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Help[Facts] Re: Jai
in reply to a message by shalini
Greeting schemes are actually not part of a language, but of a culture. The word that you are referring to is still recognizably the Sanskrit jaya, from ji to conquer. It was used before people's names to imply `victory be to' in the same way that one would say `long live' or `glory be to', and is extremely rare unless the person so respected is either a god, a saintly being, or a leader. Its use in greeting is just a shorthand for invoking God, e.g. `jai rAmji ki' (literally meaning `victory of Rama', referring to a mythological human manifestation of the protector amongst the Hindu trinity). I know of no culture where it is used specifically for greeting elders (but, of course, India is large and my experience limited), and salute is probably not, therefore, a good translation.
A small interesting footnote on the relationship to elder: the original ji of Sanskrit might be related to the word jyA, which has cognates in Greek, and means to oppress but mainly in the sense of depriving someone of one's property. That word did also give rise to some words meaning deprived of firm health, and to a common word for old and elder.
On a different note, jyA also meant an instrument of oppression: the bow-string (again with cognates in Greek), and thence to the chord of a circle, and then the mathematicians go their hands on it: in trigonometry, the length of the semi-chord of a circle of unit radius is the sine of the semi-central angle (the naturalness of counting in semi- rather than full units becomes clear when one draws the figure), so jyA was used for that concept. The Arabs took that and from that when it came into Europe, the word had been distorted to sine. (The tangent and secant can also be seen in the same way, but are not etymologically derived from the Indian words.)
So, that is how respect for elders, oppression and trigonometry are all related.
(Apologize for the off topic post).
A small interesting footnote on the relationship to elder: the original ji of Sanskrit might be related to the word jyA, which has cognates in Greek, and means to oppress but mainly in the sense of depriving someone of one's property. That word did also give rise to some words meaning deprived of firm health, and to a common word for old and elder.
On a different note, jyA also meant an instrument of oppression: the bow-string (again with cognates in Greek), and thence to the chord of a circle, and then the mathematicians go their hands on it: in trigonometry, the length of the semi-chord of a circle of unit radius is the sine of the semi-central angle (the naturalness of counting in semi- rather than full units becomes clear when one draws the figure), so jyA was used for that concept. The Arabs took that and from that when it came into Europe, the word had been distorted to sine. (The tangent and secant can also be seen in the same way, but are not etymologically derived from the Indian words.)
So, that is how respect for elders, oppression and trigonometry are all related.
(Apologize for the off topic post).
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