Contact the creator of this website   Send any comments or suggestions to Jennifer Runner at jrunner5@yahoo.com.  I will respond to questions and suggestions as quickly as I can.  My work on this site is a hobby (see the Sources section for a short history of how this project started over twenty-five years ago); I make changes to the website and respond to emails whenever I have time, usually (but not always) on Saturdays or Sundays. Although I make changes as quickly as I can once I receive them, it may take a week or two for them to appear on the site. My background: for the last eighteen years I have taught English to speakers of other languages (over the years I have taught students who speak many different languages including Spanish, Hmong Daw, Hmong Njua, Arabic, Assyrian, Cantonese, French, German, Hindi, Iu Mien, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Mongolian, Punjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, and Triqui). I have degrees in Spanish and German, teaching credentials for Spanish and English, and have studied several other languages at beginners' levels. My interest in languages and linguistics, and my study of languages, is an ongoing hobby.   Purpose of this site   The purpose of these pages is to promote intercultural communication and understanding, and to increase awareness of the linguistic diversity around the world. At this site you can learn how to say greetings and several other words and phrases in hundreds of different languages.  My goal is to include every language, so that people will be able to stay at least a few words to anyone they meet, anywhere in the world.  Some of the translations on this site come from resources not available online, or resources not available in English; therefore, an additional purpose of this site is to make those translations available online to an English-speaking audience. A greeting is a starting point: it is a way to initiate a conversation, to acknowledge a friend, or to meet someone new. It is also often one of the first things people want to learn when they begin learning a foreign language.  This website is likewise a starting point intended to initiate conversations, acknowledge the linguistic diversity of the world, introduce people to new languages they may not have encountered before, and promote further language learning. How to read the tables   Sources for the translations, language names, and ISO codes (and how do you know if the translations are correct?) I began collecting translations of greetings in 1992 by asking people in my culturally diverse community and penpals around the world how to say hello in the languages they spoke. My short list of greetings began to grow and I created this website in 1995 as a way of sharing the list as well as a way of asking others to contribute their own languages (this is the reason for the name of the site: "Jennifer's Language Page," which originally was a sheet of paper, then a notebook, then a website). Many of the translations in my collection have come from my own research: from dictionaries, language textbooks, linguistic documents and manuscripts, phrase books, travel books and Internet language resources. (Many come from resources not available online and/or not available in English, so one of the purposes of this site is to make those translations available online to a wider audience.)  Other translations have come from people I have met or contacted through the internet, and people who have sent me comments, suggestions, additions, and corrections by e-mail. Others have verified (or corrected) translations I have found from other sources. Many of these people are listed here.  The earlier version of this site included only romanized (Latin-alphabet) versions of the greetings; most other alphabets were not added until 2005-2008. A few languages which are normally written with different alphabets are still written in the Latin alphabet on this site, usually due to my sources not providing the native written form, or my computer (and Unicode) not being able to reproduce it. If you see any greetings here which should be written differently, please send me an email. Whenever possible, I verify the translations from multiple sources, preferably native speakers, academic publications, linguistic documents, printed materials from reputable publishers, and/or email contact with linguists or linguistics departments of universities.  For a few lesser-spoken or extinct languages, I have only been able to locate a single source; for these, I generally compare the translations to similar greetings in related languages or a literal translation of the individual words used in the greeting. If I have only one source for the greeting and cannot locate a literal translation from another source or any similar greetings even in related languages, I do not include the greeting on my site since I am not able to verify that it is correct. However, this does not ensure that the translations I do include in the list are free from errors.  Translations which come from older (early twentieth century or earlier) documents may be outdated and archaic even if the translations can be confirmed in multiple sources, translations which look similar to related languages may be false cognates or uncommonly-used calques, and errors found in one source are sometimes repeated in others. I therefore cannot guarantee the accuracy of the translations, but I do try to keep the list as accurate as possible. It is my intention (and belief) that even if some of these greetings are not completely accurate in modern speech, none of them will be insulting if used, and all of them will represent an honest and recognizable attempt at speaking a language which will hopefully be appreciated by that language's speakers. It is also my hope that if visitors to this site do see errors here, they will let me know so that I can make the appropriate changes. (Changes will be checked using the same process I use for adding new greetings.) The list of greetings has been greatly improved over the the past 25 years as a result of feedback from the site's visitors. Some of that feedback has included corrections and suggestions, while some of the feedback has come from people who have emailed me to say that greetings from this site have helped them to welcome international visitors or to make friends while travelling around the world. Please note that the "other phrases" lists (thank you, please, yes, no, what is your name?, my name is, I don't understand, do you speak English?) are older pages which are not updated or checked for accuracy as frequently as the greetings pages, and therefore may contain errors, broken links, and inconsistent orthography. See the newer greetings pages (updated regularly) for the most complete and accurate list of translations, with native scripts (Unicode) where possible and transliterations. My main sources for language names, locations, and ISO codes are: Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com/14/, and associated print versions of the seventeenth edition. Multitree: A digital library of language relationships. 2014. Bloomington, IN: Department of Linguistics, The LINGUIST List, Indiana University. Online: http://multitree.org/. SIL International. 2015. ISO 639-3. Online: http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3 Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2017. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com. See also: Works Cited. Why do some languages have so many ways to say the same thing?  And what about languages that don't have a translation for "hello"? Many languages have several ways to say the phrases listed here. The same is true for English: we sometimes say "hi" (in the United States), "good morning" (in the morning), "g'day" (in Australia), etc., depending on the time of day, the place, and how well we know the person we are greeting. Many languages have greetings that should only be used during certain parts of the day, like English; others have words that are only used when speaking to children, to relatives, to women, to elders, or only used by certain groups of people. Words that should only be used in certain situations are indicated with an explanation in square brackets (on the older pages) or in the right-hand column (on the newer greetings pages). Likewise, many languages do not have a direct translation for "hello".  However, almost all languages have words or phrases that are spoken when people meet or see each other.  In some languages these words and phrases are very standardized (the same thing is always said each time someone greets someone else), and in other languages the greetings that are used may vary from person to person and from one time to another.  These "words that are spoken when people meet or see each other", or examples of these words and phrases, are what I have included on my website regardless of their literal meanings.  See About Translating Greetings on this site for more information and examples. How can I contribute additions or corrections?   Send them to Jennifer Runner at jrunner5@yahoo.com! Please let me know if you see any mistakes, or if you have any translations to add that I have not included. This site is always "under construction." Any additions or corrections I receive will be added as soon as possible. Please note that the "other phrases" pages (thank you, please, yes, no, what is your name?my name is, I don't understand, do you speak English?) are not updated as frequently as the greetings pages.  Are you still updating this site?   Yes! Currently, I am mainly updating the alphabetical pages linked from the greetings page on a regular basis. The most recent changes are listed on the What's New page, which I update regularly (on Saturdays or Sundays).  This site is a hobby, which I maintain in my free time; although I make changes as quickly as I can once I receive them, it may take a week or two for them to appear on the site. Please note that the "other phrases" pages (thank you, please, yes, no, what is your name?, my name is, I don't understand, do you speak English?) are not updated or checked for accuracy as frequently as the greetings pages, and therefore may contain errors and inconsistent orthography.  See the newer greetings pages (updated regularly) for the most complete and accurate list of translations.     Why is my language missing?  Why don't you have a page for the country I'm going to visit?   My goal is to include every language in the world.  If a language is missing, it is because I have not found translations for this language to add to my website.  If you know a language which is not yet included, and can provide the translations, please contact me. Artificial and constructed languages (conlangs) are not currently listed. For a while I included pages for languages spoken in specific countries, but it became too time-consuming to keep these pages updated (adding a single language to the site often meant updating up to ten different pages) and many countries were still missing.  I have therefore removed these pages in order to provide more accurate, up-to-date information that reflects all corrections and additions that I have received and that can be regularly maintained more efficiently. You can still find greetings in the languages spoken in any country on the main greetings pages, and if you have questions about languages spoken in a particular country or about the information on the pages that were removed, please email me.   How do you pronounce these words?   Each language pronounces letters a little differently, and this information is currently not available on this website. For languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, I have tried to include both the language's own writing system as well as a transliteration in the Latin alphabet.  Because different sources indicate pronunciations in different ways (and because I am therefore not sure of the exact pronunciations for some languages myself), the transliterations given here are intended as a general guide and are provided more or less the way I have found them in various sources. As an example: the Hindi greeting नमस्ते is written on my site as नमस्ते and transliterated as namasté.  Other transliterations used elsewhere include nəˈmə.ste, nɑːməsteɪ, nʌməsteɪ,ˈnäməstā, nəməste, namaste, namastay, nah-muh-stay and nah-məs-tay (among others)! The transliterations nɑːməsteɪ, nʌməsteɪ and nəˈmə.ste provide more information about the pronunciation, but include symbols which may be unfamiliar to some visitors to this site; they also represent three different pronunciations of the word. The spellings nah-muh-stay, nah-məs-tay andˈnäməstā look more familiar to many English-speakers (ˈnäməstā uses the type of pronunciation guide often found in monolingual English dictionaries, the other two use the type of notation often found in non-technical language guides for English-speaking travelers) but they are unfamiliar to many visitors to this site who speak other languages. I therefore chose to use the common transliteration namasté, which isn't as exact as an IPA transliteration would be but which is more likely to be familiar (and pronounceable) to a larger group of visitors to this site. In other words, keeping in mind that this site is visited both by linguists and by curious travelers, I've tried to find a compromise between "too technical" and "not technical enough," using the most (internationally) common transliterations whenever possible even if they are not the most academic, and I've proceeded on the assumption that those who do want more academic information can find it elsewhere. For more detailed information about pronunciation of words in any individual language, it is best to ask a native speaker, or use a source that focuses on that specific language rather than relying on this site.   How can I read the different writing systems?  What fonts are used?   For most languages on the newer greetings pages, the words are written in their native script in the left-hand side of the list. On the right side, the same words are written with the Latin alphabet. Your computer will need to be able to read the Arial Unicode MS font or any similar Unicode font to correctly display the non-Latin characters used on this site. The earlier version of this site included only romanized (Latin-alphabet) versions of the greetings; most other alphabets were not added until 2005-2008. A few languages which are normally written with different alphabets are still written in the Latin alphabet on this site, usually due to my sources not providing the native written form, or my computer (and Unicode) not being able to reproduce it. If you see any greetings here which should be written differently, please send me an email. If any of the translations on this site appear as square boxes rather than the correct letters or symbols, please contact me to let me know about this problem (and let me know which language or languages are appearing as squares). Although this depends in part on which browser or language settings you are using on your computer, I am often able to correct it on my site (to make the words display correctly with your type of browser) if I am aware of the problem.   What are the three-letter codes? What is ISO 639-3?   Languages are identified on this site by three-letter ISO 639-3 codes. These codes were created by SIL International in cooperation with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to provide a consistent, international way to identify individual languages. Since many languages are known by several names, these codes helps to identify the specific languages listed on my site, to avoid confusion between languages with similar names, and to avoid duplicate listings (such as one language being listed under several different names). In the newer version of the greetings lists, the ISO 639-3 code is provided for each language, with links to the SIL page for that language. The SIL pages include links to Ethnologue's page which provides information about where the language is spoken, how many people speak it, names of dialects of the language, and other names the language is known by. Some languages that are no longer spoken (extinct, historical or ancient languages) do not have Ethnologue links. For those languages, the links on my site will take you to information about the language from The Linguist List, which uses the same system of ISO 639-3 codes with an additional set of local-use codes.  All languages listed on my site are identified by an ISO 639-3 code or by a local-use code from The Linguist List's MultiTree and a link either to SIL.org or MultiTree. You can also search for information about any language on this site by visiting the MultiTree site and searching for it using the three-letter code. More information about ISO 639-3 codes is available from the ISO 639-3 home page, Ethnologue's page explaining three-letter codes for identifying languages, and from The Linguist List's answer to the question What is an ISO 639-3 code? Will you link to my site?   This site no longer includes links to language-learning or other language sites (commercial or otherwise), with the exception of the linked ISO 639-3 codes which provide further information about the languages listed.  Links for individual language will take you to that language's SIL  page (or, if it does not have an Ethnologue page linked from SIL, to the Linguist List's MultiTree). You can also find information about any language on this site by visiting the MultiTree site's page for the language, using the three-letter language code. Because of the number of languages listed and the difficulty of maintaining an up-to-date list of accurate, high-quality links, I no longer provide links to additional language resources on this site.    Works Cited (The works below were consulted for language data such as language names, ISO 639-3 codes, and geographic locations where each language is spoken, as well as for the articles on this site. See also Information about sources for information about sources of translations on this site.) about sources of translations on this site.)   CDE. 2011. Language Census Instructions. Sacramento, California: California Department of Education. Online: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/dc/lc/documents/lcinstruc11.doc  (link no longer active) INALI. 2010. Catálogo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales. México D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas. Online: http://www.inali.gob.mx/clin-inali/ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.). 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://archive.ethnologue.com/15/ Grimes, Barbara F. (ed.). 2000. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fourteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://archive.ethnologue.com/14/ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.). 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ Lewis, M. Paul. 2013. "So What's in a Name?" Ethnoblog. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: https://www.ethnologue.com/ethnoblog/paul-lewis/so-whats-name Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of Africa and Europe, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of the Americas and the Pacific, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of Asia, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com/17/ Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2015. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com/15/ Multitree: A digital library of language relationships. 2014. Bloomington, IN: Department of Linguistics, The LINGUIST List, Indiana University. Online: http://multitree.org/. Open Language Archives Community. 2015. OLAC Language Resource Catalog. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.  Online: http://www.language-archives.org SIL International. 2014. ISO 639-3. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3 SIL International. 2014. Worldwide: Languages of the World. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.sil.org/worldwide Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2017. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com     Copyright information   The collections of translations and the graphics at this site are Copyright © 1995-2017 by Jennifer Runner and may not be copied in any form.  Just like the words you find in a dictionary or phrase book, the individual words listed here are intended to be used freely and are not copyrighted, but (like a dictionary or phrase book) the complete lists themselves are the result of years of work and are protected by copyright. Use of the information for non-profit educational use is encouraged; please give credit to the source (Jennifer's Language Page at users.elite.net/runner or www.elite.net/~runner).  E-mail me at jrunner5@yahoo.com if you have questions about use of this site or for permission to use the lists or graphics found at this site.