog/relocations/greeting-customs-around-the-world/
http://mashable.com/2015/03/15/greetings-around-the-world/
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769343.html
http://blog.opodo.co.uk/greetings-around-the-world/
In the Southern US, we shake hands at the first introduction in formal settings or when being introduced to someone’s family. In informal introductions, a nod or a fistbump are as common as a handshake.
On subsequent meetings, we usually fall back to a nod in formal settings, and a nod, fistbump, or one-armed hug (right arms over the other person’s left shoulder, often followed by a light double-tap on the back). Historically there were homophobic constraints that lessened use of the hug between heterosexual men, but those have largely evaporated among all generations.
Variations on the above are made, of course, for reasons of cultural sensitivity. When greeting Muslims or Orthodox Jews of a different gender, we often just nod out of respect that they may have a religious constraint we need to honor. We also sometimes nod (the closest gesture to a bow that we know how to perform correctly) to Asians, especially those that we perceive to be travelers or who are older and perhaps less comfortable with American social constructs, in an assumption that they might find the gesture more comfortable than a handshake.
We are extremely UNcomfortable with the European habit of kissing as a greeting, and never do this among ourselves, even among longtime friends. But, as with all aspects of multicultural sensitivity, we try to make it work if the European comes at us with kissing on the mind. Occasionally women will kiss the air NEAR each other, but not touching each other — but even this is uncommon. Unless there is an established romantic relationship, men never kiss on greeting, regardless of whether it is with a woman or another man (not even when both men are gay, but just friends).
In the UK in a social gathering in someone else’s house it’s traditional to say you’re leaving: “Well. I’d better be going now” but to not actually go for some (considerable) time. I read this in a book called something like “Watching the English” but it chimed with what I had also noticed. I always found it odd and used to point out how silly it was to my parents, but I seem to have an autistic like approach to these matters (though I’m not autistic).
I always found it amusing to see Argentinians meet Spaniards; in Argentina you use one kiss to say hello, in Spain it’s two. The amusing part comes from the fact that they start on different cheeks, which often leads to inadvertent kisses on the lips.