The Real Reason Tea Only Has Two Names

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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Tea Cha & Chai: www.vahdam.com...
Why The World Only Has Two Words For Tea: qz.com/1176962...
The Word Tea Reveals Its History: theculturetrip...
Laphet: viss.wordpress...
Types Of Tea: teapeople.co.u...

[@NameExplain]

What is the word for tea on your language?

[@golden_polonia]

herbata (Polish) or tij (Silesian)

[@nisargshukla]

Chaha in Marathi, Chaa in Gujarati, Chai in Hindi

[@MsJPA79]

In Macedonian we call it caj (pronounced chai).

[@Claro1993]

Tsaa, but pronounced as “cha-ah”for the Philippine language especially Tagalog.

[@GumSkyloard]

Chá, in Portuguese. Because hah.

[@zybridhawiwi5957]

In Polish, there is a catch: tea is called "herbata", with a Latin root related simply to herbs... quite strange considering the leafy appearance of tea.

[@zybridhawiwi5957]

@miniWiron Sure! Polish is at the crossroads of influences (cha and te), but why bother with some Latin 😂 Sounds so Renaissance!

[@babywigeon]

interesting!

[@DDomjosa]

Same in Lithuania, "arbata"

[@xenamorphwinner7931]

@@DDomjosa Kas supras, tas supras.

[@NameExplain]

Interesting! Polish seems to so often go it’s own way with words.

[@GumSkyloard]

"Tea if by sea, Cha if by land" Portugal: Hah, that's funny mate.

[@Relic58]

On my language, we call tea "cha". The problem with this is that our country is sea-locked.

[@davidfreeman3083]

Well Macau was already Portuguese I believe by that time.

[@DarthFhenix55]

@@Relic58 Isn't that completely fine with what the other person said?

[@mingthan7028]

Nope. Wow, it seems almost all the languages have borrowed and used only tea, herbt from Europe and chá from China. Except us. Our Burmese have our own name လက်ဖက် (Læk Phæk, ipa: : /ləpʰɛʔ/) for tea. May be becz tea is our native herbs. လက်ဖက် roughly means hand-leaf (or) the leaf

[@leopiccionia]

@@davidfreeman3083 While Macau was a Portuguese trading post since the 1550s (while the Portuguese paid duties and annual leases to the Chinese emperor), Macau became a Portuguese colony only in 1887, after the Second Opium War.

[@fjfjfjfjfjfjfj7]

Japanese tea is actually called cha. “O” of Ocha is something like a prefix, witch add politeness or respect.

[@elinakangas571]

politeness and respect towards tea?

[@3ekaust]

@@elinakangas571 towards whomever you are talking about tea to.

[@numburger]

お茶 (ocha)

[@3ekaust]

Proof that tea is "cha" in japanese is the names of their teas like "sencha" "kukicha" "matcha" not "ocha" but "cha" as the root of the word.

[@shu93129]

Yep, that's right!

[@BlackTomorrowMusic]

This was fascinating. Thank you for being such a great tea-cha.

[@MetalheadBen88]

Underrated comment. *tries to rate higher*

[@battlepans1927]

@@MetalheadBen88 exactly. This is actually a completely gold commenr

[@fh6560]

That made laugh, obviously needs more likes 👍

[@slomo4672]

You are a genius!

[@meyhanf]

_ba-dum-tss_

[@Ray_Vun]

western europe: we're gonna call this hot drink "tea" portugal: don't tell me what to do

[@king_halcyon]

Portugal, my friend! For the Dutch copying a bad dialect of Chinese, all of the Occident except Portugal and Japan erroneously says "tea", when the real one is Cha, or Sa.

[@samgyeopsal569]

@@king_halcyon it’s not a “bad dialect”. The Hokkien pronunciation is “tê” and it is closer to the Middle Chinese pronunciation where it was pronounced ɖˠa.

[@mingthan7028]

Wow, it seems almost all the languages have borrowed and used only tea, herbt from Europe and chá from China. Except us. Our Burmese have our own name လက်ဖက် (Læk Phæk, ipa: : /ləpʰɛʔ/) for tea. May be becz tea is our native herbs. လက်ဖက် roughly means hand-leaf (or) the leaf

[@ernestpapaki279]

Portugal is balkan that's why

[@luisandrade2254]

In Portugal we always learned that the word tea was an acronyms to avoid taxes. This was rather anti climatic

[@fabioalbert101]

Que significaria o quê?

[@luisandrade2254]

@@fabioalbert101 transporte de ervas aromáticas

[@geometryjumpfl2784]

verdade ensinaram-me essa treta também

[@CleberCFros]

E segundo essa história ,quando chegou essa mercadoria junto com as coisas da futura rainha Catarina de Bragança, assim os ingleses adotaram o hábito de tomar essas ervas aromáticas, daí o tea aqui no Reino Unido

[@pauvermelho]

No one teach that in school for sure. BICA -Beba isto com açúcar é outro mito

[@Menion98]

Ocha in Japanese, the “o” is respectful languages that is often used on foods and some are so common that they become their own words. Sushi is often osushi, although it is still just called sushi as well. Ocha is always Ocha though.

[@cathalryan4672]

So whats a cheerio

[@babywigeon]

そうそう。like cold water could be “mizu” or “omizu”

[@kaitlyn__L]

I was just about to say this! I don’t remember what anime this is now, but I remember really liking a scene where someone offers some “o-kohi” and is told “coffee doesn’t need an honorific”.

[@OsakaJoe01]

Except when 茶 is itself a prefix, such as 茶道 where it's "sado" or "chado," not "ochado."

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@OsakaJoe01 isn’t that just the kanji for the same honorific?

[@VeraDonna]

Two curiosities about the only western european country who calls it "chá": - It was a portuguese queen (Catherine of Braganza, Charles' II wife) who made tea a popular drink in the UK. - Portugal has the oldest and largest tea plantation in Europe, in the middle of the Atlantic, in the Azores islands.

[@yohannessulistyo4025]

Portugal's underrated contribution to the world: Introduce potato, tobacco, chili, ananas, and many other things from new world (Americas) to the whole world. Re-introduce gunpowder applications back to East Asia. Also western music, religion, culture, and so on.

[@JoseHiggor]

@@yohannessulistyo4025 but they stole our gold 🤓 🤓 🤓

[@bimbolineldson2821]

@@JoseHiggor Said José Higgor Guajajara, a native.

[@usuario12346]

@@yohannessulistyo4025 Some of those were introduced by Spain (like potatoes, which originated in Peru and Bolivia).

[@usuario12346]

@@JoseHiggor Also your country exists thanks to them.

[@anthonyli5589]

Chinese linguistic theories state that all ch- sounds in Chinese languages originate from t- sounds. So in theory, nearly all names of tea (in general) come from "tea" (the t- sound) itself. Yes, and so 茶 and 荼 should originally have more similar pronunciations in the past. Cantonese pronunciations of 茶 and 荼 are "cha" and "tow" btw

[@BlueMeeple]

This! Your post should be more highly voted. Just watched a splendid video about history of southern min and how it has more direct contact with old Chinese instead of middle Chinese (unlike many of the other Chinese languages), one big difference being exactly with t and ch sounds.

[@loltim2109]

​@@BlueMeeple Same. I watched a recent video that mentions these by channel FunChineseHistory.

[@Zz7722zZ]

True, a lot of Hokkien words that begin with ‘T’ sound are ‘Ch’ or ‘Zh’ in mandarin.

[@slomo4672]

你解决了我看佛经时遇到的一个问题。有些佛经音译一个梵文名字时用茶，有些佛经用荼。如果两字在古代读音类似，这就可以理解了。

[@UltiBlue]

When Catherine of Braganza arrived in England, she brought a lot of tea, as she loved it. The tea came in boxes of the company: Transporte Ervas Aromáticas (portuguese for Transport of Aromatic Erbs), marked as T.E.A. and the british thought that was how it was called. Just a fun legend I heard.

[@stefanoraz27]

wouldn't it be T.A.E. tho

[@miguelpadeiro762]

@@stefanoraz27 No because something coming from Portugal would be labeled in Portuguese (T.E.A.), not the English translation (T.A.E.)

[@Heavy-metaaal]

Interessante isso.

[@nurgio317]

@@stefanoraz27 no bro it was in portuguese

[@cristiano7541]

@@stefanoraz27 abbreviations aren't translated you don't see other languages doing it

[@nekomarulupin]

Interesting fact about Japan: They use both depending on the variety. Cha is usually for tea from Japan or China, while tea is used for herbal or western varieties.

[@skazka3789]

Based Japan

[@user-tw1dg9jr1m]

Yes, another pronunciation of tea in Japanese is Za which comes from Wu Chinese Zo/Dzo

[@novajuice1]

op probably mean ティー (tī), which is borrowed from the english word tea. it is used when the drink has a more western influence to it. For example, iced tea is アイスティー (aisu-tī), as preparing tea cold is a western innovation. Also note the katakana spelling that marks the word as foreign in origin.

[@lapprentice]

In Vietnamese, bordered south of China, we have both of those words in our language. We have "Trà" in our southern Vietnam dialect and "Chè" in our northern Vietnam Dialect. Both mean Tea.

[@trien30]

Love trà đá ("iced tea" in Vietnamese.) Never knew where the native Vietnamese word for tea, which is chè, came from. Trà is derived from 茶, "cha", the Chinese word for tea. I would suspect trà in Vietnamese, to be a mishearing of the Chinese pronunciation, and then used as is. I have seen a few Vietnamese words like this.

[@minhnguyenphanhoang4193]

​@@trien30 I wouldn't say misheard but the word changes as we migrate to the south. And chè is repurpose for something else.

[@byevincent]

I had thought chè referred to the desert. I live in the US with limited knowledge of vietnamese and with family from the south

[@annabellethedoll3764]

Theo mình nghĩ thì chè có thể xuất phát từ tiếng Quảng Đông hoặc Phúc Kiến, còn trà thì chắc chắn là từ tiếng Bắc Kinh

[@lapprentice]

@@byevincent "chè" in southern dialect means desert just like what you mentioned. In the northern dialect, "chè" means tea. There are considerable vocabulary differences between all the Vietnamese regional dialects. Most of the Vietnamese in US originated from the South (Sai Gon), hence the main Vietnamese dialect used in America is Southern Dialect. :)

[@felipeberlim3587]

As a Brazilian, I’ve always wanted to know why the name for “tea” in Portuguese was so different from other European languages, specially Spanish, a language with common roots to my mother tongue. Thank you very much!

[@noobsaibot2195]

as a brazilian = 👽

[@tanhaoze]

I thought i was because Portugese had Macau which contact with Chinese Cantonese part for a long time

[@Satin_Persona_Latina]

deve ser pq os espanhóis foi influenciado pela outra parte como os outros como foi dito no vídeo. por isso os mesmos diz "té"

[@Rafael-xw3ln]

outro motivo dos outros países dizerem 'tea' é por causa dos portugueses, que levavam as ervas que compravam nas índias em caixas com T.E.A. (transporte de ervas aromáticas) escrito nelas, assim, ao vender as ervas aos ingleses para fazerem chá, os ingleses liam o que dizia na caixa e assumiam que a bebida se chamava 'tea'

[@Satin_Persona_Latina]

@@Rafael-xw3ln interessante mano

[@me0101001000]

The Hindi isn't che, but chai, there's a dipthong. But the point stands. And in Japanese, it's still "cha". "Ocha" is a more formal way of saying it.

[@TheGreatgan]

The o could mean plain/black as the language of minaan/hokian, the ligua franca of China before the northern tribe took over.. However the way tea was prepared evolved in japan, hence its no longer means black.. thou, the other usage (plain) still fits well

[@me0101001000]

@@TheGreatgan I do not know any minaan or hokkien, but I have studied japanese, and I have never heard any mention of that before. Similar to sushi, you say osushi in formal situations. But, this could relate to something that I do not yet know. So tell me more, if you're able!

[@finnsalsa9304]

@@TheGreatgan The o- is just an honorific marker. In Japanese "ocha" is written お茶 with an alternative spelling 御茶, and that 御 most definitely is just an honorific marker. Funnily enough saying "ocha" isn't particularly polite in modern Japanese, it's just how the name of the drink has evolved. However, saying just "cha" is considered impolite.

[@TheGreatgan]

@@me0101001000 its just a speculation from my part, as japanese culture n language are heavily influenced by china.. especially before the ming dynasties. And as the speaker of hokien (whom are closer to that old ligua franca), thats is how i think.. O-peng, means plain with ice.. n o-cha means plain black tea. But i do also aware o were honorific, like how they use for O-sensei.. how it was related or mere coincidence, i had no idea

[@TheGreatgan]

@@finnsalsa9304 can you explain, what cause O to be added into sushi as honorific marker?? I mean, its just a type of food right.. i am not questioning for the sake of debate thou.. merely curious

[@TheLucidDreamer12]

Tea and Cha are both the same character 茶 in Standard Chinese (literary form of both the Minnan language "tea" originates and "cha" from Mandarin)

[@novajuice1]

Yes, tea and cha are just different pronunciations of the same morpheme, only having experienced different sound changes (which is why there are now distinct varieties of chinese that sounds different). And therefore both tea and cha would be spelled as 茶 in their respective varieties if they were to be written. However saying that the literary form of Minnan languages is standard chinese, is kinda misleading. it is true that the standard chinese is based in Mandarin, but it doesn't mean that written Mandarin correlates to the spoken form of Minnan. it is simply that due to china's language policy, Mandarin, its spoken form together with its written is promoted and has largely replaced other varieties that were previously used. it has only been ~ a century that mandarin is commonly used in writing, before then, an older variety called classical/literary chinese (文言) was used in writing.

[@TheLucidDreamer12]

@@novajuice1 all forms of Chinese use Standard Chinese as their literary form. Songs sung in Hokkien and Cantonese are written in Standard Chinese as it's seen as poetic. Only a handful of songs in both are written in the colloquial forms, like 半斤八两 (Cantonese).

[@novajuice1]

@@TheLucidDreamer12 i have already stated that the written "standard chinese" only have a relatively short history, and the standardized form of modern "standard chinese" is heavily based on mandarin chinese. The 新文學運動/白話文運動 (part of the May fourth movement) from the 1910's onwards aimed to created a written register that more closely mimics the spoken language (我手寫我口), but for many reasons only the mandarin based written variety has managed to stay. Historically, spoken varieties were not written down, and only the literary register, which tries to mimic 上古漢語 (old chinese) in vocabulary and grammar, was written. Most chinese varieties simply do not have an established written form, and as a result "standard chinese" has a monopoly over written chinese content, but this does not mean all chinese has "standard chinese" as its literary form, it means that among chinese varieties, only mandarin has an established written form, and as a result, written chinese stands for written "standard chinese" by default.

[@samgyeopsal569]

@@TheLucidDreamer12 what do you mean? Songs sung in Hokkien are actually using Hokkien words and grammar. They just borrow some characters from Mandarin but the words are Hokkien. For example “甲” (kah) is used instead of 與 and 和 meaning “and”.

[@AlvinZorDi]

In The Philippines, which is right by the south eastern coast of China, we call it TSAA, pronounced like cha-a 🇵🇭 🍵

[@darkkestrel1]

likely from Cantonese instead of Mandarin :)

[@Bro1774]

@@darkkestrel1 its from hokkien

[@treenhol5724]

In Kazakh language it's "Шай" (pronounced like Shai). Also, I know that in Russian it's just "Чай "(Chay)

[@weijiafang1298]

I am not familiar with Kazakh, but according to _Transliteration of Kazakh Proper Nouns into Chinese_ (1982), Kazakh originally did not differentiate between ш and ч, with the latter only used in loan words.

[@pesetmekyokkacssart7483]

Biz Çay deriz.

[@Deadbass_]

Everybody else: chá or te Poland: *h e r b a t a*

[@İzmir_city_state_republic]

Some of poland rip offs uses it too. Like belarus or lithuenia

[@user-tw1dg9jr1m]

9:10 One thing to add, is that the portugese didn't trade with Mandarin speaking people like other "Cha" nations did, but with Cantonese speaking people who coincidentally also uses Cha

[@alanjyu]

That would make sense because they set up a trading post in Macao near Hong Kong. That's Cantonese-speaking territory.

[@mingthan7028]

Wow, it seems almost all the languages have borrowed and used only tea, herbt from Europe and chá from China. Except us. Our Burmese have our own name လက်ဖက် (Læk Phæk, ipa: : /ləpʰɛʔ/) for tea. May be becz tea is our native herbs. လက်ဖက် roughly means hand-leaf (or) the leaf

[@xyes]

Back then, it's unlikely the standard Mandarin spoken but all in their respective local dialects, whichever part the Dutch trade with, other than those from Fujian province, they'd hear Cha instead of Teh.

[@user-tw1dg9jr1m]

@@xyes But Wu language are Dzo/Zo

[@xyes]

No idea the real sound back then, even modern Cantonese has already evolved, some ancient sounds no longer pronounced.

[@user-pt1te8sn6l]

Japanese pronunciation of 茶 used to be tya, which descends from middle Chinese [ɖa] or its voiceless version [ʈa]. Its shift from [tya] to [tɕia] (romanized as "cha") is its internal palatalization happened much later. The same for Korean language. Classified by its "etymology", they should be in "tea" group because t->ch happened after they got the word, different from those taken from Mandarin Chinese "cha" after ʈa->tʃa took place in Mandarin in 12th century.

[@helenbarry3760]

Thank you for having New Zealand on your map. You would be surprised how often it's omitted from maps :(

[@generrosity]

Thankfully he does realize we have some interesting language variations down here. And he looked up māori usage!

[@minaballerina]

my cousins from new zealand moved to the us and decorated their apartment with a wall map they found that missed out nz haha. embracing it

[@crusaderanimation6967]

As a Pole i know that pain, Poland was ommited from all maps for 123 years !

[@helenbarry3760]

@@crusaderanimation6967 Yes. But at least you could see the land on the map not just a blank piece of sea. Poland has had a hard history. (My own dad was captured in the Battle of Crete and was a P.O.W. in Poland in WWII for 4 years.)

[@stellviahohenheim]

Rename New Zealand to Middle Earth and nobody would forget you guys ever again

[@gan247]

‘Tay’ (IPA: teɪ) is the actual pronunciation in the Hokkien (Fujian) region in China, where tea was traded through the ports there. I believe ‘tay’ is an older word than ‘cha’ because the Hokkien language diverged, alongside Middle Chinese, from Old Chinese. On the other hand, Mandarin language diverged from Middle Chinese. In fact, the creation of the Chinese character for tea mentioned in this video came from the Tang Dynasty that used Middle Chinese. After the fall of the Tang, the heir established the Min kingdom in the Hokkien region. The use of the word ‘teh’ for tea in ‘parts of Asia’, i.e. South East Asia, could not be credited to Dutch rule. The Chinese have long been in around the region, hundreds of years before the arrival of the Europeans. Somehow, somewhere, along the way the pronunciation of ‘tay’ got ‘bastardised’ to become tea in English.

[@gustafmannerheim9720]

Good point. That's probly why the Portuguese got the cha sound from the actual chinese, while dutch got it from the Hokkien emigrants.

[@samgyeopsal569]

In Hokkien it’s tê IPA: te. No “I” in the back. And according to wiktionary, tea is “Circa 1650, from Dutch thee, from Min Nan 茶 (tê) (Amoy dialect)”. Also the “thee” is actually very close to the Hokkien pronunciation.

[@MrBeiragua]

Those words are certainly the same age, because they came from a common ancestor word. I saw an amazing video about Hokkien and one comparison the video made between it and other Chinese dialects is that Hokkien didn't palatalize many words, while the northern dialects did. So "t"s became "tch"s. We can imagine a a middle Chinese word "Ta" becoming "tay" in Hokkien, and "Cha" in Mandarin. I'm not sure that that's the original word, but something like this certainly happened.

[@Despotic_Waffle]

Yeah, that annoyed me in this video. Proof of this is seen in Malay and Indonesian where its pronounced as Teh ("Tayh" like in the name Taylor)

[@gan247]

@@samgyeopsal569 ah… I’m not good in applying the different vowels using the IPA. I copied it from another comment, thinking that it should be correct. Feeling embarrassed now as an overseas native Hokkien speaker.

[@ppenmudera4687]

The Dutch word for tea is 'thee', which is actually pronounced like 'tay' in English spelling (IPA: te: ~ teɪ)

[@New_Wave_Nancy]

The French (thé) and Spanish words (té) are prounounced "tay" as well.

[@saulcontrerasOfficial]

@@New_Wave_Nancy it's more like teh without the y diphthong, but yeah. I think it's only pronounced "tee" in English.

[@mattt.4395]

I thank thee for that information. Thou art very smart.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

English used to pronounce it like that as well but the pronunciation shifted as part of the "great vowel shift".

[@madgoblin464]

Which is closer to the real min pronunciation.

[@derhavas]

In general the German word for tea is Tee. But if you encounter purists they will gladly tell you that "real tea" is _only_ made from tea leaves. While herbal tea is correctly called "Aufguss" - which translates directly to something like "pour-on". Obviously referring to hot water being poured on some herbs. But incidentally "Aufguss" also refers to the act of pouring cold water on the hot stones of a sauna ; )

[@flp322]

The French are quite particular about that - they refer to herbal teas strictly as ‘infusions’.

[@hatsuharuboi]

Portuguese also has this 'rule'... chá and infusão... but everybody really only uses chá... even if its a infusion of garlic and lemon

[@Drymedell]

This is exactly what I thought the video was about - how did the name of the tea plant came to refer to "teas" made of every other plant?

[@Programmdude]

Herbal infusions are fine, I personally quite like liquorice ones. But it's not tea. Tea needs to be made from tea leaves, not just random plants you find.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

I see a lot of specific tea products sold as "chai," and I hear a lot of people refer to them as "chai tea," which makes it a kind of tautological name. I don't know if this is considered "correct" by anyone, or if it's one of those little extras that people add on, like "ATM machine" or "PIN number" or "deja vu all over again."

[@milanmach2379]

Chai tea is basically used as a term for masala, i.e. a milky spiced tea, in the anglosphere. So while etymologically it's a tautology, semantically it stands on its own.

[@MilitechCorp]

@@milanmach2379 Not always true, here in Russia regular tea is called chai.

[@satyakisil9711]

@@MilitechCorp Russia is (fortunately) not in the Anglosphere.

[@MilitechCorp]

@@satyakisil9711 I wish it was, so I wouldn't be under Russian occupation.

[@MilitechCorp]

@@milanmach2379 Didn't notice the anglosphere part, sorry.

[@annuwazdmz1131]

Finally, Burmese " Lahpet " got its honourable mention! Funfact: We are probably the only ones who also EAT the tea ( on a national scale) , in addition to drinking it. Search " Tea Leaf Salad". It's a delicacy.

[@marcsanderm]

I have seen tea used as an ingredient in different dishes while travelling through Yunnan province, China, but considering it borders Myanmar, I guess the food shares some similarities.

[@doubled7302]

In Spanish, herbal or fruit tea is called “infusión” or “aromática” depending on the country while all other teas are simply “té”. Also, “teína” is used to mean the caffeine from tea or tea-ine.

[@elaowczarczyk7143]

Literally the entire world: Cha or Tea Meanwhile Polish: *H E R B A T A*

[@NikkiTheViolist]

I like how Portugal is different than most the rest of Europe

[@MrCr00wn]

herbata in polish

[@TransportGeekery]

Presumably the Portuguese have “cha” because they had a more deeper relationship with Chinese culture earlier than most other European colonialists and thus had a chance to delve deeper or be exposed to more dialectical forms?

[@miguelpadeiro762]

Basically we were best buddies with China, beat up their pirates, didn't have to conquer their cities, they instead gifted us Macau for crippling piracy off the Chinese coast. And we got there in the early-mid 16th century We even traded guns with the Japanese...even though they called us smelly and big nosed So we brought chá back to Portugal and even introduced it to England via our princess later queen-consort of England, but for some reason they decided to call it tea

[@SantomPh]

the Portuguese sent Jesuits to stay in China , learn the language and translate the Bible into the local languages. This meant Portuguese people had been as far as the Forbidden City and mixed in with the locals. Other colonials tended to build separate towns and settlements and only sparingly meet with the locals. Those like the British and the French in general never wanted to learn anything from China, and while the Portuguese were also commercially minded, they tried to learn as much as they could about China and other East Asian peoples.

[@jeepyyyy]

Its because Portuguese got it from Macau, who spoke cantonese, which used Cha, from where Portuguese used Chá

[@satyakisil9711]

Naah, they just happened to arrive at the place where cha was spoken by the people. The Dutch used the Hokkien tay word instead.

[@hkezbbpb]

Fun fact i polish are both words are used. Normal tea to drink is "herbata" from herbs tea and ultra strong concentrated is "czaj" from chay.

[@MatheusOliveira-dk9zq]

In Brazil, because there is a hard culture around coffee tea isn't a waking up drink but instead a tasty water with native herbs that help you sleep.

[@Omouja]

Diga por você! amo chá... Inclusive prefiro chá do que café, e conheço muitos brasileiros que pensam o mesmo.

[@ericshimizukarbstein6885]

A fun fact, Tupí and Guaraní languages have their original word for tea since they also had native herbs that go well with infusion, the mate herb, the word they used was "ca-aí" or "ka-aí", although it looks close to "cha" because of the beginning of the word, it actually comes from "caá"/"kaá" that means herd and "aí" that is usually used as "infusion", also related to the folkloric entity Caápora (Caipora in modern folklore in Brazil) the protector of plants and animals.

[@tyemich8820]

The Russian name for tea, "chay" rhymes with "my". The word "chey" would actually mean "whose"

[@Claro1993]

In the Philippine language it’s a hybrid between tea and cha but falls more on the latter: “Tsaa” prounouned as Cha-ah.

[@Claro1993]

@MilkBottle 牛乳びん RIP Techno True, but spelled with a letter T.

[@titetitetite4782]

Lol. Its basically Cha spelled in Filipino. Cha was introduced in the Philippine archipelago in pre-colonial times. Old Filipino writing system (eg. baybayin) doesn't have the "Ch" so they use "Ts" instead, which sounds just the same. Eventually, Chinese "Cha" became "Tsa-a". Idk if you're Filipino or what, but they teach these spelling topics in primary school throughout the country. For example: Teacher (english) = Titser (filipino), Chocolate (english) = Tsokolate (filipino).

[@darkkestrel1]

@@titetitetite4782 chances are tsaa comes from cantonese "caa4" (now pronounced /t͡sʰäː²¹/). Which makes sense because there are some major cantonese ports from which the tea traders could have come from And it should be noted that ts>ch is a relatively recent phonetic evolution in Tagalog

[@jerryberry5480]

@@titetitetite4782 Why is your username like that haha

[@antonialowell7104]

In Anishinaabemowin, around the great lakes of North America, it's called niibiishaaboo, meaning "leaf water/soup/liquid", or sometimes just aniibiish (leaf)

[@a.maskil9073]

You really skimped on the research as to how to pronounce the tea and cha alternate words 😅

[@rockbarcellos]

In portuguese on top of it being "chá" the CH is pronounced like SH, so it's pronounced "shah"

[@meninofonseca6970]

In Portuguese ch was originally pronounced as tch. Maybe some French influence changed the pronounciation. In Trás Os Montes Portugal ch is still pronounced as tch.

[@ethandouro4334]

@@meninofonseca6970 Está Tchovendo

[@meninofonseca6970]

@@ethandouro4334 m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/iISUaY1pgtt3gNk

[@rockbarcellos]

@@meninofonseca6970 interesting! It's cool because it could either be because they preserved the old form there or maybe it was influenced by the spanish perhaps? Thanks for sharing

[@starry_lis]

@@meninofonseca6970 it's just a natural sound change that happened in various languages. French, Portuguese, Russian. It's probably happening in Silesian and Ukrainian right now.

[@nzkvack]

I was drinking a cup of tea while watching this, but only noticed how appropriate that was at the end of the cup / video.

[@sohopedeco]

Wait, they don't call it "chá" in Angola and Mozambique?

[@SantomPh]

because they both speak Portuguese?

[@abeldias3616]

They do in portuguese speaking areas

[@samwill7259]

Careful, or the British Empire might colonize this video for tea supply.

[@modmaker7617]

Name Explain is already British.

[@isabel_aav]

Great video! Just an observation: In Portuguese the pronunciation of the word "chá" is more like "shah". Letters "c" and "h" together make the sound of "sh" (and letter "x" can also sound like that, depending on the situation). And the letter "a" is pronounced a bit more "open", at least here in Brazil, maybe in Portugal it sounds like you said it.

[@elrui]

In Portugal the sound is also more like Sha with an open sounded and accented A :)

[@Omouja]

Muita informação num comentário só kkkk, seria mt mais simples vc apenas falar que era pronunciado como sha kk. Em Portugal o "A" é aberto também, aliás, o acento no "a" está ali especialmente pra eles, ja que se não estivesse eles pronunciariam diferente

[@meninofonseca6970]

In Portuguese originally ch was pronounced as tch. Maybe some French influence changed the pronounciation of ch. In Trás Os Montes Portugal ch is still pronounced as tch.

[@meninofonseca6970]

In Portuguese originally ch was pronounced as tch. Maybe some French influence changed the pronounciation of ch. In Trás Os Montes Portugal ch is still pronounced as tch.

[@kori228]

the Japanese ocha is a polite prefix and an irregular devoicing of older (likely influenced by mainland Chinese cha, but idk for sure)

[@AdriaanZwemer]

7:54: No, it's thee. "Thee" is pronounced like "tay."

[@Claro1993]

That falls under the “tea” category.

[@AdriaanZwemer]

@@Claro1993 yes, he however at that timestamp says we call it tea.

[@Liggliluff]

This is why using IPA helps clarify it

[@ShaqItGood]

Interesting. Most of the Chinese migrants in the Philippines were from Fujian but we use a variation of cha (tsaa in Tagalog, pronounced as ‘cha-ah’). It did not even changed to ‘té’ during Spanish period.

[@iulian96c]

I'm Romanian and our word for tea is "ceai" which falls into cha category. I usually don't drink tea or at least green or black tea but I really like mint tea like putting mint leaves that grows nearby and brew them.

[@morceen]

Arabs drink black tea with mint leaves. Is that what you too do? Or is it just mint leaves but you call it tea?

[@rateeightx]

1:05 Just gonna mention that most of the other "Tea" words are pronounced more like "Tay" or "Teh" would be in English, I know that's the case for the French and Italian ones (And the Welsh, Which isn't mentioned here), Although not sure for others.

[@Patroclus27]

From Maritime Southeast Asia here. We call it Teh not Tea. Teh is what it’s called in southern min. Pronounced dtay Except Philippines. They call it tsaa

[@DrFerno727]

Teh is what i write when I'm writing "the" too fast

[@ra_alf9467]

Well, almost. Here in Sumatera we called it "Te"

[@JTan74]

Here in the Philippines, Filipinos call it Tsa-a (Cha-a). The local Chinese however call it Té (short E), because the Chinese-Filipinos mostly came from Amoy and speak the Hokkien dialect.

[@MrBeiragua]

The japanese "ocha" is just the word "Cha" prefixed with a particle for politeness. The same is done in "o-hashi" for chopsticks, "o-genki?" for greeting, "o-shikko" for a grandma trying to say "pee" in a polite way. The modern day Portuguese pronunciation of "Cha" is like English "shah", not "tchah".

[@oanaomg7298]

Ok, I don’t speak Japanese, I only took a few lessons at work in the past. But I assume ‘o’ in in ‘ocha’ is the honorific particle (probably bad choice of words) that’s also found in ‘omizu’ - water.

[@walker_andrej]

There's a third one: Lithuania/Poland- Arbata or Herbata😅

[@DJPJ.]

Was gonna write that.

[@tomaszbrewka]

Was looking for this comment

[@marekurbaniak1164]

+1

[@Syiepherze]

The "-ta" at the end is cognate with all the te words, so there's still just two 😅

[@MrHanciak]

That's true but it also comes from the word te, in Polish it's the combination of the word herba (latin for plant/herb) and te

[@HalfEye79]

In German the word for tea is "Tee". The most drunken teas for me are peppermint tea and lemon tea, followed by camomile tea.

[@fmac6441]

In Brazil the word "chá" is used to designate any types of infusion.

[@phs125]

My state language (kannada) calls it "Chaha" But my district has many other languages, almost all of them call it "chaaya" because the H sound is harder for us. But in ordinary speaking, it gets further shortened to "Cha" Doing the full 360. A popular phrase in Tulu (a local language) is "Bale cha parka" (Come, let's drink tea)

[@mingthan7028]

Wow, it seems almost all the languages have borrowed and used only tea, herbt from Europe and chá from China. Except us. Our Burmese have our own name လက်ဖက် (Læk Phæk, ipa: : /ləpʰɛʔ/) for tea. May be becz tea is our native herbs. လက်ဖက် roughly means hand-leaf (or) the leaf

[@sasmalprasanjit2764]

Actually it's called CHA in all of India.. Except Tamil Nadu as Tenir and CHAI in Delhi Side. . Rest India call it as CHA

[@Shahid-vg4bi8cj5b]

@@sasmalprasanjit2764 in Pakistan in every language why called chai or Cha I am Punjabi....

[@ilyas_elouchihi]

here in Morocco we call it "Atay"

[@chemicaltrack74]

And also yatay for the countrysides

[@hwp115]

Yes, we called it "La Phat" in Myanmar. The direct translation for this name in English is "La(or)Lat=hand and Phat=hug". When I found out all other countries called it cha or tea or similar word I'm really shocked.

[@realhawaii5o]

I've always heard that TEA comes from an acronym for Transporte de Ervas Aromáticas

[@thawhtet4852]

Exception alert: We call Green Tea: Laphet Chout in Burmese and Red Tea: Laphet Yay. I am curious about this exception as we use Laphet as the name for Tea Leaves. We also have a dish called Laphet Thoke, a fermented tea leaf salad, considered a national dish.

[@mingthan7028]

suffix supremacy

[@Akideoni]

Great effort in pronunciation of all those myriads of dialects. 4:30 in hokkien(Fujian) we pronounce it as Teh(Tay with a subtle y notation) Yes it’s an adulterated sub variant of the tu

[@jchen1970]

interesting, im also from fujian but from a different area and for our local dialect its closer to "Da" than "Teh"

[@Akideoni]

Much like adulteration In-between dialects I am not surprised that could have happened as within Fujian province alone harbours a myriad of different dialects by itself. That's why I admire the host's great effort in researching these materials. As for reference I am native singaporean hokkien so it's a common place here to see "Teh" both as pronunciation and as written. E.g Bah Kut Teh(pork rib broth), Ang Teh(red tea), Teh O(black tea).

[@Kolious_Thrace]

Very interesting! In Hellas🇬🇷 we call it τσάι / chai It is believed that this term came to our country during the era of Alexander the Great. Marching into the East he reached India. From there they took the term cha. Although, in Hellas🇬🇷 we also had this habits to boil specific herbs to cure diseases and pains like headaches, stomachaches… etc The term αφέψημα/afèpsima means literally baked because they used to dry the herbs for better preservation. Doctors used some specific herbs as painkillers, others as antidote to poisons and others as drugs to make someone sleep… etc

[@alareiks742]

Is that believe has an evidences in ancient manuscripts?

[@Kolious_Thrace]

@@alareiks742 I don’t know if there are recordings of this but the term is known to us from ancient times before tribes like the turks came to our area… It’s not possible to know the term in other ways… Only Alexander went that deep into Asia and we know from ancient texts that they influenced and they got influenced by these people. Hellenic architecture and statue’s style influenced the Indians and they changed their way of making statues of certain Gods. On the other hand the soldiers of Alexander found spices, herbs and kinds of tea that we didn’t had here. So, it is recorded that they brought a lot of spices and plants in general from there. It possible that they got the term chai also because here we called afèpsima until that point. It’s also recorded in ancient texts the recipes used to cure pain. Combinations of herbs and also Hippocrates’ recipes of herbs used as medicine, therapies and also drugs to sedate his patients!

[@tompatterson1548]

Wasn't that pharmakon?

[@Kolious_Thrace]

@@tompatterson1548 φάρμακον/fàrmakon means medicine. In the past they used plant-based medication such as extracts of course plants, teas and juices… etc Also, we have the term φαρμάκι/farmàki which means bitter/poison. At the times of Hippocrates, they used poisonous substances to make healing remedies. Hippocrates had a snake wrapped around his staff.

[@sofiafance888]

Funfact: in Russian, there is a term 'Chifir' which refers to a really, really strong tea. It's basically what you get if you put tea leaves/a tea bag in a cup of hot water to be brewed but you leave it there for hours.

[@sergkondratev8607]

Nope its not, chifir is when you boiling in metall cup a lot of tea, like 5-6 spoons per cup for a few minutes.

[@user-bh7ix4eh5k]

Chafir its NOT Tea. Its from Russian Prison Culture.

[@mikk0706]

Bruh in polish we use word "herbata" from herbs but to boil water we use "CZAJnik" czaj = chay and "HERBATnik" is a biscuit

[@toast892]

why must our language be so quirky

[@big_j9125]

Indonesian for tea is teh. From what I know we got the name straight from the southern chinese traders. As well as a lot of Indonesian food was originally southern chinese, most of them hakka origin

[@joaoprzygocki1865]

Its simple, chads spoke cha and betas tea

[@dofinoah]

The pronunciation of the Southern min "Te" is not "Tee" but "Tae" like in "bear".

[@edwardsaulnier892]

The Russian pronunciation is 'chai' where 'ai' is pronounced like 'I' or 'eye' but shorter like the Scottish pronunciation.

[@ilyasbouriaz1767]

in morocco we also use tea variant ("attay" we call it) because it was also introduced to us by UK merchants in the 19 century. Befor that moroccan used to drink coffee as their main drink.

[@Figgy5119]

Wait, did you just say the Chinese language and Japanese language have similarities?? That's like saying English and Japanese have similarities. The similarities between the languages are all a result of word borrowings, the languages themselves are not related whatsoever. O-cha is indeed a borrowing of Chinese cha. O is just a prefix, but it's possible to use "cha" without the o, such as Cha-iro (tea+color = brown), or Cha-wan (tea+bowl = teacup).

[@brunorramliey7775]

In malay...cawan pronounce 'chawan' means cup. For tea we call it 'teh'. Secawan teh = a cup of tea. Se is one in malay.

[@skazka3789]

I mean Japanese literally uses Chinese characters so it's not a stretch to say they have similarities

[@Figgy5119]

@@skazka3789 that's not what he was saying in the context. He was talking about the language similarities, as in the vocabulary. The Chinese characters are also an aspect of language borrowed from China. It'd be like saying English and Vietnamese and similar because they both use the Roman alphabet.

[@skazka3789]

@@Figgy5119 Vietnamese doesn't use the exact words in English, it's only for pronunciation. Japanese does use the exact words with the same meanings, it's not the same.

[@Figgy5119]

@@skazka3789 you lost the thread there.

[@neezduts69420]

Everything consumable in history was pretty much discovered by accident and we thought "hey this looks edible!" 🤣🤣🤣

[@DiHiongTan]

In Teochew (a southern Min dialect), tea isn’t pronounced like the English word (Tee) but more “teh”. It’s almost like “meh” but with a soft T sound. Hokkien is the same being a southern Min dialect as well.

[@franmax-lj3hh]

Like spanish

[@sktzn6829]

yeah that's just the creator not learning the pronunuciation. It's the same in Spanish, French, Italian, etc.

[@Mert_Ozfirat]

We use "Çay" in Turkey which can be read as "Chai" in English.

[@sophihk1]

As a Southern China Cantonese, I also call tea as "Cha", never heard of "Te". Maybe the North side of the South China call it "Te" ?_? My favourite kind of tea is 鐵觀音 (Tieguanyin), I always think the English name for it should be "Iron Madien".

[@ganweidi1382]

Fujian/Hokkien/Minnan we call Tea/Teh... Lim Teh = Drink Tea. Exactly as per explained in this video.

[@allenmicky]

@@ganweidi1382 yeah i agree. My family is originated from the southeast coast, exactly the Shantou region that the video had mentioned. And our form of Minnan Teowchew dialect says "Te" or "De" for tea. Actually thats why Satay sauce has two variations in chinese, 沙茶(sa cha) and 沙嗲 (sa de), because the Minnan dialect pronounced 茶 "cha" as "de", hence some regions like Hong kong and SE Asia adopted the later pronunciation.

[@moonshadow7057]

5:44 No idea why Poland is marked as Tea, in Polish tea is herbata

[@user-if8tg1or7m]

in vietnam, there are 2 types of people: 1. people who say "trà" 2. people who say "nước chè" "trà" is the standard vietnamese word, while "nước chè" is a common northern slang, while being rare in central and southern

[@huni_nguyen]

As a North Vietnamese I literally never say "trà" I only use "nước chè"

[@Takayama-sama]

I love learning about the history of tea! I had no idea tea only had two root words, Tea and Cha! That is so interesting!

[@afonsomorais288]

I've always heard that "Tea" comes from when portuguese shiped tea to england, and the ship had "Transporte de Ervas Aromáticas" (aromatic herbs transportation). With this, the brittish took the abreviation and spread across the world

[@ricardomartins1783]

I heard something different: when Portugal massively shiped tea to Europe, they used the term Te as stated in the video. Tê is how you say the letter 'T' in portuguese, so the bags would carry the letter T on the ship loads. Once in England/Europe, they would only see the letter T on the merchadise bags , so Tea it became known elsewhere... but not in Portugal.

[@annabellethedoll3764]

I thought that tea was originated from Latin “Thea” like many English words.

[@pauvermelho]

That's an urbam mith Arigato coming from obrigado is another urban mith

[@tompatterson1548]

@@annabellethedoll3764 English borrowings from latin pronounce the th as a dental fricative, so that wouldn't make sense.

[@starry_lis]

It holds about as much water as the story about how "bica" comes from "beber isto com açúcar"

[@utsavmaheshwari859]

Love your content, just one suggestion. Since you talk about names and use a lot of foreign words, I recommend using forvo for the pronunciation. As a Hindi speaker, it's super grating to heard चाय (chāy) being pronounced as ché, rather than a diphthong chāé.

[@annekeener4119]

There’s another term that has been popping up, particularly among tea aficionados, tisane. It’s used to describe a beverage brewed like tea that doesn’t contain any actual camelia sinensis, aka herbal tea. I’m not sure of its origin and it is viewed as a bit snooty but interchangeable with herbal tea.

[@carschmn]

“Tisane” is a tea like drink made from other herbs like cinnamon, roobios, apples, and barley in medieval Europe. The word is from an Ancient Greek barley drink called ptisánē. So many “herbal teas” are tisanes.

[@trien30]

@@carschmn It's "rooibos." African people make rooibos tea. African people I used to work with keep talking about rooibos tea.

[@annekeener4119]

@@trien30 Rooibos refers to a beverage made by steeping leaves from a specific plant, Aspalathus linearus. So purists wouldn’t call it a true tea. A similar beverage would be Yerba mate. Again the name is based on which specific plant you are brewing. Tea purists would say anything called tea must contain Camellia sinensis and anything that isn’t is a tisane with Yerba mate and rooibos also being specific names for beverages brewed from specific plants.

[@Danny.._]

black tea is called red tea in most east asian languages because it's named after the color of the drink it produces, rather than the color of the processed tea leaves like in english

[@diegoarmando5489]

In contrast... Electoral districts have different names all over the English-speaking world. Ridings in Canada, constituencies in the UK, divisions in Australia, and districts in the USA.

[@SantomPh]

Parishes in the Caribbean. Boroughs in London and parts of Ireland. It's got nothing on Bosnia however where certain areas are numbered cantons, others are plain districts, incorporated zones and of course the weird joint district of Brcko.

[@gawkthimm6030]

This here Scandinavian life-long coffee drinker (with sugar no milk), recently found an odd indian brand which sold a Chocolate-mint cha tea, its been my favorite for the last 6 years or so

[@Omouja]

Just a correction: in Portuguese, "chá" is pronounced as /sha/

[@capitaopacoca8454]

The person in this video is a professional pronunciation butcherer. He reads everything as if it were english.

[@meninofonseca6970]

In Portuguese originally ch was pronounced as tch. Maybe some French influence changed the pronounciation. In trás os Montes Portugal ch is still pronounced as tch

[@tzatzikiv812]

There are some dialects around England which call tea "char". I had a great uncle who always called it char and when I was little, I often wondered why but just accepted it as a dialect. It was only when I was a bit older, did I really understand the origin of the word, so even in England, it isn't always called tea. Fascinating stuff! 🤩

[@hcno2009]

In Korean, 차(cha) is used to refer to tea itself, and 다(da) is often used to refer to tea-related things (tea drinking etiquette, tea bowls, etc.). In many cases, it is possible to use cha instead of da , but in some cases it is not possible.

[@satyakisil9711]

Many languages differentiate the words used for tea leaves and tea products and beverages.

[@s._3560]

What is the Hanja for it?

[@cyberherbalist]

The problem with "tea" is that it is used in English to refer to any herb steeped in hot water. For example, chamomile and peppermint teas are NOT tea. They are made with entirely unrelated plants.

[@cirilladykes1282]

Greek is actually an interesting case, the word is τσάι, starting with a t sound, but still being more similar to the cha root pronunciation

[@vugiabaonguyen4660]

There will be one cup of tea that is your cup of tea is the verse that I will remember for the rest of my life

[@isaac_aren]

Depending on what dialect of irish you speak, it could be pronounced "chay" to "tay". Spelled the same tho "tae". It's also quite common to say "cuppa cha" in English here to mean "cup of tea"

[@Luineile]

Armenian is a funny exception, too. We obviously got our tea by land, but we call it "tei'' in literary Armenian, although some dialects use "chai", too.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Poland uses the word Herbata for tea. But to be fair, I have been to Poland just a few times and never studied Polish, so I base the comment on a short experience

[@modmaker7617]

Herbata comes from Latin "Herba Thea" which etymologically comes from tea.

[@godastp307]

In the right to Poland we say arbata

[@modmaker7617]

@@godastp307 I'm Polish and I never ever heard of the word "arbata". Tea in Polish is only called Herbata.

[@prodbyguac]

@@modmaker7617 he meant lithuania bracie

[@Rob_Erto_33]

@@modmaker7617 Thea sounds more greek than Latin

[@revinhatol]

In my country, there are lots of languages and therefore lots of words for tea. But the one word we use more commonly is "Tsa('a)".

[@kevinmartin7760]

What about tisane (which I feel I must constantly remind people *is not tea*)?

[@TheFlyfly]

wow, this feels like a really well-researched video!

[@ruithinks996]

As a Portuguese we called it Cha.

[@playleave7454]

Portugal delivered Tea to england, and in the ships it was written" Transporte de Ervas Aromáticas (TEA) " ( transport of aromatic herbs). I used to think that was the reason why english people say Tea, but this vídeo show another view.

[@WallieTheRed]

Tra in Vietnam (tr is pronounced similarly to ch) so yeah same here 👍

[@evolancer211]

I was just thinking about how he was right about this, i was like oh shit, it's the same in Vietnamese lol

[@ucchau173]

Tr exactly pronunciation likes zh in madarin, ch and tr is pronunciation difference in vn , especially in southern dialect...

[@WallieTheRed]

Yeah I mean the northern dialect

[@mkhko1724]

In Burmese/Myanmar, we call it “la-phet yay” which literally means tea leaf liquid. လက်ဖက်ရည်

[@krislove1167]

4:30 'Te' in the Southern Min/Fujiannese/Hokkien is pronounced 'Tay' not 'Tah'.