Tea Or Chai?
The give-and-take used for 'tea' inwards most languages roughly the basis is derived from Chinese. However non all languages derive the give-and-take 'tea' from the same Chinese word. Some languages cash inwards one's chips their give-and-take for tea from the mandarin 'chá', spell inwards other languages the give-and-take tea derives from the Min Nan Chinese give-and-take 'te'. The effect is that inwards most languages roughly the basis the give-and-take for 'tea' sounds something similar 'chai' or 'tea'.
You tin come across where tea is called chai in addition to where tea is called tea on an interactive map created past times the World Atlas of Language Structures. Their Tea Map uses bluish in addition to cerise dots to exhibit where the give-and-take for tea is derived from the mandarin 'cha' (red) in addition to where it is derived from the Min Nan Chinese 'te' (blue).
The map provides a slap-up example of how loan words inwards languages are non e'er geographically contiguous. Languages which portion mutual linguistic communication roots or closed geographical proximity may all the same convey a dissimilar give-and-take for 'tea', alongside a dissimilar 'tea' or 'chai' derivation.
The World Atlas of Language Structures has a whole Tea chapter written past times Östen Dahl which has a theory virtually how dissimilar languages come upwardly to convey dissimilar derivations of 'chai' or 'tea'. According to Dahl the departure comes from whether countries were historically on a Dutch or Portuguese merchandise route. The Portuguese were the get-go European tea importers in addition to their merchandise came via Macao. The subsequently Dutch merchandise routes were routed via Amoy. In Macao the give-and-take used for tea was the mandarin 'cha'. In Amoy the give-and-take used for tea was the Min Nan Chinese 'te'. Therefore whether your linguistic communication uses a derivation of 'cha' or 'te' for the give-and-take 'tea' depends if you lot were historically on a Dutch or Portuguese merchandise route.
Quartz has refined Östen Dahl's theory a little. In Tea if past times Sea, Cha if past times Land they concord that merchandise routes play a major utilization inwards determining where the words 'tea' in addition to 'cha' are used roughly the world. However they propose that the major determining constituent is non the Dutch in addition to Portuguese merchandise routes exactly the body of body of water in addition to province merchandise routes from China.
They utilization the same data, from the World Atlas of Language Structures, to plot where people tell 'tea' or 'cha'. They believe that their map clearly shows that 'cha' is used inwards locations which are on a province based merchandise route from China. Whereas 'tea' is used inwards places which are on a body of body of water based merchandise route.
The Min Nan Chinese 'te' is spoken inwards the coastal province of Fujian. Which is why this 'coastal' Chinese give-and-take is used past times countries inwards Europe who were on the Dutch body of body of water merchandise routes (except for Portugal). In inland mainland People's Republic of China the mandarin 'cha' was used for tea, which is agency countries on the silk route routes commonly telephone phone tea 'chai' or something similar.
