Several times recently, I’ve seen social media users post variations on “You mustn’t say ‘chai tea,’ because chai means tea, so ‘chai tea’ means ‘tea tea.’” These posts aren’t verbatim, so they presumably aren’t copypasta; but they repeat the same message, that “chai tea” is a tautology. I take the poster’s point. But I think this misses something important about how language evolves, and how meaning is something we make, not something that just exists.
Why do we pronounce the name of Notre Dame University, in South Bend, Indiana, differently than the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris? Well obviously, because Notre Dame University is in the United States, while Notre Dame cathedral is in France. The transition between countries, with their different majority languages and historical conventions, means the words change when moving across contexts. When stated that way, the difference seems obvious. But seems is a loaded word.
Continuing the French metaphor, English has several loan words from French. This probably reflects French cultural influence in British and Continental affairs from the Renaissance through the Napoleonic era, and the fact that speaking French has long been considered mannerly. But in reading how these French loan words cross into English, it becomes clear that the words’ meanings change. Language is dynamic, usage creates meaning, and we reinvent language when we imbue words with significance.
In French, un sachet is simply a bag, any bag. Plastic grocery bags, designer handbags, and over-the-shoulder totes are sachets. But the English word bag already exists. Therefore, in making the transition, the word sachet in English morphs into a small ornamental bag, especially one used in displaying scented herbs. Likewise, un bureau is an office desk with drawers, but in English, it becomes an office full of desks, especially a remote or subsidiary office.
When English-speakers say chai, we aren’t speaking Hindi; we aren’t ordering “tea,” because the word tea already exists. Generally, we mean masala chai, a specific way of preparing tea, which only recently came into English-speaking consciousness and has become a fad for its rich texture and intense flavor. If chai simply meant tea, the word would be prolix and unnecessary, or anyway redundant. But by naming masala chai, the word becomes valuable, and therefore survives.
We could stop there. The fact that words, like species, change to fit their ecology, is sufficient. But I see something deeper happening here. When a certain subset of tea connoisseurs demand the Hindi definition persist in English, they’re trying to establish strict linguistic controls and stop meanings from changing. Many of us remember this form of prescriptive grammar from grade school, from teachers upset over split infinitives and the difference between “can” and “may.”
I’ve written before about my students who were terrified to write anything for class because they’d had such extensive, sometimes tyrannical grammar rules drilled into their heads. Language rules, even within the same language, are often contradictory, arbitrary, and driven by personal preference. And they often share a previous supposition that language is in a state of decline. Many classroom language rules intimidate students because they reflect how English was spoken decades, even centuries ago.
It bears stating that I taught in an overwhelmingly White, working-class university, in an overwhelmingly White, working-class state. But the students most intimidated by aggressive grammar enforcement were Black, Hispanic, and poor. In unguarded moments, they speak particular gradations of English reflecting their racial, economic, or provincial backgrounds. But teachers, rule-bound to teach “standard” English, can be particularly harsh, deliberately or otherwise, with students they perceive as belonging to out-groups. The result is tragically imperialist.
And remember, there is no tea commerce, much less tea vocabulary, without European imperialism. Vast swaths of India and China still haven’t fully recovered from English damage during the Opium Wars, conducted specifically to open the tea trade on terms advantageous to White Englanders. Though Britain’s overseas empire has substantially crumbled since World War II, America—or, more accurately, American multinational corporations—have stepped into the role. Americans drink “chai tea” because of ancestral imperialism.
I’d rather not say that American tea connoisseurs demanding chai purity are Orientalist imperialists. Those I’ve known care deeply about Indian history and its postcolonial legacy. But the attempt to freeze language according to past usage, always winds up being about preserving power hierarchies. Whether it’s the hierarchy of imperial conquest, or the hierarchy of tea snobbery, prescriptive grammar is an act of power. And power inevitably burns its users as much as its targets.
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