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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Worldwide Pronounciations Of Tea


Chinese character tea (茶cha) in 108 different ways 

‘Tea' and all its worldwide variations in spelling and pronunciation come from China. There are two pronunciations have made their way into other languages around the world. 

1). Derivatives from cha-the Mandarin pronunciation of the character “Tea” (茶 chá) 
One common pronunciation is chá, used by the Cantonese dialect spoken around the ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Hong Kong, Macau, and in overseas Chinese communities, as well as in the Mandarin dialect of northern China. This term was used in ancient times to describe the first flush harvest of tea. 
 
Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Albanian
çaj
Amharic
ሻይ shai
Arabic
شاي shāy
Aramaic
pronounced chai
Assamese
saah
Azerbaijani çay Bangla
চা cha
Bosnian
čaj
Bulgarian
чай chai
Capampangan
cha
Cebuano
tsa
Croatian
čaj
Czech
čaj (2)
English
chai
Hindi
चाय chai
Tagalog
tsaa
Georgian
ჩაი, chai
Greek
τσάι tsái
Gujarati
ચા cha
Khasi
sha
Japanese
, チャ, cha
Kannada
ಚಹಾ Chaha
Kazakh
шай shai
Kyrgyz
чай, chai
Malayalam
ചായ, "chaaya"
Konkani
चा cha
Korean
,, cha
Lao
ชา, saa
Macedonian
чај, čaj
Uzbek
choy
Marathi
चहा chahaa
Mongolian
цай, thai
Nepali
chiya चिया
Oriya
cha
Pashto
چای chai
Persian
چای chai
Punjabi
چا ਚਾਹ chah
Portuguese
chá
Romanian
ceai
Russian
чай, chai
Serbian
чај, čaj
Slovak
čaj
Slovene
čaj
Somali
shaah
Swahili
chai
Sylheti
saah
Tagalog
tsaa
Thai
ชา, chaa
Tibetan
ཇ་ ja
Tlingit
cháayu
Turkish
çay
Turkmen
çay
Ukrainian
чай chai
Urdu
چا ٔےchai


Vietnamese
*trà and chè
Tamil
*தெய்னேர்/டே theyneer and tee
Kenyan language
cai kikuyu
Khmer
តែ tae


2). Derivatives from tê - Xiamen (Amoy) Fujian Dialect "的" (tey)            
The other common pronunciation is tê, which comes from the Hokkien dialect, spoken in Fujian Province, Taiwan and by expatriate Chinese in Indonesia, Malaya and Singapore. It reached the West particularly from the Amoy Min Nan dialect, spoken around the port of Xiamen (Amoy), once a major point of contact with Western European traders. This pronunciation is believed to come from the old words for tea (tú) or (tú).        
 
 Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Language
Name
Afrikaans
tee
Armenian
տե te
Catalan
te
Czech
or thé (1)
Danish
te
Dutch
thee
English
tea
Esperanto
teo
Estonian
tee
Faroese
te
Finnish
tee
French
thé
West Frisian
tee
Galician
German
Tee
תה, te
tea
Icelandic
te
Indonesian
teh
Irish
tae
Italian
or thè
Javanese
tèh
Korean
, da [ta](2)
scientific Latin
thea
Latvian
tēja
Leonese
Limburgish
tiè
Low Saxon[disambiguation needed]
Tee [tʰɛˑɪ] or Tei [tʰaˑɪ]
Malay
teh
Malayalam
തേയില Theyila
Norwegian
te
Occitan
Sesotho
tea,chá
Scots Gaelic
, teatha
Sinhalese
තෙ thé
Spanish
Scots
tea [tiː] ~ [teː]
Sundanese
entèh
Swedish
te [tʰeː]
Tamil
தேநீர் thenīr (nīr = water) "theyilai" means "tea leaf" (ilai=leaf)
Telugu
తేనీళ్ళు tēnīru
Welsh
te
Khmer
តែtae
Vietnamese
chè [cɛ]



2 comments:

  1. when I recently visited a chinese restaurant, where I often use to be, I got a green tea, which had first a very bitterly taste then quite sweet, the leaves had been very small (4 /10 mm). The servant wrote the characters ion a peace of paper and called its name: "ko ding ta".
    Three characters: the first I didn't find, the second "丁" , the third "茶".
    Since I can't find the character even not by looking for the radicals - I cannot give you this character. Thre parts: above the sign for "plant"; in the middle the sign for "ten, complete, perfect", the sign at the bottom i can't recognize, because it's not written properly.
    This familiy came from China to Netheröans before 1982, then went to Germany. So I think they use the old characters.
    Maybe you can help me.
    thanks for your help!" I will return to this site in some days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I apologize for my late response. I am sorry that somehow I overlooked your comment. However, I am pretty sure that the Chinese Character is 苦丁茶, the pinyin suppose to be 'ku Ding Cha'. That's why you had a hard time to find the name in Chinese. This is a kind of herb tea and particularly good for reducing inner heat and anti-bacteria.

    ReplyDelete

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I grew up with tea, and it continues to fill my life with so much beauty and discovery, pleasure, peace and friends. It is always leading me toward a greater understanding of culture, nature, myself and others. It is my hope to use this space to share the joy of tea and tea culture with you.