Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1990s (modern)
Chai
from chāy
- Meaning
- Tea, especially spiced milk tea.
- Source word
- chāy
- Route into English
- Mandarin *chá* → Hindi *chāy* → English. The word split at the source: northern-route languages got *chai*-family words overland; southern-route (Hokkien *te*) reached Europe by sea as *tea*. Starbucks brought *chai* into global English in the 1990s.
- Arrived
- 1990s (modern)
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.