Als spachinteressierter Mensch und leidenschaftlicher Teetrinker, hab’ ich mich immer schon gefragt, warum dieses Aufgussgetränk in manchen Ländern Europas “Tee” (tea, Tee, Thé, tè, תה, …) und in anderen “Chai” (чай, Äaj, chá, chè, …) heißt. Die Wikipedia erklärt dies wie folgt:
The Chinese character for tea is 茶, but it is pronounced very differently in the various Chinese dialects. Two pronunciations have made their way into other languages around the world. One is ‘te’ (POJ: tê) which comes from the Minnan dialect spoken around the port of Xiamen (Amoy). The other is ‘cha’, used by the Cantonese dialect spoken around the ports of Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong, as well as in the Mandarin dialect of northern China. … It is tempting to correlate these names with the route that was used to deliver tea to these cultures, but this correspondence does not follow. For example, most British trade went through Canton, which uses cha.
Zur Veranschaulichung hab’ ich eine Europakarte erstellt, die zeigt, in welchen Ländern Tee auch “Tee” heißt (rot), und in welchen “Chai” (grün).