Vulcan salute The Vulcan salute was a hand gesture used by Vulcan s . It involved holding the palm of one hand outwards while placing the fingers in a " V " shaped by separating the middle and ring fingers , while keeping the others together , with the thumb extended . Usage . The salute was part of both Vulcan greetings and farewells . The formal phrase associated with the salute in both cases was " " Live long and prosper . " " ( ; ) When parties took their leave of each other , one party could use the phrase " " Peace and long life " " and still receive " " Live long and prosper " " as a reply . ( ; ) Alternately , each party could simply state to the other " " Live long and prosper , ( name ) . " " ( ; various episodes ) In the Vulcan language , " " Live long and prosper " " was pronounced " " Dif tor heh smusma . " " ( ) In diplomatic situations , the greeting used was " " I / We " ( depending on situation ) " come to serve , " " possibly prefaced by the statement of the initiators ' name . The response was " " Your service honors us . " " ( ; ) In 2151 , an ornament of Surak performing the Vulcan salute with both hands was displayed aboard the " Vahklas " , a Vulcan civilian transport ship . Unlike other Vulcan salutes , Surak ' s hands were not held upright . ( ) In February 2152 , Vulcan Ambassador V ' Lar wished Sub - Commander T ' Pol goodbye with the phrase " " Live long and prosper . " " T ' Pol , however , bowed in response . ( ) Several Human s greeted Vulcans with the hand gesture , including Captain Jonathan Archer in 2154 ( ) and Captain Jean - Luc Picard in 2368 . ( ) T ' Pol taught Trip the salute when she took him to to meet her mother , T ' Les . ( ) Zefram Cochrane tried and failed to perform it in 2063 , during First Contact ; he settled on a handshake instead . ( ) When Leonard McCoy attempted to perform the salute , he said it hurt worse than having to wear his dress uniform . ( ) The saying was quite well - known among those in Starfleet – in 2375 , trapped in the " Delta Flyer " under layers of rock , two minutes before the air would run out , Tuvok told Tom Paris , " " In accepting the inevitable , one finds peace , " " to which Paris responded that , if this was another Vulcan axiom , he would stick to " " Live long and prosper . " " Fortunately , Paris had barely finished the sentence when he was interrupted by the sound of ' s phaser drill s breaking through the rock , and those on board the " Delta Flyer " were safely beamed back to the ship . ( ) As a practical joke , Tom Paris and Harry Kim once reprogrammed Tuvok ' s security console so that it said , " " Live long and prosper , " " whenever he accessed the internal sensor s . They also reprogrammed his replicator the same way . ( ) " In 2258 , in the alternate reality brought about by Nero ' s incursion , Ambassador Spock , after speaking with , made the hand gesture but said , " " Good luck , " " as he felt it would be " oddly self - serving " to say the usual phrase to his younger counterpart . " ( ) " In 2263 of the alternate reality , the Vulcan salute was exchanged between the who was indigenous to that universe and a pair of Vulcan messengers who had brought him news that Ambassador Spock was dead . Spock used the salute to bid farewell to the Vulcan pair on Starbase Yorktown , both Spock and his Vulcan visitors saying " " Live long and prosper " " to each other before the couple of messengers walked away from Spock . ( ) " In the mirror universe , the first Vulcan to step on Terran soil used the traditional greeting before being shot by , after he failed to duplicate the gesture . " ( ) " Thereafter , in the mirror universe , it was not safe , even behind closed door s , for Vulcans to perform the Vulcan salute , for fear that they might be seen by a . " ( ) Appendices . Background information . Origins . The Vulcan salute was devised by Leonard Nimoy , based on a gesture made by various Jewish denominations , including Orthodox and Conservative . In TV Land ' s " The 100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catchphrases " , William Shatner described the salute as a benediction , comparing it to the . The gesture actually forms the Hebrew letter " Shin " and represents the honorific title " Shaddai " , which means " Almighty ( God ) . " The hand gesture is traditionally used by the Kohanim ( Hebrew " priests " ) , Jews of priestly descent , during a blessing ceremony performed during the prayer service of certain Jewish holy days . The Jewish blessing is done with both hands , with arms extended upward at roughly a forty - five - degree angle , rather than one hand held upright as in the Vulcan salute . Nimoy learned the gesture , which takes practice to do , from visiting his grandfather ' s synagogue as a child . In the video " " , Nimoy stated , " " It took me years of diligent practice and self - denial to be able to do that . " " The Vulcan salute wasn ' t originally in the script of , which called for Spock to walk up to T ' Pau followed by them simply exchanging brief greetings . Leonard Nimoy thought this might be a good chance to bring something unique to the Vulcan people . When he spoke to the episode ' s director , Nimoy suggested – citing examples of other gestures conveying greetings , such as handshakes , salutes , and bows – that perhaps Vulcans would greet each other with the Jewish gesture he remembered from his childhood , and the director agreed to try it . However , the actress playing T ' Pau , Celia Lovsky , initially couldn ' t perform the salute , presenting a problem for the production personnel . They solved it by using a simple camera trick where her hands were below camera frame while she used one of her hands to get the other hand in the proper position . The salute was established from then on . ( " " ) Nimoy and Director Joseph Pevney also devised the phrase " " Live long and prosper " " during the making of " Amok Time " . ( " Smithsonian " magazine , issue , p . 59 ) Serialization . William Shatner was unable to do the Vulcan salute . When Kirk ( as played by Shatner ) performs the salute in , it appears that fishing line holds two of his fingers together . In the video " William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy : The Twenty - Five Year Mission " , Shatner joked that the reason he couldn ' t do it was because , in Leonard Nimoy ' s words , it took " years of diligent practice and self - denial . " During a appearance on " The Tonight Show with Conan O ' Brien " , Shatner demonstrated his inability to perform the salute , to which O ' Brien responded with a perfect salute of his own . As an in - joke , one of the gestures of the M - 9 sign language is similar to the Vulcan salute . ( ) The first Vulcan to fail to perform the salute on screen was Sarek in , being terminally ill . In the writers ' second draft script of , Sub - Commander T ' Pol and Captain Vanik exchanged Vulcan salutes , unaccompanied by any of the traditional Vulcan greetings . However , they don ' t exchange the salute ( and their initial meeting is not shown ) in the final version of that episode . In the script of the film , the Vulcan salute was described as " legendary " . Influence and other usage . Armin Shimerman devised a Ferengi gesture inspired by the Vulcan hand salute . " " I know that the Vulcan hand sign is universally recognized , " " he commented . " " I thought , ' Let ' s see if we can find something like that to do . " " ( " " , p . 647 ) The Vulcan salute is now used as the sign for " " Star Trek " " in American Sign Language . The Filipino greeting " Mabuhay " can also be roughly translated as " live long and prosper " ( it literally means " Live " , but the expression is meant to convey a wish for someone to have a long and prosperous life in order to truly " live " ) . In Act 5 , Scene 3 , line 42 , of Shakespeare ' s " Romeo and Juliet " , Romeo says to Balthasar , " " Live , and be prosperous , and farwell good fellow . " " It was proposed , accepted , and published in Version 7 of the Unicode Standard as Unicode Character U + 1F596 🖖 RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS