To fight my ignorance a little, could you answer the following?
If I was in India, could I simply order “chai” or would I need to specify what kind of chai I wanted.
If I can simply order “chai,” would I by default get the sweet, milky stuff? Would it be spiced?
If I wanted plain black tea, what would I order?
What would you suggest as a replacement name for “chai tea” in primarily English-speaking countries? Just “chai”?
Thanks. I’m a Texan, so I’m more of an ice tea guy. 
As a lover of Japanese media, and a native English speaker, I think I’d have exploded long ago if I had the OP’s attitude toward foreign borrowings of my language.
English-derived words in Japanese narrow, broaden, or completely alter the meanings all the damn time. Pierce is a noun (earrings), bloomers are pretty much the opposite of what they are in English, etc…
You would most likely get sweet milky stuff. That’s how most Indians drink their chai. It would most likely not be spiced. You would have to specify Masala Chai if you wanted the spiced stuff.
Kaali(black) chai(tea).
Either Masala tea or Spiced tea would make sense.
Am I the only person who learned about “chai” and had no idea it was tea, because I never heard it called “chai tea”? The most common word I hear it modifying is latte.
By spice, do you include cardamom or ginger? Because either one or both of those two are used commonly in plain ‘chai’. At most street tea vendors in Mumbai, at least.
Perhaps it would be helpful to think of “chai tea” as an appropriate usage in American English, a language that differs in many ways from the English used by Indian people. Much as in the same way that British English has many usages that are different in American English.
I disagree. I hate pumpkin. I’m not a tea fan unless it has enough sugar in it to stand the spoon upright. Love chai tea latte. I’ll go with the spicy, milky, chai-y goodness.
Apropos of nothing but tea and chai are actually cognates, i.e. they both can be traced back to the proto-sino-tibetan root *s-la.
This is known as the etymological fallacy; it’s the idea that a word is somehow inextricably linked to an older or ‘original’ meaning. (I use quotes because if we dig enough we almost always can find a older meaning than the meaning under discussion.) Chai, in hindi, means tea. Then chai came to the UK and America but we already had a very popular and common word for tea, tea. So a process known as semantic differentiation occurred where chai -in english, mind you- developed a stricter meaning so that the semantic meaning of chai and tea would stop bumping heads. It’s a common and unremarkable process that happens all the time in all languages.
The flavor she’s talking about, I suspect, is not pumpkin so much as “pumpkin pie spices,” which calls to mind pumpkin by association (you also find a lot of this in pumpkin beers. They don’t really taste like pumpkin. They taste like pumpkin pie spice.) You know, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger. I agree, the Indian spiced tea that is known as Chai in the US and perhaps other English speaking environs does not taste like pumpkin itself at all.
Now, you’re just getting a little insulting.
The fact that Chai means Tea in Hindi is nothing more than irrelevant trivia to me, because I don’t speak Hindi, and have no desire to speak Hindi. In the English language, the one that I speak, Chai means Indian Style Spiced Tea. It can also be used to indicate the mix of spices one would use in that tea, that can also be used for other foods, like Lattes and Cookies.
Amazingly enough, people who speak Hindi use a different word for that spice mix. It’s as if they speak an entirely different language. Shocking, I know.
It’s as if you haven’t bothered to read any of the posts explaining that **bldysabba ** and numerous other Indians speak both Hindi and English fluently and naturally.
Got to admit, some of the pushback on this is a little defensive and ridiculous. Yes, language evolves, but it’s useful to have some pushback on that evolution to prevent redundancy, loss of nuance, and decreased utility and clarity.
I totally forgot to post- I emailed my friend and he wrote back.
Here’s his reply:
So, like everyone’s been saying, yes it’s technically redundant and no, it does not bother him in any way.
If I heard someone from the south of England say ‘cha’ for tea, I’d assume they were actually saying ‘char’ and dropping the final letter…
(But further reading shows me that both spellings are ok)
And, while I haven’t liked chai when I’ve tried it, I quite fancy trying a chai smoothie at one of my local teashops!
Of course, in English, the development of the more specific meaning of chai prevents redundancy, increases nuance, utility and clarity.
Again, irrelevant trivia. Am I really supposed to care how many people speak both Hindi and English, and change my language (or consent to being insulted) because of it?
If they don’t call this stuff Chai Tea in India that’s totally cool. It’s like how the British call French Fries “Chips” and Potato Chips “Crisps”. They have their words for the product, we have our words.
The OP started by saying it makes no sense. When it was pointed out that this linguistic phenomenon has a long history he just kept insisting it was nonsense and his opinion was the most valid. His posts set the tone.
If the point was simply “English is weird”, well, few would have disagreed.
More like “languages are weird,” as this phenomenon exists in other languages, (although I don’t find this weird at all. It seems fairly logical to me.)
Of course, but I was trying to specific to the OPs complaints and his tone. If he had said, “isn’t language weird”, that’d have been a similar tone, compared to what he did say.
I do think English has a long history of appropriating foreign words and adapting them. Some languages are much more resistant- French for example. English seems to revel in adopting foreign words. Makes things interesting.
Why not choose to find it amusing?
I remember a Taco Bell commercial for “Grilled Carne Asada Steak Tacos” and I thought that was pretty funny and made me feel all content and smug and superior for a few minutes.
So just go with it and feel the glow!
I’ve never heard anyone use the term “Chai Tea.” It’s just Chai. Similarly, I’ve never heard anyone say salsa sauce or kielbasa sausage or Mount Fujiyama.