Meet expectations: A nod to greeting styles around the world

See how people are met, conversations conducted and others included or excluded, in subtle and less subtle ways. In this week’s Capital Letters.

It’s become so universal that we barely notice it. But “hello” hasn’t been around for very long.

It is only about 200 years old in the English language, and comes to us from the Middle Age greeting “Hail”, which itself draws from hale and health. (Hello is just one variant; others include hollo, hallo and halloa).

Of course, pretty much every culture has a favoured greeting. “Allillanchu” is “How are you” in the indigenous Quechua language of Peru. “Dumela” in