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[yers.livejournal.com]

Russian polite expressions haven't changed since the Middle Ages. Nowadays, people use them without thinking of their literal meanings, which are often obscure. In fact, these expressions are curious samples of flowery, ultra-polite medieval speech which is, for better or worse, very different from modern Russian.


здравствуй(те) (polite greeting): imperative of the verb здравствовать "to be in good health". The verb is obsolete, and survives only in a few bookish cliches, such as живёт и здравствует (~"lives and prospers"). Note that the first в is silent in здравствуйте only in its idiomatic usage as a greeting; otherwise, both в's should be pronounced in all forms of здравствовать.

спасибо (thank you): a contraction of спаси Бог (God save [you]). Routine use has compleletely obliterated the religious subtext, just like most English speakers are unaware that "goodbye" was once "God buy you". Intuitively, however, Russians never use спасибо when they thank the Lord, in any context.

пожалуйста (please; you're welcome): пожалуй is the imperative of пожаловать. Slightly obsolete now, it's a verb with a distinctly Russian shade of meaning that is hard to convey in another language: it means something like "to condescend by doing a favour". -ста, from старый "old", is an archaic form of polite address which was eventually replaced by the 2nd person plural.

добро пожаловать (welcome): another occurrence of that patriarchic verb, one of whose secondary meanings is "to do an honour by visiting". Добро (good) is a noun, and only a noun, in modern Russian, but here it seems to be an archaic modal adverb. So the meaning of добро пожаловать is, in simple terms, "O.K. come in"; and comprehensively, - "you are commended to most graciously enter".