Thread by @Sampadananda

#LearnSamskritam
Namaste. Welcome to the second session of #LearnSamskritam. Today's lessons will be more focused on words of greetings like good-morning, goodnight, good-day etc.

सुदिनम् sudinam means good-day. The prefix सु su refers to anything which is good, excellent, perfect, auspicious, easy, well, beautiful, right. The word दिनम् dinam means ‘day’. The sound द da in Sanskrit, essentially has the quality of division, split, separate etc.

The prefix सु su can be replaced with शुभ śubha, meaning shining, bright, auspicious, splendid, good, prosperous, pleasant, agreeable etc. This comes from the root शुभ् śubh meaning to beautify, embellish, adorn, shine, be splendid, happy etc.

So one can use, शुभ-दिनम् śubha-dinam in the place of सुदिनम् sudinam. Similarly one can use words like: शुभ-जन्मदिनम् śubha-janmadinam for happy birthday, शुभ-दीपावलिः śubha-dīpāvaliḥ for a happy Diwali, शुभ-नववर्षम् śubha-navavarṣam for happy new year.

Like the word sudinam for good-day, one can say सुनक्तम् sunaktam or शुभ-रात्रिः śubha-rātriḥ for goodnight. The words like night, nocturnal etc. have their origin in the word nakta. The word रात्रि rātri is most probably from the root ‘ram’ meaning to rest, to calm etc.

The words सुप्रभातम् suprabhātam or शुभोदयः śubhodayaḥ are used to greet good-morning. The word प्रभात prabhāta meaning morning is the past passive participle of the root भा bhā meaning 'to appear, to shine forth, to manifest' etc.

The word शुभोदयः śubhodayaḥ is a combination of शुभ śubha and उदय udaya meaning rise. Here rise refers to the rise of the sun in the morning. The word उदय udaya comes from the root ‘ay’ meaning to move, to go, combined with the prefix ‘ud’ meaning up, above etc.

The words सुसायम् susāyam or शुभसन्ध्या śubhasandhyā are used to mean good-evening. The sound साय sāya in सायम् sāyam (or सायङ्कालः sāyaṅkālaḥ) comes from the root ‘सो so’ meaning ‘to end, close, destroy, terminate conclude etc.

The word पूर्वाह्णः pūrvāhṇaḥ refers to fore-noon, मध्याह्नः madhyāhnaḥ refers to noon or midday, and अपराह्णः aparāhṇaḥ refers to afternoon. In all these words अहन् meaning day is combined with pūrva - before, madhya - middle and apara - after.

Some assume that the concept of 'am and pm' comes from Sanskrit: ārohaṇaṁ mārtaṇḍasya - rising phase of the sun is 'am' (a for ārohaṇa - rise, m for mārtaṇḍa - sun); patanaṁ mārtaṇḍasya - falling phase of the sun is 'pm' (p for patana – fall, m for mārtaṇḍa - sun).