Almost the same goes for the word Restaurant. Everywhere in the world it's almost the same - except in Russia it is pectopah! :)
Which is pronounced basically the same. Only the 't' at the end is dropped. Same goes for other Slavic languages.
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
#92Any Vietnamese know why Vietnam has "tea" in the middle and "cha" in north or south on the map? I spend 2 months in the north then lived for a few month in Saigon. I never came across people using anything other than "trà" (cha).
What did you mean saying "tea in the middle"? I'm quite sure we Vietnamese only use "chè" or "trà", both variants are basically "cha" I think.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. Looking at the map, there are 6 dots over Vietnam. The 2 in the middle of Vietnam (around Hue and Danang I guess) are pink, for "te" as opposed to the other one which are blue, for "cha".
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#93I'm no Chinese expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found that the Chinese word 茶 (cha) doesn't always necessarily mean tea, but can refer generically to a number of different brewed drinks. e.g. barley tea (大麥茶), ginger tea (薑茶), golden oats tea (燕麥茶), etc. all of which translate to tea, but often contain no tea leaves. It may seem like a nitpick, but when you're in China and order what you expect to be a ginger flavored tea, only to receive a cup of hot water with chopped ginger at the bottom, the distinction can be important. That isn't to say you can't simply order 茶 in China and receive what you would expect, as long as you're expecting green tea. Likewise, if you simply order tea in England, you'll likely receive what the Chinese call 紅茶 (red tea). So in my mind, the words aren't exactly equivalent and I wonder how much the different variations of tea and cha relate to themselves and each other.
Edit: Applied jpatokal's correction.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#94What about "herbata" in Polish then?
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Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#95I'm no Chinese expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found that the Chinese word 茶 (cha) doesn't always necessarily mean tea, but can refer generically to a number of different brewed drinks. e.g. barley tea (大麥茶), ginger tea (薑茶), golden oats tea (燕麥茶), etc. all of which translate to tea, but often contain no tea leaves. It may seem like a nitpick, but when you're in China and order what you expect t…
Nit: Western (black) tea is 紅茶 hongcha, lit. "red tea". Chinese black tea refers to fermented teas like pu-erh, which are not the same thing.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#96Any Vietnamese know why Vietnam has "tea" in the middle and "cha" in north or south on the map? I spend 2 months in the north then lived for a few month in Saigon. I never came across people using anything other than "trà" (cha).
Vietnamese uses both "chè" and "trà". But for some reasons, for things like iced tea, bubble tea we only use "trà". For the traditional tea that serves in a teapot, either is fine.
I forgot about chè, thank you for reminding me. this word is also a desert according to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A8
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#97What about "herbata" in Polish then?
Comes from French "herbe" meaning "grass/plant". "Herbe" is also source for English "herb".
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#98Almost the same goes for the word Restaurant. Everywhere in the world it's almost the same - except in Russia it is pectopah! :)
For those who can't read any Russian, or never read that short story where this is the punchline essentially, pectopah is pronounced restoran. It only drops the T, basically.
> For those who can't read any Russian
That's Cyrillic alphabet, not Russian. Cyrillic is used in other languages as well. I was born in Serbia (which also uses Cyrillic) so I understood the punchline, even though I would hardly say I "read any Russian". It's more of a south and east Slavic thing than it is a Russian thing.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#99In my land it's called chai.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…
I'd never heard of this before. Growing up in rural Scotland, meals were always "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Tea". There was sometimes confusion with other people over whether dinner was a midday or evening meal, but I'd never thought much of it until now.
Thanks, that was very informative.
I was always told that dinner (from "dine") is the main meal of the day. So if you have a 'fancy' afternoon meal that can be your dinner (e.g. we usually do Christmas dinner between 3 and 4).
I wonder if HN knows of a linguistic map for meal names, it appears that these words shift meaning a lot.
EDIT: I thought this was interesting -- "Harvard's Dialect Survey had the question, 'What is the distinction between dinner and supper?' Here's the geographic distribution of their results from 10,661 American respondents" https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/22446/lunch-vs-d...