# safe and sound



## Dymn

I think this expression is very widespread in different forms:

Meaning (according to Wiktionary):
"Having come to no harm, especially after being exposed to danger."

Catalan: _sa i estalvi_
Spanish: _sano y salvo
_
Literally, "sound and save". Catalan has taken _estalvi _(ultimately from Basque), because _salv _is rare.


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## Messquito

In Chinese,
安然無恙 safe, no ailments


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## apmoy70

Greek:

*«Σώος, -α, -ο και αβλαβής, -ής, -ές»* [ˈso.os ce avlaˈvis] (masc.), [ˈso.a ce avlaˈvis] (fem.), [ˈso.o ce avlaˈves] (neut.) --> _intact and unharmed_.

-MoGr nominal *«σώος, -α, -ο»* [ˈso.os] (masc.), [ˈso.a] (fem.), [ˈso.o] (neut.) --> _intact, sound, safe_ < Classical nominal *«σῶς, σῶς, σῶν» sôs* (masc. & fem.), *sôn* (neut.), (epic) *«σάος» sắŏs*, (Koine) *«σῶος» sôŏs* --> _safe, whole, preserved, intact, sure, certain_ (from the Proto-Greek *σάϝος *sắwŏs < **σαύς **sa̯ús (with thematicisation) from PIE *tu̯eh₂-u-s- _to be strong_ cf Skt. तवीति (tavīti), _to be strong_).

-MoGr nominal *«αβλαβής, -βής, -βές»* [avlaˈvis] (masc. & fem.), [avlaˈves] (neut.) --> _unharmed, unhurt_ < Classical nominal *«ἀβλαβής, -βής, -βές» ăblabḗs* (masc. & fem.), *ăblabés* (neut.) --> _unharmed, unhurt, safe, secured, undamaged_ < compound; Classical privative prefix *«ἀ-» a-* (PIE *a(n)- < *n̥- _privative prefix_) + Classical fem. *«βλάβη» blắbē* --> _damage_ (of unknown etymology).


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## Sardokan1.0

*Sardinian *language, or at least Logudoresu and Nugoresu (spoken in central-northern Sardinia) use the adjective *Sìncheru* *(literally : whole, entire, intact) the adjective is also a synonymous of the English "sane" (of mind).

*Examples :*


_Sos soldados 'nde sun torrados dae sa gherra totus *sìncheros* - The soldiers returned from the war all safe and sound_
_Cuss'homine no est *sìncheru *- That man is insane_
_Tue no ses *sìncheru*! - You are insane!_

** *The adjective "Sìncheru" is not to be confused with the Italian "Sincéro" (sincere) that in Sardinian is "Sintzéru"


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## Ectab

In Arabic:
سليم ومعافى saliimun wa mu3aafaa (lit: safe and healthy\sound)

بخير وعافية bi-khairin wa 3aafiya(tin) (lit: in good and health)


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## KalAlbè

In Portuguese:
*São e salvo
*
In Haitian Creole:
*Sen e sof*


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## DearPrudence

In *French*:
*sain et sauf *_(literally: healthy and safe)_


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## ThomasK

Dutch: I have come across "veilig en wel", at a site, but I feel "*gezond en wel"* (healthy and OK) way more common. As a matter of fact, "sound" has the same root as "gezond"...


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## Armas

Finnish:

_vahingoittumaton_ "unharmed, uninjured"
_turvassa_ "in safety"
_kunnossa_ "in good condition"
_ehjin nahoin_ "with intact skin"
_selvitä säikähdyksellä_ lit. "to survive with a scare", meaning you only got scared but nothing happened


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## ThomasK

Quite a list then!!! Would option 4 and 5 not be the idiomatical equivalents? I mean: the meaning of the others seems to be the same, but do the others imply life danger? Just guessing, you know.


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## Armas

You're right, the first three don't necessarily imply life danger.


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## amikama

Hebrew: *בריא ושלם* (lit. healthy and whole)


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## ThomasK

An extra question if I may: I checked at Google Translate to see what other meanings the words could have, and one of the words seems to refer to "sound" too. But is that correct? - I checked on possible links between "to sound" and "sound [and safe]" at etymonline.com, but things are not quite clear to me: there's a "*swen" root [to sound] and a "*swen-to" root [healthy], which one would be tempted to consider linked, but I find no hints at that...


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## Frieder

German:

Gesund und munter (healthy and blithe)


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## Kotlas

There is another expression in English with a similar meaning, emphasizing that a person is not only in good health, but also very active:
*alive and kicking*
For example:
- I heard you had an accident.
- Yeah I did, but I'm still alive and kicking.

As for the Russian phrase for ''safe and sound", it's: *жив и здоров* (literally: alive and healthy).

And in Italian: *sano e salvo* (healthy/sound and safe/unhurt).


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## rayloom

Ectab said:


> In Arabic:
> سليم ومعافى saliimun wa mu3aafaa (lit: safe and healthy\sound)
> 
> بخير وعافية bi-khairin wa 3aafiya(tin) (lit: in good and health)



In addition to those, there's the expression
سالم وغانم
Sālimun wa ghānimun
Literally: safe and a gainer


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## elroy

Also, in Palestinian Arabic: ساغ سليم

Both words mean “whole.”  ساغ is a borrowing from Turkish; سليم is a native Arabic word.


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## Sobakus

It's curious how the same s-s alliteration is found not only with unrelated words, but even with unrelated languages! Latin has a single word meaning more or less "safe and sound": *sospes*, and so you can get the same (actually quintuple!) alliteration in _salvus et sospes_, but which is maybe a bit too hissy. There are also other largely synonymous words like *incolumis* "unaffected by bad happenings", *sincērus* "sound, unharmed, uncorrupted", *integer* "untouched, in one piece". The first element in these expressions is often *vīvus* "alive". I don't think there's any one combination that's predominant.


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## ThomasK

Well, don't you think that alliteration in - I suppose - IE languages has always been very important, and all the more when certain combinations seemed more important in life, I guess. Don't you think? on the other hand, we have no alliteration here, not at all. But of course we do not have s-words for safe, but we do have "zeker" (secure, sicurro, ...), however, not as "safe" but as "sure". German 'sicher' is "safe".


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## Sobakus

ThomasK said:


> Well, don't you think that alliteration in - I suppose - IE languages has always been very important, and all the more when certain combinations seemed more important in life, I guess.


Yes, and this seems to be a common inheritance from PIE - alliteration is very important in most ancient poetic traditions. It's associated with head/verb-final languages, as opposed to rhyme which is head-initial (in both cases the complement, the sister to the head, is what assonates). Two-synonym expressions and sayings is its canonical habitat.


ThomasK said:


> Don't you think? on the other hand, we have no alliteration here, not at all.


Where and who has no alliteration? Are you talking about modern Dutch have absolutely no alliteration at all? Or just in this expression? I mean, even _veilig en wel_ has a repetition of lip sounds v-w followed by l, with very similar vowels.

Russian is one language that doesn't give a drat about word-initial alliteration, except maybe sometimes in folk songs. It was used in Old Russian poetry, though there's nothing like Germanic alliterative verse.


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## ThomasK

Very interesting, this distinction between head/verb-final and head-initial, and the link with alliteration and rhyme. I thought I could guess what the distinction meant, but even after some research it does not become quite clear, I am sorry. I did study linguistics, but I have not yet come across this intriguing distinction. I do know about SVO, SOV, etc., but not this. I found a fairly good site at Wikipedia, but maybe you could suggest another one. The two-synonyms expressions are pure tautologies, aren't they? 

I meant that Dutch does not have alliteration in this case (_gezond en wel, veilig en wel,_ ...). It seems possible to use _gezond _(healthy but based on the same root as _sound_), but I do not see no z- health words...  But no, you might be quite right: veilig en wel are close indeed, though v- would be labiodental, I think, and w- bilabial, at least in Belgium...


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## Welsh_Sion

Cymraeg/Welsh possibilities - a VSO language.

* cyfan* - 'whole'
*iach ddianaf* - 'healthy, without (an) injury'
*byw ac iach* - 'alive and healthy'
*difai dianaf* - 'without (a) fault, without (an) injury


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## Welsh_Sion

As a side-track to 'alliteration' - none of my fellow-Indo-Europeans have anything compared to _cynghanedd_:

Cynghanedd - Wikipedia


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## ThomasK

Welsh_Sion said:


> Cymraeg/Welsh possibilities - a VSO language.
> 
> *iach ddianaf* - According to Google Y: *unhealthy, healthy*  (separate, split up: intact, without (an) injury'
> *difai dianaf* - 'without (a) fault, without (an) injury  - According to Google T: *intact, intact -*-- (when split up: *clean up/ eradicate + intact* >>> when dropping the first d, dianaf : I do [but of course that spelling is different from yours)


Just funny! Google T just gives hints...


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## ThomasK

Welsh_Sion said:


> As a side-track to 'alliteration' - none of my fellow-Indo-Europeans have anything compared to _cynghanedd_:
> 
> Cynghanedd - Wikipedia


Harmony generating the feeling of being safe and sound then?


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## Welsh_Sion

There is NO _Cynghanedd_ in the phrases I gave above.

I rarely rely on GT for Welsh - it's one of the worst, I guess. I think you've just proved it!


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## Sobakus

ThomasK said:


> Very interesting, this distinction between head/verb-final and head-initial, and the link with alliteration and rhyme. I thought I could guess what the distinction meant, but even after some research it does not become quite clear, I am sorry.


Well, basically head-initial syntax is preposition-noun, noun-adjective, verb-object, modified-modifier; head-initial prosody is stressed-unstressed. Head-final is the opposite. Languages with head-final syntax normally have phrasal/sentence stress on the complement (non-head), so in object-verb structures in German or Latin (and especially Hungarian) it's the object that's intonationally prominent, because it's the more salient information. In Italian by reverse it's almost always the last word that's stressed, and that last word is almost always not the verb. French takes this to an extreme by automatically stressing the last everything of everything. If you make an Italian read a language like German or Hungarian, they will stress all the wrong words in the sentence even if they perfectly understand it.

Well, since the head is the less salient element, it doesn't attract either stress or assonance. Assonance is associated with salience, and salience is associated with complements (non-heads). So in languages where heads typically come last, you often get first-syllable stress, rich agglutinative or flexional morphology (grammatical endings are heads) and initial assonance, that is alliteration.

Conversely, in head-initial languages stress tends to be final (or at least bound to the end of the word, e.g. penultimate), synthetic morphology is given up in favour of analytic one (prepositions and auxiliaries are heads), and you get final assonance, that is rhyme.


ThomasK said:


> The two-synonyms expressions are pure tautologies, aren't they?


Well, if you think _safe and sound_ is that, then I guess... They're more like disambiguating/reinforcing, and really don't always need to be synonyms. I think they're useful in languages without the well-developed and precise vocabulary we know from modern European languages; and as memorable poetic formulas. And of course they're invaluable as time-filling flourishes for sports commentators - did they have battlefield commentators in antiquity? xD Was that Homer's day job?))


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## Włoskipolak 72

Polish

safe and sound =  cały i zdrów (cały i zdrowy) , literally  entire (in one piece) and healthy .


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## elroy

Włoskipolak 72 said:


> entire


whole*


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## Włoskipolak 72

elroy said:


> whole*


Aren't they interchangeable.? 


I spent my _whole_ life waiting for you.
I spent my _entire_ life waiting for you.

Functional Medicine assesses* the entire person* rather  than focusing on the symptoms or the diagnosis..

“Entire person'' or  “complete”, and in this case (cały i zdrów) means no parts has been left out...


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## elroy

Włoskipolak 72 said:


> Aren't they interchangeable.?


No.  In this context, "whole" is the word you need.


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## Włoskipolak 72

elroy said:


> No.  In this context, "whole" is the word you need.


Ok thanks ! 

In Italian you can say ;

_Sei_ tornato a casa _sano e_ salvo _e tutto *intero*_! 
You're back home safe and sound and in one piece.


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## elroy

To elaborate:


Włoskipolak 72 said:


> I spent my _whole_ life waiting for you.
> I spent my _entire_ life waiting for you.


In that context, you can use either one.



Włoskipolak 72 said:


> Functional Medicine assesses* the entire person* rather than focusing on the symptoms or the diagnosis..


This sentence is saying that whoever does the assessment does not neglect or ignore any part of the person.  It's not saying that the person isn't missing anything.  They could be missing an arm, and Functional Medicine would still assess "the entire person." 

In your context, what you want to say is that the person is not missing anything.  For this meaning, we say that the person is whole.  We don't say that the person is entire. 

"whole" can also be used figuratively, in a sense related to the "not missing anything" sense, to mean that someone is psychologically well-integrated.  For example, they are not dissociated from a certain aspect of their personality, for example.  Again, you can't use "entire" for this.

As a side note, for some reason "healthy and whole" flows and sounds better than "whole and healthy."

Another example of how "whole" and "entire" are not interchangeable: 

We would say "I ate the strawberry whole," not "I ate the strawberry entire."  But you can say either "I ate the whole strawberry" or "I ate the entire strawberry."  The word order changes the meaning, by the way:

I ate the strawberry whole: I ate the strawberry in one piece (not in slices, for example). 
I ate the whole/entire strawberry: I did not leave any part of the strawberry uneaten, but may have eaten it in slices, for example.


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