"Coffee, tea or chai" -- History in a teapot

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At a "working lunch" meeting, a coworker ordered a chai amid calls for lattes and regular coffees. That order reminded this writer that the name for the beverage known to us as "tea" has two basic forms in the world's languages, one starting in "t" and the other in "ch."

The Oxford English Dictionary explained that: "The Portuguese brought the form cha (which is Cantonese as well as Mandarin) from Macao. This form passed overland from Russia. The form te (thé) was brought into Europe by the Dutch, probably from the Malay at Bantam (if not from Formosa, where the Fuhkien or Amoy form was used). The original English pronunciation, sometimes indicated by spelling 'tay' is found in rhymes down to 1762, and remains in many dialects; but the current pronunciation is found already in the 17th century, shown in rhymes and by the spelling 'tee'."

When the drink was first recorded in English in 1568, it was with the form "chaa."

As for the "tay" form, it lives on this famous 19th-century American work song:

Drill, ye terriers, drill.
For it's work all day
For the sugar in your tay
Down behind the railway
And drill, ye terriers, drill.

Walter W. Skeat, in his Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, said that both "sea" and "tea" rhymed with "day" at the time of the drink's introduction to England. Alexander Pope rhymed "tea" with "obey" and "away" in his 1712 poem, "The Rape of the Lock."

The ancient Chinese form for tea was probably "kia." From this source came the various dialectal forms: Mandarin "cha," Amoy "t'e" and Fuchau "tia." The following list of words from other languages come from a number of dictionaries, both print and online.

TAY-FORM WORDS: Alabama Muskogean Indian TIIKA; Armenian TEY; Basque TE; Catalan TE; Cornish TE; Danish TE; Dutch THEE; Esperanto TEO; Estonian TEE; Finnish TEE; French THE; Hawaiian KI (there is no "t" sound in the language); Inupiaq Eskimo TII; Irish TAE; Magyar *Hungarian) TEA; Norwegian TE; German THEE; Icelandic TE; Malay TEH; Maltese TE; Maori TI; Scottish Gaelic TI; Spanish TE; Swedish TE; Swiss Romansh TE; Taiwanese DEI; Welsh TE; Yiddish TEY.

CHA-FORM WORDS: Albanian CAJ; Amharic SHAY; Arabic SHAY; Bengalii CHA; Bulgarian CHAI; Cebuano TSA; Czech CAJ; Farsi CHA; Hiligaynon (Philippines) TSA; Hindi CHAI; Japanese CHA; Konkani (India) CHAA; Korean CHA; Luganda (Africa) CHAAYI; Modern Greek TSAI; Mongolian CHAI; Older Spanish CHA; Portuguese CHA; Punjabi CHAH; Romanian CEAI; Russian CHAI; Slovak CAJ; Slovenian CAJ; Swahili CHAI; Tagalog TSA; Thai CHAA; Tibetan JA; Turkish CAY; Uighur (Central Asia) QAY; Vietnamese TRA.

"Fancy a cup of Rosy?" Although London's Cockney rhyming slang falls within the "Tay" group, the deliberate wordplay of the forms "You and Me," "Bruce" (for "Bruce Lee"), "Kiki" (for "Kiki Dee"), and "Rosy" (for "Rosy Lee") hides the origin.

Among the exceptions that defy the rule are Polish HERBATA, Cherokee U-GA-LO-GV and Cheyenne VEPOTSEHOHPE. The Burmese do not call tea "tea" at all, but refer to the beverage as "plain hot water."

According to the Republic of Tea website (http://republicoftea.com/), chai as served in American coffee shops is "an ancient beverage with its origins in India, Nepal and Tibet. The brewing methods and types of tea and spices used vary by region. A traditional chai is a blend of spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and peppercorns which are brewed with tea and finished with milk and honey."