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Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

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Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#31

Post by kriro »

kybernetikos wrote: post #25
Mikeb85 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A steeped beverage from non-tea herbs isn't tea.

This is not true from a language/ word usage point of view. E.g https://www.amazon.co.uk/dandelion-tea/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i...

Well yes the term tea is used "in the wrong way" a lot and one could argue that it is common enough that it's the right usage these days (language evolves etc.). But technically tea is only from camelia sinensis varieties. So the "herbal teas" should technically be called something else like tisane.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#32

Post by bitcoinusername »

richardknop wrote: post #26

In Slovak tea is caj (ignoring diacritics, or "čaj" as written properly, it's just I have English keyboard and diacritics is hard to use on it). And it’s pronounced as “chaj”. So very similar to cha. And it turns out Slovakia is a landlocked country. Just one data point but seems to be additional evidence.

In Croatia it is "čaj". Although it has a coast on Adriatic and coastal people use "čaj" as a word too, despite Italian influence (which uses tè for tea). Even people on islands that were influenced hugely by the Republic of Venice.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#34

Post by sean-duffy »

olau wrote: post #28
kawsper wrote: post #17

It can also refer to food like lunch or dinner which the danish school system did not prepare me for in their english lessons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)#Tea_as_the_evening_...

Ahem, my English book certainly featured a story about a worker kid coming home from school and having some kind of grub "for tea" at 5 pm, i.e. food with tea as the drink. My understanding was that this usage referred to a meal eaten in the evening, i.e. not lunch. Your link seems to confirm that. My grandmother used to serve tea for the evening meal when there were no guests other than her little grandson. But that…

To be clear, "tea" in almost all cases doesn't imply the meal will be served with tea. It's just a name for the evening meal in the north of England.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#36

Post by smcl »

bitcoinusername wrote: post #32
richardknop wrote: post #26

In Slovak tea is caj (ignoring diacritics, or "čaj" as written properly, it's just I have English keyboard and diacritics is hard to use on it). And it’s pronounced as “chaj”. So very similar to cha. And it turns out Slovakia is a landlocked country. Just one data point but seems to be additional evidence.

In Croatia it is "čaj". Although it has a coast on Adriatic and coastal people use "čaj" as a word too, despite Italian influence (which uses tè for tea). Even people on islands that were influenced hugely by the Republic of Venice.

I'm curious - was the Croat language (or some parent of it) pretty predominant during the times of the Republic of Venice? Or is that a "new" thing after the unification of Yugoslavia, and prior to that Italian (or some Venetian dialect) was widely spoken?

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#38

Post by ant6n »

richardknop wrote: post #26

In Slovak tea is caj (ignoring diacritics, or "čaj" as written properly, it's just I have English keyboard and diacritics is hard to use on it). And it’s pronounced as “chaj”. So very similar to cha. And it turns out Slovakia is a landlocked country. Just one data point but seems to be additional evidence.

I'd say all Slavic languages use that word.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#39

Post by ljf »

sean-duffy wrote: post #34
olau wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahem, my English book certainly featured a story about a worker kid coming home from school and having some kind of grub "for tea" at 5 pm, i.e. food with tea as the drink. My understanding was that this usage referred to a meal eaten in the evening, i.e. not lunch. Your link seems to confirm that. My grandmother used to serve tea for the evening meal when there were no guests other than her little grandson. But that…

To be clear, "tea" in almost all cases doesn't imply the meal will be served with tea. It's just a name for the evening meal in the north of England.

As a kid in Sheffield I understood it as 'dinner' was your hot meal whenever you might have it, and tea was a lighter meal. So many kids had a hot meal at school (school dinner) and then went home for tea.
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