PERMANENT DISPUTE RECORD
ALL DISPUTES ↗One scholarly question. Every attached source. The present editorial state, without pretending the last word has been written.
It is the final reviewed reconstruction in this dossier, not a declaration that no deeper hypothesis exists. No unique deeper form is promoted until a competing analysis is encoded with direct evidence.
/tʃaɪ/ · noun
In current English, a South Asian-style tea commonly prepared with milk and spices; the word belongs to the overland cha/chay transmission family ultimately derived from Chinese 茶.
DIRECT CLAIM EVIDENCE
A citation is not a vote. Each record says whether the work supports, challenges, contradicts, or contextualizes the position—and identifies the exact locus used.
Supplies *lˤra as the reviewed Old Chinese reconstruction and no single deeper form in this dataset.
Table row 茶 chá, PDF page 11Supports Chinese origin for the major global families while also documenting forms outside them.
Chapter 138, introductory and distributional discussionThe reviewed evidence does not yet warrant collapsing the competing or incomplete analyses into one secure answer.