Sali

Sali

Basel German

Said in Basel

Hi

Sali zämme — to several people

Basel

See it on the map

Where it comes from

Sali comes from French: it is the French salut, pronounced almost the same, which in turn goes back to the Latin salus, “health, welfare”. According to the regional dictionaries that Wikipedia sums up, the word spread across the whole south-west of the German-speaking area, from Alsace to Baden, in many forms: salü, sali, salli, sälü, solli. So it is not Basel’s alone, and you hear it all over German-speaking Switzerland; in the early 20th century, Basel city also said sälü.

What belongs to the region is the way it is used. In north-western Switzerland, Sali works for arriving as well as for leaving: hello and goodbye in a single word. People tend to keep it for those they know well, family, colleagues, friends from the club.

For the polite greeting, Basel has a story of its own. The Idiotikon, the great dictionary of Swiss German, recalls that Grüezi was not born here: people said guete Daag. The Grüezi that came from the east has settled in since, but the Basel way, with an i in place of the ü: Griezi.

In use

If you are on first-name terms with someone in Basel, Sali goes with you from hello to goodbye:

• “Sali zämme, sin alli do?” – Hi everyone, is everybody here?
• “Sali, bis morn!” – Bye, see you tomorrow!

Sources: German Wikipedia, “Salü (Gruß)”, “Grüezi” and “Baseldeutsch”; Schweizerisches Idiotikon, “Grüezi” (Christoph Landolt, 2019).