Salut, γειά, zdravo...

While German heilen means 'heal'; heilsam 'whole' and heilig 'holy', heil itself means safe, itself a borrowing from French sauf, which stems from a Latin root that has formed the basis for other English words, such as save, salvation, salvage, salvo and salute - another loanword from French salut 'greeting', originally meaning 'salvation'. The concept of 'greeting' is itself intrinsically associated with that of 'health', 'safety', 'salvation' (cf. Italian salute/ salve 'hello'). Slavonic languages almost universally attest thereto (the zdrav-/ zdorov- root clearly denoting the 'health' component): Czech/ Slovak pozdrav 'greeting'; Serbian/ Macedonian/ Croatian/ Slovenian здраво/zdravo and Russian здравствуй(те)/ [zdrāvstvuj(te)] (colloquial здорово [zdorōvo]), both meaning 'hello' (literally 'be healthy'); Russian здороваться [zdorōvat'sja] 'to greet (lit. 'wish health to') someone or each other' and, finally, Bulgarian здрависване [zdravisvane] 'handshake'. Greek γειά σας [yiā sas] 'hello' is a shortened version of υγεία σας [iyīa sas] - 'health to you'.