The word often spoken with the wai as a greeting or farewell is sawasdee (สวัสดี, RTGS: sawatdi, pronounced [sàwàtdiː]). This word was coined in the mid-1930s by Phraya Upakit Silapasan of Chulalongkorn University.[2] This word, derived from the Sanskrit svasti (meaning "well-being"), had previously been used in Thai only as a formulaic opening to inscriptions. The strongly nationalist government of Plaek Pibulsonggram in the early 1940s promoted the use of the word sawasdee amongst the government bureaucracy as well as the wider populace as part of a wider set of cultural edicts to modernise Thailand.