Talk:Namaste

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Meanings and interpretation

The interpretations of namaste given in this section are modern speculations by people (judging from the very modern references) who are not recognised spiritual authorities. Lacking official religious sanction, these count by WP guideline as POV and I have accordingly deleted them. At the same time, I have opened the subject for discussion here, hoping that someone with a background in religious scholarship can throw more light on it. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 07:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The religion of hinduism is based on lores and tales beeing told and retold by grandmothers of mothers to us and by us to our offsprings. There is no scientific validation for everything. In my childhood , i was told that namaskar ment 'God in me greets the God in you.'. And that might just be the true spirit of the word. So just accept the sense of the word. And P.S. In Hinduism there are no spiritual authorities. The spirit is the people who live it. Poticecream (talk) 18:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"I bow to you" seems to be the verifiable etymological meaning. However I have heard the "God in me greets the God in you" or different variations on that so much that it deserves mention as a cultural phenomenon in its own right. My recommendation is to remove all the parts of the "Meanings and interpretation" section asserting this to be the meaning (which appear to have already been tagged "citation needed"), find a source on the origin of this particular interpretation and mention that in its own paragraph with proper citation. Mbarbier (talk) 18:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the meanings "bow" and "to you" are correct, then no citation is needed to justify the reading "I bow to you." The more metaphorical reading -- the god in me greets the god in you -- should be included, but does need citation. Rmrwiki (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

accented e in Namesté ??

I hope someone better at wiki than I am can add a note on the Nameste entry about whether it is proper to accent the e in Namesté. Many well known dictionaries don't have an entry, and it seems that some books like an accented é, but many don't use an accent. Thanks for helping or commenting. Chris (talk) 05:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Reply to the accented é) - Yes, it is proper to accent the é (like so) in Namesté. only to the extent of proper English, as most cultures would not accent their own letters just as we who use English do not accent our letters, only those of another language. I'm actually lead to believe that the English language was the big start in accenting letters in order to show a slight change in the pronunciation from our version of the letter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.248.70.73 (talk) 19:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the etymology section has been infiltrated by esoteric nonsense

there is no aham in namaste. even if there were aham doesn't mean false-self, it's just the first person singular pronoun.

the word is a simple compound of namas + te. vide oed. 108.56.216.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:30, 21 February 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Convoluted etymology

This "Naman Astitva" idea seems to be a vestige of the "Namo Astu" idea that has since been corrected. There is no "asti" in "namaste". It's not 'namāste' after all. I'm scrapping the following as unsourced speculation.

In detail, "Naman Astitva" means the recognition of one's existence by another person. In other words, when one says "Namaste" to another it means "I salute or recognize your presence or existence in society and the universe."

There is a a related (more reverential) salute, "namo 'stu te", where "astu te" means "may there be [respect] unto you", and "namo" there is a contracted form of "namas/namaḥ". But that's unrelated to the meaning of "namaste" itself. --Baba Bom (talk) 16:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation?

Ho brah theres one lion at da hilo zoo das called namaste. There needs for be one disambiguation page for distinguish between all these different kine namastes. k tanks ah. shoots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.210.114.57 (talk) 23:51, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]