The Greek adjective halykós (ἁλυκός) means salt, salty, or brackish. It appears in James 3:12 in the rhetorical question: 'Can a salt spring produce fresh water?'
James uses halykós in an argument about the tongue's inconsistency: 'Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?' The salt spring cannot produce fresh water — this is a law of nature. Yet believers use the same tongue to both bless God and curse people made in His image. The impossibility in nature highlights the spiritual incongruity in human speech. Salt water is undrinkable — it creates more thirst than it quenches. Bitter, destructive speech acts the same way: it poisons rather than refreshes. The transformed tongue, like a fresh spring, flows from a transformed heart (Matthew 12:34).