Wondering how to say hello in Latin?
This post covers how to greet people in Latin and teaches you some essential phrases including hello, hi, hey and more!
It also covers some other greeting etiquette such as handshakes and gestures.
Hopefully you’ll leave this page knowing some essential Latin greetings.
Table of Contents
How to Say Hello in Latin
If you want to say hello in Latin then you can do so with the following phrases.
Click on the Latin word to hear the pronunciation.
- Hello (speaking to 1 person) – Salve (Sal-way)
Salve is the most common way to say hello in Latin. You should only use this word if you’re saying hello to just one person.
Note: In Latin, a ‘v’ is pronounced like a ‘w’ sound.
- Hello (speaking to multiple people) – Salvete (Sal-way-teh)
If you’re talking to a group of people or more than one person, use salvete instead to greet them.
- Hello (speaking to 1 person) – Ave (Ah-way)
Ave is an alternative way to say hello in Latin to one person. Translated literally it means ‘hail’ but it was used as a way to say hello in ancient Rome.
- Hello (speaking to multiple people) – Avete (Ah-way-teh)
Avete is an alternative way to say hello to a group of people or more than one person.
- Hi/hey – Heus (Heh-oos)
An informal way to say hello in Latin is heus. This is like saying hi or hey instead of hello.
Other Greetings In Latin
You may want to use some other greetings in Latin such as good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
In Roman times they didn’t really use this style of greetings and these phrases didn’t really exist.
Instead just use the above greetings for hello which can all be used at any time of day.
When it’s time to part, make sure you also know how to say goodbye in Latin.
Roman Greeting Etiquette
As well as using the above words and phrases to greet each other, there are other ways that the ancient Romans used to greet.
The Roman salute was a greeting gesture where they used to stretch out their arm straight towards the other person with the palm down and fingers together.
This salute was later adopted by the Nazi’s in World War II and it is actually now illegal to do it in some countries (Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland).
A variation of this salute which was common in ancient Rome was also raising the right index finger. This gesture was known as ‘digitus salutaris’ which means ‘finger salute’.
Handshakes were quite uncommon amongst the Romans and were limited to very specific situations.
You would use a handshake in the following scenarios:
- When you meet with someone after a very long time.
- If you’re meeting with very close family members.
Thanks for reading this post on how to greet someone in Latin. Continue your conversation by learning how to say ‘how are you?’ in Latin.
Hopefully you now know how to say ‘hello’ in Latin.
You can find out more about the Latin language here.
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