Vulcan salute

The Vulcan salute is a hand gesture popularized by the 1960s television series Star Trek. It consists of a raised hand with the palm forward and the thumb extended, while the fingers are parted between the middle and ring finger. The gesture was devised by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy as a salute for the alien Vulcan species, and is popular within the science fiction fandom and nerd culture. The blessing phrase "live long and prosper" (written by Theodore Sturgeon) is frequently spoken alongside it.

Leonard Nimoy demonstrating the Vulcan salutation at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention in 2011

Background

The blessing gesture which is the inspiration for the Vulcan salutation

The Vulcan "salute" first appeared in 1967 on the Star Trek second-season opening episode, "Amok Time", and was devised by Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed the half-Vulcan character Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek television series.

A 1968 New York Times interview described the gesture as a "double-fingered version of Churchill's victory sign". Nimoy said in that interview that he "decided that the Vulcans were a "hand-oriented" people".^[1] In his 1975 autobiography I Am Not Spock, Nimoy, who was Jewish, wrote that he based it on the priestly blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim with both hands, thumb to thumb in this same position, representing the Hebrew letter shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the gesture. The letter Shin here stands for El Shaddai, meaning "Almighty (God)", as well as for Shekhinah and Shalom. Nimoy wrote that when he was a child, his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue, where he saw the blessing performed and was impressed by it.^[2][3]

The gesture is known for being difficult for certain people to do properly without practice or the covert pre-positioning of the fingers. Actors on the original show reportedly had to position their fingers off-screen with the other hand before raising their hand into frame. This difficulty may stem from variations in individuals' manual dexterity. It is parodied in the 1996 motion picture Star Trek: First Contact when Zefram Cochrane, upon meeting a Vulcan for the first time in human history, is unable to return the gesture and instead shakes the Vulcan's hand.

Others often greeted Nimoy with the Vulcan sign,^[4] which became so well known that in June 2014 its emoji character was added to the Unicode Standard in version 7.0 as U+1F596 🖖 RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS.^{[† 1][5]}

NASA astronaut Terry W. Virts performs the Vulcan salutation aboard the International Space Station on February 27, 2015, shortly after hearing of Nimoy's death. Nimoy's hometown of Boston is seen directly below.

United States President Barack Obama referenced the Vulcan salutation in his statement on Nimoy's death, calling it "the universal sign for 'Live long and prosper'".^[6] The following day, NASA astronaut Terry W. Virts posted a photo on his Twitter feed from the International Space Station showing the salutation (with the Earth in the background) as the ISS passed over Boston, Massachusetts, where Nimoy grew up.^{[† 2]}

"Live long and prosper"

The accompanying spoken blessing, "live long and prosper", was also first used in "Amok Time" alongside the salute. The phrase was scripted by Theodore Sturgeon.^[7] A Vulcan translation "dif-tor heh smusma" was introduced in the 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture.^{[citation needed]} The less-well-known reply is "peace and long life", though it is sometimes said first, with "live long and prosper" as the reply. The phrase has been seen abbreviated "LLAP".^{[† 3][8][9]}

See also

• Vulcan changeup, baseball pitch
• Open Hand Monument, conceived in 1948 by Le Corbusier