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