I'm confused. In Urdu and Hindi it's "chai" (rhymes with eye) not chay (rhymes with stay)
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
#162Interestingly in my home state of Kerala situated in the south western coast of India. Tea is called Chaaya while tea leaves are called Theyila where ila means leaf. The heavy commercial production of tea was started in Kerala only after the British arrived.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#163In south india Tea is called "theneer" in the Tamil language. I wonder if that's because it came from Sri Lanka as opposed to Northern Indian states.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#164Interestingly in my home state of Kerala situated in the south western coast of India. Tea is called Chaaya while tea leaves are called Theyila where ila means leaf. The heavy commercial production of tea was started in Kerala only after the British arrived.
I thought `Chaaya` could mean 茶叶(chá'yè), while 茶 is the tea and 叶 are the leaves.
The interesting thing here is that the old pronunciation of 茶(cha) was with a long vocal (chaa), whereas 叶(ye) was short and sounded like (ya)
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#165It 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_...
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…
This is so interesting! So your mom grew up in a Marathi family in Guangdong?
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#166Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#167It 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_...
In Portuguese that happens with the word for coffee.
Asking someone during the morning if they had their coffee, means if they had taken the breakfast.
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#168Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#169I'm confused. In Urdu and Hindi it's "chai" (rhymes with eye) not chay (rhymes with stay)
What's the confusion?
Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea
#170Earlier 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…
This is so interesting! So your mom grew up in a Marathi family in Guangdong?
That is such a weird combination.
Most Maharashtrians I know from the previous generation (including my parents) are from Maharashtra, and Maharashtrians have somewhat of a reputation for not wanting to leave Maharashtra.