From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!brunix!jss Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Re: Cognates in lots of languages Article-I.D.: brunix.1921 Posted: Sat Mar 12 09:52:19 1983 Received: Sun Mar 13 08:42:03 1983 References: ecn-pa.791 It appears that tea came from China, carrying its name(s) with it. It has always appeared to me, on no authority whatsoever, that there were two names (in two dialects of Chinese?), one approximately 'tea', and the other more or less 'cha'. I have met one language, Ukrainian, in which 'tea' was not one of those words. They use something like 'infusion', which is, of course, the general word for steeped herbs (or anything else, I guess). The French use 'infusion' for herbal teas. I'll bet a lot of other European languages do, too. Any information out there? judith schrier !decvax!brunix!jss