RECURSIVE ANCESTOR EXPLORER
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WORD → PARENT → PARENT → UNKNOWNGO TO
THE ROOT.
Do not stop at the first ancestor. Follow every cited route—through compounds, reconstructions, and disagreements—until human knowledge actually stops.
START / NODE 238PersianPersian, reported by the 11th century
چای
Persian čāy, derived from Chinese ch’a in Encyclopaedia Iranica, with Persian awareness reported by the eleventh century but the adoption mechanism still unknown.
“Bīrūnī describing tea in the eleventh century proves learned Persian awareness—not the date when tea became an ordinary Persian drink. The source explicitly leaves adoption timing and mechanism unresolved.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
EVERY REVIEWED PARENT, NOT ONE EDITORIAL PATH
FOLLOW EVERY BRANCH.
Compound components and competing routes stay separate. Every arrow retains its sound change, semantic change, scholar, confidence, and exact sources.
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
- SOUND CHANGE
- Persian čāy is reported as derived from Chinese ch’a, retaining the cha onset and adding the final glide represented in Persian transliteration.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The meaning remains tea.
- SCHOLAR
- Daniel Balland · Marcel Bazin
- CONFIDENCE
- probable — Encyclopaedia Iranica gives the Chinese derivation but says the date and mechanism of Persian adoption remain uncertain.
- CHRONOLOGY
- Chinese to Persian overland transmission; Persian awareness is reported by the 11th century.
2 CITATIONSČĀY — TeaHeadword etymology and The spread of tea in the Persian world چای — لغتنامه دهخداDehkhoda headword چای and Chinese-origin note AUDIT CANONICAL EDGE 233 ↗
Derives Persian čāy from Chinese ch’a while explicitly preserving uncertainty over when Persian speakers first encountered the beverage.
ORIGINAL ↗Documents the Persian lexeme and its lexicographic Chinese attribution.
ORIGINAL ↗THE ASTERISK IS A PROMISE
RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT INSCRIPTION.
Crossing into a starred form changes the evidence class. The interface marks that crossing, preserves confidence, and never manufactures the next root to make the picture look complete.