I like the comparison between a dolphin and a cow, and a dolphin and a fish. It shows clearly that just because something looks like another doesn't mean they are related.
The pronunciation of tea originates from the Fujian region of China, and the pronunciation of tea in Fujianese is similar to that of tea. The countries that pronounce tea as tea originally imported tea from the Fujian region, which is also known to be one of the major tea producing areas in China.
@zealop4728
3 жыл бұрын
And the country that reads tea as cha, initially should be a tea imported from areas other than Fujian.
The word "tea" came from China as well, but in Hokkien/Fujian dialect. Tea that sold through land called Cha (northern dialect), tea that sold through sea called Tea (southern dialect).
Today the Chinese and Japanese takes completely different approach to borrowing terms and concepts from the English language or any other foreign languages, while the Japanese use Katagana, the Chinese convert foreign terms into Chinese by creating new combinations of charactors, much like和製漢語before. The impications are that the origin of a Katagana word is obvious to its audience while a Chinese word made in accordance to a foreign word is not except for people who have lived through times without the word or people could observe from a bilingual perspective. In addition, the meaning of a borrowed term or concept could be more intuitive when presented in Chinese charactors, also more readily accepted for people with different political or aesthetic preference.
As someone who's learning Japanese, it was really interesting to learn about the origins of the language as well as those of others mentioned. Very interesting!
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