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Ciao
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The word ciao (pronounced "chaow" ) is an informal Italian verbal salutation or greeting, meaning either "goodbye" or "hello". Originally from the Venetian language, it was adopted by Italian and eventually entered the vocabulary of English and of many other languages around the world. The word is mostly used as "goodbye" in English, but in modern Italian and in other languages it may mean "hello", "goodbye", or both.
word derives from the Venetian phrase s-ciào vostro or s-ciào su literally meaning "I am your slave".
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Encyclopedia
The word ciao (pronounced "chaow" ) is an informal Italian verbal salutation or greeting, meaning either "goodbye" or "hello". Originally from the Venetian language, it was adopted by Italian and eventually entered the vocabulary of English and of many other languages around the world. The word is mostly used as "goodbye" in English, but in modern Italian and in other languages it may mean "hello", "goodbye", or both.
Etymology
The word derives from the Venetian phrase s-ciào vostro or s-ciào su literally meaning "I am your slave". This greeting is analogous to the Latin Servus which is still used in a large section of Central/Eastern Europe. The expression was not a literal statement of fact, of course, but rather a perfunctory promise of good will among friends (along the lines "if you ever need my help, count on me"). The Venetian word for "slave", s-ciào or s-ciàvo, is cognate of the Italian schiavo and derives from Latin sclavus.
The greeting expression was eventually shortened to ciào, lost all its servile connotations and came to be used as an informal salutation by speakers of all classes. The word s-ciào is still used in Venetian and in Lombard as an exclamation of resignation, as in Oh, va be', s-ciào ("Oh, well, never mind!"). A Milanese proverb/tongue-twister says Se gh'inn gh'inn, se gh'inn no s-ciào ("If there is [money], there is; if there isn't, farewell! [there's nothing we can do]").
Spread
The Venetian ciào was adopted by the Italian language, with the spelling ciao, presumably during the golden days of the Venetian Republic. It has since spread to many countries in Europe, along with other items of the Italian culture. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the salute spread to the Americas—especially Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina—largely by way of Italian immigrants.
Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms (1929), which is set in northeast Italy during World War I, is credited with bringing the word into the English language . Today it is not uncommon for native/adopted speakers of the English language to use "ciao" instead of "goodbye" in informal speech.
Usage as greeting
In contemporary Italian usage, ciao is interchangeable for both an informal hello and goodbye, much as aloha in Hawaiian, shalom in Hebrew, salam in Arabic or annyeong in Korean. In other languages, it has come to have more specific meanings. The following list summarizes the spelling and uses of this salutation in various languages and countries.
- Amharic: ??, chaw ("goodbye")
- Bosnian: cao
- Bulgarian: ???, chao("goodbye"); also jokingly - ???-?????, chao-kakao
- Croatian: cao
- Czech: cau ("hello" or "goodbye")
- English: ciao ("goodbye")
- Esperanto: "cau" ("goodbye", rarely "hello")
- Estonian: "tšau" ("hello" or "goodbye")
- Finnish: "tsau", also "tsaukki" ("hello" or "goodbye")
- French: tchau, sometimes (frequent in Quebec, Canada) tchao ("goodbye")
- German: tschau ("goodbye"), tschüss
- Hungarian: csáó or the more informal csá ("hello" or "goodbye")
- Interlingua: ciao ("goodbye")
- Italian: ciao ("hello" or "goodbye").
- Latvian: cau ("hello" or "goodbye")
- Lithuanian: ciau ("goodbye", rarely "hello")
- Macedonian: ???, cao ("goodbye")
- Maltese: caw ("goodbye"); also caw caw ("bye bye")
- Portuguese: tchau ("goodbye"); esp. in Brazil, also diminutive tchauzinho and the form tchau tchau
- Romanian: ciao or rarely ciau ("goodbye", less frequently "hello")
- Russian: ???, chao; ("goodbye"); also jokingly - ???-?????, chao-kakao
- Serbian: ???, cao ("goodbye" or "hello")
- Slovak: cau ("goodbye", less frequently "hello")
- Slovene: cao or caw ("hello" or "goodbye"); also caw caw ("bye bye")
- Spanish, esp. in Spain and Latin America: chao ("goodbye"); in Uruguay: chau
- Swiss-German: ciao/Tschau ("hello" or "goodbye")
- Venetian: ciào ("hello" or "goodbye")
- Vietnamese: chào ("hello" or "goodbye" - note that this word is not etymologically related to the Italian ciao)
In some languages, such as Latvian, the vernacular version of ciao has become the most common form of informal salutation. Note however that the Vietnamese chào is not derived from Italian but is a native word.
The greeting has often several variations and minor uses. In Italian, for example, a doubled ciao ciao means specifically "goodbye". Tripled or quadrupled it means "Bye, I'm in a hurry!". Pronounced with a long [a], it means "Hello, I'm so glad to meet you!" (be it sincere or hypocritical); with a lengthened [i] (so that it sounds like a meowing of a cat) it has flirtatious implications.
Gesture
In Italy, the word is associated with a specific hand-waving gesture (fare ciao con la mano, "to do 'ciao' with the hand"). The fully open hand, palm forward and fingers up, is held at shoulder level or higher, and waved left to right, pivoting on the stationary wrist. For more emphatic gesturing, the forearm may be pivoted at the elbow, or the whole arm is held up straight and pivoted at the shoulder. The gesture is seen as somewhat childish - the latter slightly less - and is therefore used mostly by and for children and women, or when someone is departing for a long trip.
In spite of its present association to the word ciao, the gesture may have had an independent origin and may be much older than the word . The gesture is common in many other countries, with similar meanings , but is not necessarily associated to the local "ciao" word.
See also
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