On Greeting
Thursday, November 16th, 2006 by adminYesterday my linguistic professor revealed an interesting fact on Balinese to me. He said that originally we, Balinese have no greeting and other communicative expression in our language. Expression such as “Rahajeng semeng” equivalent to “good morning” in English, or “Rahajeng wanti warsa” equivalent to “happy birthday” in English, or even “matur suksma” equivalent to “thank you” in English is a recent invention in order to keep up with the trend of hospitality and manner.
Greeting in old Balinese way mainly consist of series of question to people we meet such as “Lakar kija?” equivalent to “where do you go”, “kuda suba ngelah nak cenik” equivalent to “how many children do you have”, “engken, nyak seger jumah” equivalent to “how is the family, is it OK?” In greeting Balinese put more stress on the attention that is given by enquiring the state of their or their family health, or enquiring their progress in career or situation in their workplace. In Bali, asking question shows that we care to the persons we talk to and that their happiness and problem are also ours.
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