The Greetings

“A salam is not just yours,

A salam belongs to the Almighty”

A proverb

Do you know any other way to start a conversation, tactfully and friendly, when you meet anyone – be it an acquaintance or a stranger, a countryman or a foreigner, a person of your own tribe or a representative of another ethnic group, – if not with a greeting?

And which form of the address should one select – just “Hello!” or “How are you doing?” – based on a specific situation and for a specific audience?

True, some men and women are able to get in touch with any audience, with people previously unknown or only slightly familiar to them, or to enter into a conversation with a stranger quite easily and unconstrained just at very first minutes of a meeting even without a formal greeting such as “hello”.

As for myself, I might look at them with an admiring envy of their excellent communicative skills, honestly. For I had definite difficulties in my youth, sometimes, to start just an elementary conversation – even with an acquaintance, leave alone a stranger, due to certain features of my personality. However, just those initial seconds and minutes are the most important stages when to create required mood of a meeting, to understand intentions of the visitor and to show your attitude towards him, are not they?

Therefore, naturally, styles and forms of greetings have their precious meaning in any culture, whatever the mentality of its people. That is of course, if one takes the subject much wider, without limiting the discussion exclusively to the complicated manner of the Turkmen in the field of addressing and greeting.

Instead of an expected introduction, which is a common way to start an essay or short story, let the author begin a conversation with the esteemed readers by recalling the old times – my own school years.

I have studied in a secondary school in the former Soviet Union. To those not quite familiar with the practice of those years it has to be explained that, at that period, the most prestigious Soviet schools, throughout the entire territory of the giant country inhabited by various ethnic groups, has instruction in Russian language, and their teaching program was based on the Russian culture. It was so beginning from the elementary classes for almost all secondary schools of the USSR.

As an additional clarification, I should emphasize that all teachers in the school I graduated from had academic and other higher educator degrees which were totally unexpected for such a remote and provincial school. If I remember correctly after two or three decades that passed, our mathematics teacher came from the Novosibirsk Division of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union; the English language teacher was a graduate of the Moscow Institute of International Relations (where almost all Soviet diplomats studied); and our Russian language and literature teacher was nearly a nominee for a membership of the Soviet Writers’ Union. If I might be mistaken, it would be just exclusively out of my sincere and deepest respect to all of them and out of my gratitude for their lessons in life.

Such excellent features of the teachers are easy to understand if one takes into account the specific location of my native town Kushka (now Serhetabat), which lies at the state border zone. Most of my teachers were wives of the military officers who bravely accompanied their husbands during endless travels to the new sites of their missions.

Naturally, as a supplement to the basic subjects, these teachers arranged various clubs and diverse activities to apply their creative ideas and efforts and to implement own flooding energy into the life of their young students. Again and again, let me emphasize the fact that many such clubs were never created in more ordinary schools, even those located close by. For instance, the mathematics teacher led a hobby group for studying etiquette and good manners during couple years. Why did she choose such an extraordinarily subject? It would not be of great wonder if one knew that she herself was a representative of a very old Russian noble family, and by husband’s line she is a descendant of the Princes Yakushkins, engraved their names in history of the Tsarist Russia. However, frankly, I was the only male member of this group among its other, more beautiful participants. As usual everywhere in the world, girls were more eager to learn about etiquette and politeness, than rather rough and mischievous boys.

Never will I be tired of repeating that I am a lucky guy because I have had so wonderful teachers and mentors almost through all my life. And how many of them I still hope to meet in the forthcoming future!

Most of them, my secondary school teachers, in spite of their different ethnic origins (which, again, was not usual for many other schools of any Soviet periphery), tried to foster an interest to our own, Turkmen cultural roots, simultaneously with general education. My addiction to ethnographic aspects of life, my eagerness to plunge into mentalities and behavior of different nations was cultivated since those years and thanks to their efforts.

Nevertheless, the main direction of this educational system, which was aimed to study the life of the “entity addressed as the Soviet people”, influenced further development of individual students.

Therefore, upon the graduation from the secondary school I knew Russian language fluently, I was quite well familiar with the Russian culture, and with different styles of interpersonal relationships of the Slavic people. At the same time, I could only very weakly sort out mentality aspects of my own ethnic group, the Turkmens. Fortunately, at the same time I was striving for finding out more aspects of these traditions by myself.

Then, I was very lucky, let me repeat and emphasize once again, that simultaneously I was trained for self-educating and for keenness to investigate more aspects of folk traditions and rituals independently via books (if could find such books, though) and through informal chatting with the elders—the bearers of the culture hidden from an outside glance. Also fortunately, I was capable for further analyses of observations heard and seen by me. Step by step, I discovered and gradually revealed hidden details of everyday communications, of the behavior of my countrymen among themselves and toward those who were outsiders to our traditions. And now I would like to invite you, my honorable reader, to follow me in opening some habits and traditions of the Oriental nation that are concealed from common foreign visitors, even if they are eager to learn about the behavior of our people.

What to begin with?

Of course, I had a general understanding and knowledge of few elementary greetings like “Salam”, “Salam aleykum”, “Es-salam aleykum” and, in return, “Aleykum salam”. But what about anything else?

Thus, it looks like a proper time to make a recurrent digression titled “Two in one” here: as indicated above, when I was in school, I have diligently studied the Russian culture and mentality according to the curriculum used throughout the whole former Soviet Union. However, I was little more aware about my people, the Turkmens, and their tribes than a common town boy, and much less than an ordinary rural teenager.

Luckily, thanks to a “wild” profession (my main background is a wildlife biologist), I have spent the most part of my further life in the wilderness, pretty far from the urban civilization. Consequently, I almost always have interacted with the inhabitants of remote areas, from big villages to quite tiny settlements of three to five houses.

I am emphasizing this matter because the local people living in those territories are not yet spoiled by the challenges of urbanization, and still keep rapidly vanishing folk mentalities and inward culture almost untouched. Any person eager to learn the inner world of the Turkmens should go there as well, to look for that particle of the wisdom that comes from the depths of the centuries.

On the other hand, one should take into account that the Turkmens are not a uniform nation, yet. They are divided into big and small tribes and associations. Surely, there are relationships and traditions across these tribes that have enriched each other. But simultaneously, differences in the appearances and traditional behavior are clearly visible to an experienced eye.

Therefore, an observer needs to keep in mind to be more flexible and attentive to any advice given even by knowledgeable carriers of folk traditions, because observations made in a Northern velayats^[6] might diverge from the ones made in Southern ones.

For instance, how could I myself, a representative of the Ersary tribe that lives primarily in the Lebap velayt, at the northeast of the country, behave properly living, as I do, at the southernmost point of Turkmenistan, if I did not use creativity in greetings?

Gradually (though slower than I would wish) the large integral picture began to reveal its secrets to a town-bred boy who I was at that period. Simple at a first superficial glance styles of “salam” (“salamlashmak” means “to greet each other”) appeared to be a rather complicated and, at the same time, flexible delicate system that had to be handled delicately and carefully.

As an introduction, let me say that, since the olden times, basic rules have been developed by the Turkmens (only a few of them would be mentioned here):

Who should greet the other person first?

A standing person greeting a sitting one;

A passerby greeting one who is doing a physical work (often, even if the former is older than the latter);

One who rides a horse greeting one who walks;

Obligatory, a younger person greeting an older one;

A host greeting a guest.

Nevertheless, there is no rule without exceptions. It is expected of a truly polite person to be able to greet properly and, what is not less important, to give relevant answers respectfully while being greeted. Otherwise, a man may face an unpleasant situation when only few people would greet him as they meet.

Again, for a more vivid Illustration I would “call to assist” another one of my numerous neighbors. I have some personal reasons not to pay tribute to him, currently quite an elderly man. Fortunately, I am a pretty good and attentive observer, and usually I notice his approaching from a far distance. Then, often it is enough to step aside or to make a face of “one deep in thoughts”, and thus letting him to pass away like one “unseen by me, and left without a salam”. However, when once I was weeding the vegetable patches at our front garden, suddenly, as I straightened up, I met his gaze face to the face. Without any sound I returned to work and buried my nose into the tomato bushes. He growled up at once: “You have to say salaam to an elder one, silly boy”. It was a doubly offending remark, keeping in mind that I myself was not young, and had my own teen kids.

Frankly, I succeeded to suppress my irritation, and did not snarl back but merely stared gloomily. Nevertheless, in couple of days at one of the frequent community events I described the situation to the others, emphasizing my unwillingness to interact with the neighbor. I was seeking an advice from other yashuli^[7] – how to behave when we meet next time. Suddenly, I found that I would not be alone in my attitude to that man. A youngster, one of a group which stood nearby and heard my words, broke into the conversation of the elders (a manner by itself a little bit surprising) and exclaimed: “Hey, he never replies. Do we need to pay attention to him?”

Obviously, a classical saying, “treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself”, never and under no circumstances has lost its significance.

Naturally, a direct reprimand may cause a reciprocal resentment and an unwillingness to behave as “advised”. That is why in a Turkmen community a world-wise and experienced adult frequently uses indirect hints prompting a youngster to pay an attention that something might be wrong in his or her behavior.

Here is an example of applying this method. If in a Turkmen community a much elder man would greet a much younger first, this might be considered a joke or a reproach. Even if the greeting would be made not angrily but quite politely made, it would be seen as a biting irony.

On the other hand, if a youngster is recognized as an outstanding personality – for bravery, for intelligence, or just returning to the community after a long absence, – such address would be an expression of a special regard. However, even in this case, it would be proper for a younger person to greet an elder first.

Let me repeat once again that sluggishness with a greeting might cause a sharp remark, emphasizing that someone erred in such an important sphere of a communication as greetings.

How would such an indirect hint work?

For a better understanding of the issue, I am pleased to introduce a favorite of mine, Guldjemal by name, a daughter of my neighbor couple Takhir and Djemile with whom we are long-time friends. Formerly, she often used to forget to say “salam” or even did not notice a somewhat gloomy neighbor while running across nearby due to a girlish absent-mindedness. A teen is a teen, especially a shy girl. Whether she was too much concentrated on her inward thoughts or had been absent-minded, the result was the same: she just missed greeting an old (in both senses, direct and figurative) acquaintance.

That is why one day I stopped her, as she was hurrying by, stretching both hands out for a handshake and firing rapid questions: “Salam aleykum! How are you, how is your father? Are your kids in good health? What’s about cattle?”.

Here I should hasten to shake away some possible bewilderment of a reader: why did I ask such a row of questions? I will explain further about this special greeting style called “Anyrsyny byarisini sorap salam bermek” (“to greet by cross-questioning”).

Good for her, Guldjemal learned the lesson momentarily, at once and forever – over a decade that passed since this brief interaction, she never missed to let me hear her tender voice “Salam, Gochmyrat-aga^[8]!” during every next meeting.

Naturally, that is a matter of good breeding by one’s parents and there would be a space for an opposite illustration when the method was not effective at all. When about at the same time I tried the trick on my own nephew, the only reaction that I could get from him was a lopsided smile for a beginning and nothing further.

“Let you not be tired…» (or while working)

A different form of a greeting is used depending on situation.

The following case is kept in the depths of my memory in bright colors since my serene childhood, for a few decades already. Then, I was seriously confused and embarrassed by my own lack of knowledge of the elementary politeness. On the other hand, what else would be expected from a town lad, who has encountered such a form of a greeting for the first time in his life?

In addition, one should know that this greeting could vary according to a real situation.

My father was born in a tiny village Sandy-Kachi of the Mary Velayat, Turkmenistan. He has left the place to study in an agricultural college and did not come back, moving from one job place to another wherever a veterinarian should be sent by the state administration. My uncle, his older and the only brother, continued to live there for a long time, till end of 90s. For me, a teenager, spending vacations there it was like a journey to a wonderland – the Murgab River, surrounding hills, sheep grazing, and the formerly famous fruit gardens.

It was so interesting and romantic to go somewhere very early in the morning far toward the apricot gardens on a squeaking cart drawn by a slim-legged, tireless donkey. We worked for a full day there, busy with chores – every gardener knows how much should be done in time to maintain his fruit trees and to get a good harvest. Besides, it was not less enjoyable to come back when getting dark, stretched on a load of a grass for the cattle kept near my cousins’ home. Usually my cousins had to feed the animals before starting our own dinner.

By the way: again, that is a wisdom coming from the old times – an older person teaches a younger one to take care of their domestic animals prior to taking care of himself. It iso easy to understand this practice – if you eat yourself first, you might forget that your cattle is hungry; or if you would relax it will be more difficult to return to physical work soon afterwards..