# Etymology of TEA in European languages



## Youngfun

Tea is a Chinese plant and drink that has now become widespread in the world, and for this in most of the languages it derived from the Chinese word 茶，pronounced _teh_ in Amoy dialect (厦门话, a dialect of Min nan language）and _cha_ in Cantonese/Mandarin.
Wikipedia also talks about the etymology.

As far as I know, in Western Europe only Portuguese uses _chá_ (derived from Cantonese), because they brought the tea from their colony Macau, where Cantonese is spoken.
They were the first European to bring tea in Europe in about the XVI century, at that epoch the other European languages also used words similar to _cha_ for designating the tea. In English it survived in the slang _char_.
Later the British and the Dutch brought it from Amoy, Taiwan (where min nan language was spoken) and Malaysia (where in Malay it's also called _teh_ as far I know).
That's why it's _tea_ in English and _thee_ in Dutch.
In the XVII century their role in the commerce with Asia became more important that Portugal, so progressively all Western languages began to use tea-like words, e.g. _thé_ in French, _té_ in Spanish, _tè_ or _the_ in Italian, etc.

But my question is... why Dutch and French have a _h_ in the middle? Why _thee_ and _thé_?
Isn't the _h_ letter useless there? As far I know, _teh_ is pronounced with unaspirated t in both Malay and (modern) Min nan. So why the Dutch and the French spell it with _th_?

I think it's unlikely that the Min nan language at that time had unaspirated t, as it derive from the Middle Chinese /dja/ with retroflex d. As far as I know, the Middle Chinese /d/ and retroflex /d/ never become aspirated in none of the modern dialects...


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## swift

Hi,

The French orthography of this term, i.e., 'thé' is easy to explain if you consider French borrowed the word from Dutch.  Portuguese introduced the term 'cha', as you mention, and this word was adopted under several different spellings. Dutch influence is probably the most evident in German, English, French and Spanish. 


> 1650s, earlier chaa (1590s, from Port. cha), from Malay teh and directly from Chinese (Amoy dialect) t'e, in Mandarin ch'a.  The distribution of the different forms of the word reflects the spread  of use of the beverage. The modern English form, along with Fr. thé, Sp. te, Ger. Tee, etc., derive via Du. thee  from the Amoy form, reflecting the role of the Dutch as the chief  importers of the leaves (through the Dutch East India Company, from  1610).
> 
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tea&allowed_in_frame=0





> Empr., par l'intermédiaire des Hollandais, sous la forme_ the_ des textes en lat. (_cf._ Ph. Morisset, _Praeside an The chinensium menti confert?_ Thèse, Paris, 1648), au malais _teh_ ou à la forme du sud de la Chine _té_ corresp. au chinois _tcha_, cette forme _té_ étant empl. par les Chinois d'Amoy qui apportaient le thé dans les régions bordant la mer de Chine méridionale (v. Arv., pp. 470-474, König 1939, p. 202, _NED, s.v. tea_ et _FEW_ t. 20, p. 111b). Le chinois _tcha_ a donné des formes telles que _ciaa _et _chia_ att. dès 1589 et 1603 (Arv., _loc. cit._).
> 
> http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/thé


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## Youngfun

But why Dutch writes T*h*ee with *h*? Wouldn't Tee be enough?
Also that text says it's _t'e_ in Amoy dialect, then t' indicates aspiration? Then at that time it was aspirated in Chinese? But here we need an expert of ancient Min nan language...


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## swift

There seem to be several explanations to that spelling:

1.- Th- reflects the exotic origin of the word





> Die spelling met _th_- in Ndl. was bedoel om die eksotiese karakter van die woord te beklemtoon.
> 
> G.J. van Wyk (2003), _Etimologiewoordeboek van Afrikaans_, Stellenbosch (incl. Supplement uit 2007)


2. A Hellenised spelling?





> In de latere spelling _thee_ met _-h-_, is waarschijnlijk sprake van vergrieksing: theedrinken was aanvankelijk prestigieus (Van der Sijs 2005; 394).
> 
> M. Philippa e.a. (2003-2009) _Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands_





> De letterverbinding _th_ wordt bij ons gebezigd in vele woorden van  Griekse oorsprong om de thèta aan te duiden en in enkele andere vreemde  woorden, bijvoorbeeld _Thaler, Thallium_, enz. In echt Nederlandse woorden komt ze slechts voor in _thuis, thans, althans_, omdat deze uit _te_ _huis, te hands, al te hands_ zijn samengetrokken.
> 
> P.J. Veth e.a. (1889/1910, 2003), _Uit Oost en West: Verklaring van 1000 woorden uit Nederlands-Indië_


3. Now, the following is funny because it claims that French influenced the spelling with -h-. 


> Daar nu de _h_ zuiver overtollig is, schijnt de latere schrijfwijze _thee_, enkel door de voorkeur voor een ingewikkelde spelling, misschien onder de invloed van het Franse _thé,_ te zijn voortgebracht. Onze oude taal heeft echter meer recht om hier de toongeefster te zijn dan het Frans.
> 
> P.J. Veth e.a. (1889/1910, 2003), _Uit Oost en West: Verklaring van 1000 woorden uit Nederlands-Indië_


Source: http://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/thee


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## Youngfun

Thanks swift, you are an etymology genius 
Unfortunately I can't read Dutch, but the sinthesis in each of your point are enough for me. 
The 3rd hypothesis seems very unlikely... as the Dutch brought the tea first, and only after it became common in France...


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## apmoy70

In Greek its older name was «τέϊον» /'te.i.on/ (neut.) a Chinese loan word via French: Fr. thé > Greek τέϊον (τέ + -ιον, suffix for neuter nouns). Nowadays «τέϊον» is used as its formal/scientific name.
Its current name in vernacular is «τσάϊ» /'tsa.i/ (neut.) a Chinese (Cantonese) loan word via Russian: Rs. чай > τσάϊ.


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## tFighterPilot

apmoy70 said:


> In Greek its older name was «τέϊον» /'te.i.on/ (neut.) a Chinese loan word via French: Fr. thé > Greek τέϊον (τέ + -ιον, suffix for neuter nouns). Nowadays «τέϊον» is used as its formal/scientific name.
> Its current name in vernacular is «τσάϊ» /'tsa.i/ (neut.) a Chinese (Cantonese) loan word via Russian: Rs. чай > τσάϊ.


Interesting. In Hebrew the word for tea is תה pronounced either /te/ or /tei/, but the word for a tea bag is תיון pronounced /teion/.


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## djmc

A popular English alternative to tea is char as in "Ah, that's a nice cup of char".


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## Youngfun

Thanks djmc, I've already said that in my opening post


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## Timesieve

tFighterPilot said:


> Interesting. In Hebrew the word for tea is תה pronounced either /te/ or /tei/, but the word for a tea bag is תיון pronounced /teion/.



Interesting since in Arabic it is شاي /ʃai/. Perhaps this is taken from European languages in modern Hebrew? I'm not sure when tea first came to the Middle East. Does classical Hebrew have a word for it? According to Wikipedia, most other Middle Eastern languages use words derived from the /cha/ pronunciation.


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## merquiades

Perhaps it is just a spelling convention.  In English, we write "tea" because "tee" already existed.  Same in Spanish, "té" (tea) has an accent mark cause "te" (to you) existed.  I think that's similar to other languages too.  Besides that, that there is the letter "T" to deal with. My Dutch is next to nothing but I did find "tee" (tee) and "te" (at) in the dictionary.  Could the h have been put in there just to make a written distinction?


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## tFighterPilot

Timesieve said:


> Interesting since in Arabic it is شاي /ʃai/. Perhaps this is taken from European languages in modern Hebrew? I'm not sure when tea first came to the Middle East. Does classical Hebrew have a word for it? According to Wikipedia, most other Middle Eastern languages use words derived from the /cha/ pronunciation.


Well, by the time tea was introduced to the middle east Hebrew was no longer a spoken language, so the word is obviously modern.


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## Ben Jamin

"In de latere spelling _thee_ met _-h-_, is waarschijnlijk sprake van vergrieksing: theedrinken was aanvankelijk prestigieus (Van der Sijs 2005; 394)."
It's funny, as in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian 'h' is often added to make a given name look more prestigious, even if it doesn't exist in the original name, for example 'Margareth'.


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> In English, we write "tea" because "tee" already existed.


Which _tee_ do you have in mind here? I think we write ⟨tea⟩ because the original pronunciation in English was /teː/. (As shown also by the spellings ⟨tay⟩ and ⟨tey⟩ used in English during the 1600s.)


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## tFighterPilot

tFighterPilot said:


> Well, by the time tea was introduced to the middle east Hebrew was no longer a spoken language, so the word is obviously modern.


According to http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/german.php the origin of this pronunciation is German.


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> "In de latere spelling _thee_ met _-h-_, is waarschijnlijk sprake van vergrieksing: theedrinken was aanvankelijk prestigieus (Van der Sijs 2005; 394)."
> It's funny, as in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian 'h' is often added to make a given name look more prestigious, even if it doesn't exist in the original name, for example 'Margareth'.


... or _Ant*h*ony_ in English. This is indeed wide spread in European languages.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> ... or _Ant*h*ony_ in English. This is indeed wide spread in European languages.



But the h is pronounced in this name: /æn-θɘ-ɴi/ 
That may work for "Thomas" though.



			
				CapnPrep said:
			
		

> Which tee do you have in mind here? I think we write ⟨tea⟩ because the original pronunciation in English was /teː/. (As shown also by the spellings ⟨tay⟩ and ⟨tey⟩ used in English during the 1600s.)



Okay. I didn't know the "ea" was /e:/ in the 1600's.  I assume "ee" was /i:/ and  they merged later.  /ea/ would have been the natural spelling in English then.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> But the h is pronounced in this name: /æn-θɘ-ɴi/


Only in the States, not in Britain. It is essentially a 16th century spelling "mistake" which got canonicalized; probably for a similar reason.


merquiades said:


> Okay. I didn't know the "ea" was /e:/ in the 1600's.  I assume "ee" was /i:/ and  they merged later.  /ea/ would have been the natural spelling in English then.


Yes, in the early 17th century "ee" was already raised from /e:/ to /i:/ and "ea" from /ɛ:/ to /e:/. The further raising of "ea" to /i:/ and the merger with "ee" happened a bit later.


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## Ghabi

Timesieve said:


> Interesting since in Arabic it is شاي /ʃai/. Perhaps this is taken from European languages in modern Hebrew? I'm not sure when tea first came to the Middle East.


The Arabic Wikipedia says شاي comes from Persian چای. 

I don't know if it's the first mention of tea in Arabic, but the 9th-century Arab merchant سليمان التاجر did mention it in his work اخبار الصين والهند, calling it, well, _saakh_: ويختص الملك من المعادن بالملح وحشيش يشربونه بالماء الحار ويباع منه في كل مدينة بمال عظيم ويقال له الساخ


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## francisgranada

berndf said:


> ...  This is indeed wide spread in European languages.



For example, also in Hungarian historical family names: Báthori, Batthyány, Básthy ...


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## Timesieve

Woah. Where did ساخ /sa:x/ come from? Perhaps from an Indian language? Do you know which region he's talking about here?


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> Only in the States, not in Britain. It is essentially a 16th century spelling "mistake" which got canonicalized; probably for a similar reason.
> Yes, in the early 17th century "ee" was already raised from /e:/ to /i:/ and "ea" from /ɛ:/ to /e:/. The further raising of "ea" to /i:/ and the merger with "ee" happened a bit later.



There are a few people with a /æn-tɘ-ɴi/ pronunciation in the States (unfortunately usually Ant-knee) but they write it Antony.

I suppose "learn", "pear" and "great" went astray and got left behind on that journey from /ɛ:/ to /e:/ to /i:/.

I remember an urban "etymological" legend that would have it that "tea" came into being because it was transported in big crates from the far east or India to Britain.  They were marked "T" meaning ready for transport.  Upon arrival the dock workers started saying "give me the T".  You'd be surprised how widespread that story is!


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> I suppose "learn", "pear" and "great" went astray and got left behind on that journey from /ɛ:/ to /e:/ to /i:/.


Yes, the second raising was not universal and those which remained /e:/ were then picked up by the 19th century shift from /e:/ to /eɪ/, like _steak_ or _great_. Words like _learn _or _pear_ are different because almost everything is different in front of "r".


merquiades said:


> I remember an urban "etymological" legend that would have it that "tea" came into being because it was transported in big crates from the far east or India to Britain.  They were marked "T" meaning ready for transport.  Upon arrival the dock workers started saying "give me the T".  You'd be surprised how widespread that story is!


Urban legends can be very persistent.


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## Abu Rashid

Timesieve said:


> Interesting since in Arabic it is شاي /ʃai/.



And also شاهي (shahee) in some dialects.


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## OBrasilo

Not all European languages use a Chinese-derived word for tea. Polish, for example uses the word _herbata_ instead, which seems to be derived from Latin.


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## gevenamolalandaziseafaine

Russians say "Chai", presumably taken along with the "Samovars" from Persia and Turkey; Once I bought "Tchaï" in London. Turnt out to be heavily spiced strong black tea! Here the Heavy Metal Umlaut and the redundant T- were used as augmentatives


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## tFighterPilot

gevenamolalandaziseafaine said:


> Russians say "Chai", presumably taken along with the "Samovars" from Persia and Turkey; Once I bought "Tchaï" in London. Turnt out to be heavily spiced strong black tea! Here the Heavy Metal Umlaut and the redundant T- were used as augmentatives


Here we have a brand called צ'אי מסאלה (Chai Masala) which is supposed to be Indian tea.


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## merquiades

gevenamolalandaziseafaine said:


> Russians say "Chai", presumably taken along with the "Samovars" from Persia and Turkey; Once I bought "Tchaï" in London. Turnt out to be heavily spiced strong black tea! Here the Heavy Metal Umlaut and the redundant T- were used as augmentatives



You're right.  In recent times the term Chai (Tchaï in French) has come to refer to an extremely spicy and milky tea mix of indian origin known there as Masala Chai.  I imagine if you order it expecting regular black tea you'll be unpleasantly surprised.

Edit:  I see I had the same thought at the same time as tFighterPilot


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## Ben Jamin

merquiades said:


> You're right.  In recent times the term Chai (Tchaï in French) has come to refer to an extremely spicy and milky tea mix of indian origin known there as Masala Chai.  I imagine if you order it expecting regular black tea you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
> 
> Edit:  I see I had the same thought at the same time as tFighterPilot



You will be surprised: ‘samovar’ is a genuinely Slavic word. It consists of word stems ‘sam’ (-self as in’myself’) and ‘var-’ (to cook, boil). Thence a device that “boils and makes the tea itself”.
By the way, the two dots over the ‘I’ is not an umlaut, this is a diaeresis (a diacritical mark), marking that the ‘ai’ combination is to be pronounced as a diphthong in French, not as one sound ‘è’. Umlaut (German), called also apophony (from Greek) applies only to German and Scandinavian phonetics, and marks a change from one sound into another inside a word (like mutter>mütter). As the transformed sounds are always ‘ä’, 'ö'and ‘ü’ in German, they began to be called ‘a-umlaut’, 'o-umlaut' and ‘u-umlaut’.


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> the ‘I’ is not an umlaut, this is a diaeresis (a diacritical mark), marking that the ‘ai’ combination is to be pronounced as a diphthong in French, not as one sound ‘è’. Umlaut (German)..


Absolutely right. Nor is the "T" redundant. The_ tchaï_ transcription is from French approximating Hindi [tʃɑːj]. The transcription _chai _would yield [ʃɛː] in French.


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## Schem

Abu Rashid said:


> And also شاهي (shahee) in some dialects.



Yes, indeed. It's also still called "Chai" in the Gulf dialects, as it was first introduced through India I believe.


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## terredepomme

In Korean the same letter 茶 has two pronunciations, unlike in Chinese or Japanese: 
_cha_ when referring to tea proper, but
_da_ in most compound words.
Example:
茶道 dado : the way of tea, i.e. the manners and customs of drinking tea.
茶客dagaek: a tea guest, somebody invited to have a cup of tea.
But:
紅茶hongcha: red tea, i.e. black tea.


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## Timesieve

Abu Rashid said:


> And also شاهي (shahee) in some dialects.


Which dialects?


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## Schem

Timesieve said:


> Which dialects?



We call it شاهي (shahi) in Najdi/Guisseemi Arabic.


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## Youngfun

I think the forms _chai, tchaï, shahee, shehi,_ etc. are already explained by this sentence from the Wikipedia article:


> The widespread form *chai* comes from Persian چای _chay_. This derives from Mandarin _chá_,[42] which passed overland to Central Asia and Persia, where it picked up the Persian grammatical suffix _-yi_ before passing on to Russian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, etc.



Korean has the double form _ta_ and _cha_,  the first form should come from Middle Chinese /ɖja/ (retroflex /d/), while the latter from modern Mandarin _cha_. 
Japanese also has two forms: _da_ (also pronounced _ta_) and _cha_.
The Koreans and the Japanese like to import words from Chinese in different history times, even when they have already imported the word earlier. 

@Ghabi:
Do you know how was it pronounced in Middle Chinese? I consulted the 廣韻 but I'm not sure if I can use it correctly. Apparently the pronounciation in Middle Chinese should be /ɖja/.

I guess the Middle Chinese voiced consonant /ɖ/ cannot become an aspirated /tʰ/ in neither of the modern Chinese dialects. 
And in Minnan (Xiamen dialect) should be unaspirated /te/, and in Mindong (Fuzhou dialect) should be unaspirated /tja/ or /dja/ (not sure which one). Right? Any speaker of Min here? 
So the aspiration is not the reason why it's spelled with Th- in Dutch (_Thee_) and French (_Thé_).

And how is it pronounced in Cantonese? I suppose /tsʰa/. Right?

In my native language, Southern Wu (Wenzhou dialect and Qingtian dialect), it's pronounced /dzu/.  
It makes sense that in Souther Wu language the Middle Chinese /ɖ/ became /dz/ retaining the voicing, while it de-voiced in other Chinese dialects, such as /t/ in Minnan, /tsʰ/ in Cantonese, and /tʂʰ/ in Mandarin.
While only Mandarin has retained the retroflex consonant.

In Standard Italian we already have the word _te_ /te/ that means "you" (object).
In order to distinguish from /te/, tea is pronunced with an "open e" /tɛ/. While in order to distinguish it from the spelling _te_, tea has two spelling: the "authentic Italian" one _tè_ and the French-derived _the_. 
I prefer much more _tè_, since this spelling is "more Italian", as in Italian we don't have words spelled with th-, and moreover _the _could be confused with the English article.
Furthermore, _the_ doesn't give a hint about the pronounciation as according to Italian spelling rules, monosillabic e's are always pronounced with closed e /e/.


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## Ghabi

Timesieve said:


> Woah. Where did ساخ /sa:x/ come from? Perhaps from an Indian language? Do you know which region he's talking about here?


He's talking about how the Chinese emperor draws his income, and how a major part of it comes from salt tax and this "saakh" tax. Thus "saakh" is supposed to be a Chinese word. So what is it? Have no idea. In the famous eighth-century _The Classic of Tea_ 茶經, five names of tea are mentioned: 其名一曰茶二曰檟三曰蔎四曰茗五曰荈. Well, none of these really sounds close to "saakh". Perhaps there was another unrecorded word for "tea"? Or he just misheard the word? Erm ...


Youngfun said:


> Do you know how was it pronounced in Middle Chinese? I consulted the 廣韻 but I'm not sure if I can use it correctly. Apparently the pronounciation in Middle Chinese should be /ɖja/.


Ancient "rime dictionaries" like _Guangyun_ 廣韻 can't tell us how a word was pronounced. It tells us about a word's phonological properties, not its actual phonetic value. To reconstruct the value we need more than rime dictionaries, and different scholars propose different reconstructions. [ɖa] is a possible one (I don't know why you add the glide [j]), and you may be interested to know that द्रविड़ "draviḍa" was transliterated as 達羅毗荼 by the legendary Xuanzang 玄奘 in his famous travelogue. So yes, the initial may be a voiced retroflex.


> I guess the Middle Chinese voiced consonant /ɖ/ cannot become an aspirated /tʰ/ in neither of the modern Chinese dialects.


I think you're right, but I really don't know.


> And in Minnan (Xiamen dialect) should be unaspirated /te/, and in Mindong (Fuzhou dialect) should be unaspirated /tja/ or /dja/ (not sure which one). Right? Any speaker of Min here?


For what it's worth, the Teochew cognate has entered Cantonese as [tɛ] (in some idioms, usually written as 嗲).


> And how is it pronounced in Cantonese? I suppose /tsʰa/. Right?


Exactly. So there's actually a pair of "doublets" ([tsʰa] and [tɛ]) for "tea" in Cantonese.


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## Youngfun

Ghabi said:


> [ɖa] is a possible one (I don't know why you add the glide [j]), and you may be interested to know that द्रविड़ "draviḍa" was transliterated as 達羅毗荼 by the legendary Xuanzang 玄奘 in his famous travelogue. So yes, the initial may be a voiced retroflex.


Sorry, I got confused with 福州话 and added the [j]... my mistake...
According other scholars, the reconstructed sound could be also [ȡa] with a 舌面前塞音 (coronal stop?).
Wasn't 玄奘 a historical person?  
I also heard that he used the Wu language 吴语 of that time to transcribe names from Sanscrit, but it seems that nobody knows about the differences between dialects in Middle Chinese...



Ghabi said:


> For what it's worth, the Teochew cognate has entered Cantonese as [tɛ] (in some idioms, usually written as 嗲).


I think in Mandarin it's only used for 肉骨爹，an alternative for 肉骨茶。 



Ghabi said:


> Exactly. So there's actually a pair of "doublets" ([tsʰa] and [tɛ]) for "tea" in Cantonese.


Interesting. Are these 2 interchangeable, or do you use [tsʰa] in some cases, and [tɛ] in other cases?

Then Chinese people in Italy also have a pair of doublets. 
We use [tsʰa] (in Mandarin) and [dzu] (in Wenzhou dialect 温州话 or Qingtian dialect 青田话) to call the Chinese tea (made with imported Chinese tea leaves). 
And [tɛ] or [te] for the Italian tea (made with tea bags with sugar and lemon added) and for bottled/canned ice tea.
Well... I guess immigrants from Fujian don't make such difference, as for them the pronounciation would be the same.


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## LilianaB

merquiades said:


> You're right.  In recent times the term Chai (Tchaï in French) has come to refer to an extremely spicy and milky tea mix of indian origin known there as Masala Chai.  I imagine if you order it expecting regular black tea you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
> 
> Edit:  I see I had the same thought at the same time as tFighterPilot



Hello, Merquiades. Doesn't the word _Chai_ come from China, as _samovars_ do. In fact _samovars_ were invented in China and they were designed to cook food as well: they had three different compartments: for rice, vegetables and water. The word itself is definitely Slavic, though. 

Tea in Lithuanian is called _arba_ - most likely from _herbal_ and _herbata_ in Polish. They are of Latin origin, no doubt.   

I have been always intrigued by the drink _mate_, which is called _chimarrao_ in Portuguese and _chano_ in Bolivian (whatever they meant by it -- either the Spanish from Bolivia or some indigenous languages). Are these nouns somehow related to _chai_? I drank it once. A friend of mine who had lived in Cuba for 10 years as a child prepared it, but it was really a shocking experience, not being able to describe it any better, unless she did not know how to prepare it. The powder, or leaves from which it is made, is called _mate yerba_, just like _arba_ or _herbata_.


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## fdb

apmoy70 said:


> In Greek its older name was «τέϊον» /'te.i.on/ (neut.) a Chinese loan word via French: Fr. thé > Greek τέϊον (τέ + -ιον, suffix for neuter nouns). Nowadays «τέϊον» is used as its formal/scientific name.
> Its current name in vernacular is «τσάϊ» /'tsa.i/ (neut.) a Chinese (Cantonese) loan word via Russian: Rs. чай > τσάϊ.



Modern Greek τσάϊ surely comes not from Russian, but from Turkish çai (like most Greek words for foods and drinks). Arabic šāy also comes from Turkish or Persian, which in turn have it from Chinese cha.


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## apmoy70

fdb said:


> Modern Greek τσάϊ surely comes not from Russian, but from Turkish çai (like most Greek words for foods and drinks). Arabic šāy also comes from Turkish or Persian, which in turn have it from Chinese cha.


I'm sorry but no, prof. Babiniotis clearly states that the word is a late loan (1895) and taken straight from the Russian чай, while the earlier «τέϊον» comes from the French thé


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## fdb

Ghabi said:


> I don't know if it's the first mention of tea in Arabic, but the 9th-century Arab merchant سليمان التاجر did mention it in his work اخبار الصين والهند, calling it, well, _saakh_: ويختص الملك من المعادن بالملح وحشيش يشربونه بالماء الحار ويباع منه في كل مدينة بمال عظيم ويقال له الساخ



That is an interesting reference. While awaiting a better explanation I can only suggest that الساخ is a scribal error for الشاى .


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## Ghabi

Youngfun said:


> ... So the aspiration is not the reason why it's spelled with Th- in Dutch (_Thee_) and French (_Thé_).


Hi again YF! I had time recently to check a dialect glossary, which includes 20 dialects, and found that in none of which the word 茶 is pronounced with an apsirated /t/. So your conjecture is probably right.


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## Youngfun

Thank you very much, Ghabi!
You always give very interesting information about etymologies.
Can I ask what glossary you checked?

You finally answered to my original question which inspired me for opening this thread.
Because of the double graphy of _tè_ and _the_ in Italian, I was curious to know where that TH- comes from...



OBrasilo said:


> Not all European languages use a Chinese-derived word for tea. Polish, for example uses the word _herbata_ instead, which seems to be derived from Latin.





LilianaB said:


> Tea in Lithuanian is called _arba_ - most likely from _herbal_ and _herbata_ in Polish. They are of Latin origin, no doubt.
> 
> [...]
> 
> I have been always intrigued by the drink _mate_, which is called _chimarrao_ in Portuguese and _chano_ in Bolivian (whatever they meant by it -- either the Spanish from Bolivia or some indigenous languages). Are these nouns somehow related to _chai_? I drank it once. A friend of mine who had lived in Cuba for 10 years as a child prepared it, but it was really a shocking experience, not being able to describe it any better, unless she did not know how to prepare it. The powder, or leaves from which it is made, is called _mate yerba_, just like _arba_ or _herbata_.


Thanks OBrasilio and Liliana for the information! Finally two languages, Polish and Lithuanian, where the word for tea doesn't derive from Chinese. 
Do _herbata/arba/yerba_ simply mean "herbs"/"herbal drink"?

At least, in my opinion, _mate yerba_ sould simply mean "_mate_ herb", as it is called _erva-mate_ in Portuguese, though I would have expected this order as well (_*yerba mate_) in Spanish. So I don't think that has something to do with Polish/Lithuanian word for tea.

_Chimarrão_ is also known as _cimarrón_ in Spanish. 
Wikipedia explains the meaning:

In Brazil, traditionally prepared mate is known as _chimarrão_, although the word _mate_ and the expression "mate amargo" (bitter mate) are also used in Argentina and Uruguay. The Spanish _cimarrón_  means "rough", "brute", or "barbarian", but is most widely understood  to mean "feral", and is used in almost all of Latin America for  domesticated animals that have become wild. The word was then used by  the people who colonized the region of the Río de la Plata to describe  the natives' rough and sour drink, drunk with no other ingredient to  soften the taste.



LilianaB said:


> [...] as _samovars_ do. In fact _samovars_  were invented in China and they were designed to cook food as well:  they had three different compartments: for rice, vegetables and water.  The word itself is definitely Slavic, though.


Did you mean the Chinese hot pot? (usually not rice... but noodles or rice gnocchi... and a lot of meat and sometimes seafood too) 
The old traditional hot pot looks a bit like samovars but I'm not sure. It's not usually used to make tea in China. 
These are Chinese tea pots.
I've made a web search for samovar, according to Wikipedia it's Russian, Persian and Turkish.


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## Ghabi

Youngfun said:


> Can I ask what glossary you checked?


Hi again! You can check the reference work entitled 汉语方音字汇 (北京大学, 2003).


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## Ben Jamin

Youngfun said:


> Thanks OBrasilio and Liliana for the information! Finally two languages, Polish and Lithuanian, where the word for tea doesn't derive from Chinese.
> Do _herbata/arba/yerba_ simply mean "herbs"/"herbal drink"?


This is not that simple …  ‘Herbata’ in Polish is derived from ‘herba tea’, where the first element is obviously Latin and the second comes from the same source as  the French, English, Italian name, namely from Chinese. The name resembles a pharmaceutical name in its composition, so it is probable, that some apothecaries who used Latin as their working language made it up.


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## Youngfun

Thanks Ben.
But it's strange that thé and tea [originally] had a /e/ vowel, then it became an "a" in Polish. According to Google Translate, I hear it is pronounced with a final /a/.

It got me confused, because in Italian -ata is a general suffix meaning "made of".
E.g. limonata = limone (lemon) + ata = lemoneade.
aranciata = arancia (orange) + ata = orangeade
peperonata = peperoni (bell peppers) + ata = dish made with bell peppers.


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## berndf

Ben made a tiny mistake which probably confused you: It is actually not _herba tea_ but _herba thea_. _Thea_, "e" and "a" pronounced separately, is a Latinization of _thé_.


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## Youngfun

Thanks berndf, now it's clearer.


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## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> Ben made a tiny mistake which probably confused you: It is actually not _herba tea_ but _herba thea_. _Thea_, "e" and "a" pronounced separately, is a Latinization of _thé_.


If the 'h' was there originally in the latinate name it had no influence on the pronunciation, as 'th' in  latinate names was always pronounced 'as' 't' in Polish (and Italian as well). So the early Polish word must have been 'herbatea', which was quickly contracted to 'herbata', as there is no 'ea' diphthong in Polish. As far as I know there is no 'herb-ata' word in Italian.


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> If the 'h' was there originally in the latinate name it had no influence on the pronunciation, as 'th' in  latinate names was always pronounced 'as' 't' in Polish (and Italian as well).


Sure. The issue was not the "t" but the vowels. The way you spelled it, Youngfun thought of the English and the English pronunciation.


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## Youngfun

Ben Jamin said:


> As far as I know there is no 'herb-ata' word in Italian.


No, but it's a general suffix that could be attached to any word, and form new words easily.



berndf said:


> Sure. The issue was not the "t" but the vowels. The way you spelled it, Youngfun thought of the English and the English pronunciation.


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## OBrasilo

Noone seems to have mentioned that in Japanese, 茶 also has a third reading, still derived from Chinese, _sa_. Maybe early Arabic also got it from the same Chinese dialect(s) the Japanese got the _sa_ reading from, and hence they named it _saax_?" No idea about the final _x_, though.


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## mataripis

OBrasilo said:


> Noone seems to have mentioned that in Japanese, 茶 also has a third reading, still derived from Chinese, _sa_. Maybe early Arabic also got it from the same Chinese dialect(s) the Japanese got the _sa_ reading from, and hence they named it _saax_?" No idea about the final _x_, though.


 I know that in Japan, tea is Chaa but the other form saax is new to me. Maybe saax is chaax that came from japanese Takure.


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## franknagy

In Hungarian : *tea*. _No -h-. The spelling came from English but the word is pronounced not [ti:] but with two clear vowels [te-ah]. _


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## Red Arrow

Sorry for bumping this thread after almost 2 years, but I think I know why thee/thé is written with an H in Dutch and French.

In Standard Chinese (as well as in the dialect where the word tea/thee/thé comes from) there are 2 kinds of T: an aspirated one (like in the English word tea) and an unaspirated one (like in the English word stop). The aspirated one is usually spelled *'t'* in romanized spelling, and the unaspirated one is usually spelled *'d'*. This spelling is clearly based on the English orthography. The 'normal' T is spelled like it should, and the 'strange' T is spelled differently.

In Dutch and French, there is no aspirated T, so for us the unaspirated T is considered 'the normal one' (spelled *'t'*) and the strange aspirated one is spelled *'th'*.


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## berndf

Sure Dutch aplspirates _t_, especially inital _t _(compare the Dutch sound sample for _thee_ in Wiktionary, which even has an extremely strong aspiration). It is true that aspirated _t_ is represented <th> in some transcription systems. But I doubt it plays a role here. I find the theory of a false Graecism, possibly influenced by Malay _teh_ more plausible.


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## Red Arrow

berndf said:


> Sure Dutch aplspirates _t_, especially inital _t _(compare the Dutch sound sample for _thee_ in Wiktionary, which even has an extremely strong aspiration). It is true that aspirated _t_ is represented <th> in some transcription systems. But I doubt it plays a role here. I find the theory of a false Graecism, possibly influenced by Malay _teh_ more plausible.


I don't think you understand what aspiration is. There is no strong breath in your sample, so it is unaspirated, just like in French.
Compare it with the English one for tea. You can clearly hear a strong breath here. This T is aspirated.

Dutch definitely doesn't have aspirated plosives. It is common for (older) Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Flemish people to pronounce English words without any aspiration at all.


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## berndf

Red Arrow :D said:


> I don't think you understand what aspiration is.


I am afraid, I have to give that back. All Germanic languages aspirate inital and execpt in a few southern German dialects, aspiration is even necessary to distinguish /t/ from /d/. Many native speakers of Germanic languages don't perceive aspiration in their own language as such because they perceive lack of aspiration as voicing. The aspiration in the sample is not just strong, it is *very* strong (certainly more than 100 ms; a VOT of 60 ms or more aspiration counts as strong).


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## Red Arrow

berndf said:


> I am afraid, I have to give that back. All Germanic languages aspirate inital and execpt in a few southern German dialects, aspiration is even necessary to distinguish /t/ from /d/. Many native speakers of Germanic languages don't perceive aspiration in their own language as such because they perceive lack of aspiration as voicing. The aspiration in the sample is not just strong, it is *very* strong (certainly more than 100 ms; a VOT of 60 ms or more aspiration counts as strong).


Source?

I don't hear aspiration in Dutch or French, but I do hear a very strong aspiration in English and German. How would you explain that?
You pretend like Dutch consonants are pronounced the same as in German, but then why do native speakers hear a difference? My chemistry teacher had a German accent and couldn't pronounce any voiceless plosive without aspirating it, and my class mates found this very amusing.

I found the following sources on Google Books.
Phonetics and Phonology of Tense and Lax Obstruents in German
Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages
It states that Scottish English, Dutch, Finland Swedish and Westphalian German lost aspirated plosives.

EDIT: It does say that in Northern accents of Dutch, aspiration is preserved. Hmm.... I need to check this.

EDIT: According to this, Germans think the Dutch word _tafel_ sounds like "dafel" due to our lack of aspiration


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## berndf

Red Arrow :D said:


> How would you explain that?


Well, when you don't head it in the sample I quoted then because because you hear less of aspiration as voicing and a certain amount of aspiration as de-voicing. Before I started studying phonetics I also didn't hear aspiration in my own language. I only heard voiced and not voiced. What you are hearing in German and English (I presume you mean British English) is the stronger aspiration in those languages.

I must admit that my estimation of the aspiration strength was very wrong. I have measured it in the meantime and the aspiration is only 30 ms.  That is still very recognizable (at least if you have received some training in phonetics) but considerably shorter than in standard German which is about 60 ms in initial position of stressed syllables. I have taken the recording in in my link above and artificially doubled the aspiration length from 30ms to 60ms by cutting 15ms from the middle of the aspiration and inserted this snippet twice just in front of the voice onset (here). Is that the type of aspiration you hear in English and German?


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## Red Arrow

berndf said:


> Well, when you don't head it in the sample I quoted then because because you hear less of aspiration as voicing and a certain amount of aspiration as de-voicing. Before I started studying phonetics I also didn't hear aspiration in my own language. I only heard voiced and not voiced. What you are hearing in German and English (I presume you mean British English) is the stronger aspiration in those languages.
> 
> I must admit that my estimation of the aspiration strength was very wrong. I have measured it in the meantime and the aspiration is only 30 ms.  That is still very recognizable (at least if you have received some training in phonetics) but considerably shorter than in standard German which is about 60 ms in initial position of stressed syllables. I have taken the recording in in my link above and artificially doubled the aspiration length from 30ms to 60ms by cutting 15ms from the middle of the aspiration and inserted this snippet twice just in front of the voice onset (here). Is that the type of aspiration you hear in English and German?


I still don't hear any aspiration in that sample. This doesn't sound like English or German to me.
This might be a Northern speaker who indeed has a slightly aspirated T, but in that case I really don't hear the difference between 'slightly aspirated' and 'unaspirated'.

Maybe you should ask a French or any non-Germanic speaker what he thinks of the Dutch plosives. I am used to the sounds of Dutch and French because I grew up with those sounds. Foreigners might have a better idea of how Dutch plosives sound like.

And what about the language border in Belgium? I have never heard any Flemish or Walloon person aspirating plosives, but what do you think then? Are there Walloons who aspirate plosives just like in German (and according to you, Dutch), or are there Flemish people who don't aspirate plosives just like in French?


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## Red Arrow

Sorry for double-posting, but I have found a YouTube video with a guy who pronounces words with and without aspiration (starting at 03:15). This might give you a better idea of how it sounds like. An unaspirated T isn't supposed to look like a D.
Also notice that his South-African accent doesn't have aspiration due to the influence of Afrikaans (a daughter language of Dutch).


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## berndf

Red Arrow :D said:


> I still don't hear any aspiration in that sample


This underscores my point: aspirated isn't absent just because you don't hear it. The aspiration length can easily be measured.


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## Red Arrow

I don't feel aspiration either. No one does. This is literally the first time I hear someone say Dutch has aspirated plosives. I have always thought the difference was very obvious, but you make it look like it's some kind of magic. I am baffled, but now I at least understand why Germans have so much trouble with getting rid of their accent. The differences apparently aren't as obvious for everyone.


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## Youngfun

bernd: isn't Dutch notorious for not having aspirated plosives? It's probably an exception among Germanic languages. In Dutch there is a real voiced/unvoiced distinction, similar to Romance languages. 

Btw, I don't hear aspiration in Wiktionary's pronunciation of "thee" either, and my native language (Wu Chinese) has a four-way distinction: voiced, unvoiced unaspirated, unvoiced aspirated + implosives.
But I do hear an aspiration in bernd's modified file... although it sounds different from a Chinese aspirated "t".

Red Arrow: I already talked about that in my previous posts. The Chinese word for tea is not pronounced aspirated in any Chinese dialect. So a faux-greek spelling sounds like the most plausible explanation to me.


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## Red Arrow

Woops, sorry. I read this thread a few months ago and last Sunday I thought I had found the answer, but I forgot to read the thread again.

So yeah, it is probably just to make it look chique, then.


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## fdb

I do not know what “faux-Greek” (as Wikipedia calls it) is supposed to mean.


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## Red Arrow

Faux is French for false.

Faux-Greek spelling is something that is spelled with th, ph or any other typical "Greek" spelling, even though it is not a Greek word.


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## Ben Jamin

Red Arrow :D said:


> Faux is French for false.
> 
> Faux-Greek spelling is something that is spelled with th, ph or any other typical "Greek" spelling, even though it is not a Greek word.


Or is a Greek loan, but the Greek source has no 'th', like Margareth.


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## M Mira

OBrasilo said:


> Noone seems to have mentioned that in Japanese, 茶 also has a third reading, still derived from Chinese, _sa_. Maybe early Arabic also got it from the same Chinese dialect(s) the Japanese got the _sa_ reading from, and hence they named it _saax_?" No idea about the final _x_, though.


Sorry for the slow response:
_sa_ is the regular derivation of Chinese _cha_, c.f. 差&察, chā and chá in Mandarin, sa and satsu in Japanese. The Japanese pronunciation of _cha_ is a later borrowing from the second millennium.


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## Ben Jamin

Red Arrow :D said:


> Faux is French for false.
> 
> Faux-Greek spelling is something that is spelled with th, ph or any other typical "Greek" spelling, even though it is not a Greek word.


Or is a Greek loan, but the Greek source has no 'th', like in Margareth (Margaritari in Greek).


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