tea 还是 chai？一种植物的两个名字

If you travel around the world and ask for a cup of tea, you'll notice something strange. In some countries, the word sounds like "tea". In others, it sounds like "cha". Almost every language uses one or the other. The reason has to do with trade routes – and both words come from Chinese. Tea originally came from China, and different parts of China pronounced the character 茶 in different ways. In Mandarin and Cantonese, it was "cha". But in the Min dialect spoken around the port of Xiamen, in Fujian province, it was "te". Countries that got their tea by land, along the old Silk Road through Central Asia, took the word "cha". That's why it's chai in Hindi, Russian, Persian, Turkish and Arabic. Japan and Korea also got their tea, and the word cha, from China very early on. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to trade directly with China, through the city of Macau, where people spoke Cantonese. So in Portuguese, tea is chá. But in the 1600s, the Dutch became the biggest tea traders in Europe, and they bought much of their tea through ports where people spoke Min. So the Dutch called it thee. As Dutch ships carried tea around Europe, the "te" pronunciation spread with it: thé in French, Tee in German and, of course, "tea" in English. So if your language says "tea", your tea probably arrived by sea. If it says "cha", it probably came by land. English, interestingly, has both: as well as "tea", many people now order a "chai latte".