A story that has been making the rounds on the internet for years has it that Coca-Cola's first attempt at a Chinese transliteration of its brand name actually translated as "bite the wax tadpole." That story isn’t quite true, but the real story illustrates the difficulties of rendering a trade name in Chinese. . .as well as the danger of not controlling the transliteration process.

According to that debunker of internet myths, Snopes.com, while there was a problem with transliterating Coke’s name, it wasn’t Coca-Cola itself that was directly responsible. When Coke entered the Chinese market back in 1928, the company had not yet settled on an official transliteration. Individual Chinese merchants simply started transliterating it themselves. And, yes, the names those merchants came up did include the famous tadpole line, as well as other humorous versions such as "female horse flattened with wax."

The reason this could happen is that, unlike most alphabets, the Chinese alphabet is made up of characters that have individual meanings as well as sounds. To complicate things further, Chinese is pronounced differently in different parts of the country. The same series of English sounds may easily be rendered in Chinese in different ways depending upon the person doing the transliteration.

Coca-Cola, at least, had its recognizable packaging. For other businesses, transliteration differences could cause a much bigger problem. And not just for businesses. Vanderbilt University, which has trying to actively recruit students from China, Singapore and Taiwan, found that people in China were transliterating the school's name in various ways and didn't always even realize that they were referring to the same institution. (The word Vanderbilt posed a special problem, since Chinese doesn’t even have characters for the sounds "v" and "lt.")

	Vanderbilt's Chinese name, Fandebao, academic center of virtue

Like the Coca-Cola Company, Vanderbilt found it worth its while to spend the time and effort needed to select an official transliteration. Vanderbilt’s official Chinese name, Fandebao (pronounced FAN-de-bau), literally means "the academic center of virtue." Coca-Cola’s official transliteration – Ke Kou Ke Le – suggests something delicious and pleasing. Both of these examples of transliterated names manage to approximate the English sound, while also carrying a positive message that relates to the organization's business – important virtues for a brand name.

If you’re looking to do business in China, don’t confront the language issue head on and don't let your brand get lost in transliteration.

We've featured them in the C'est What section in previous issues of this newsletter (September 2007, March 2008). Those badly translated, often humorous, English street signs found everywhere in Chinese cities. The Chinese government has been working hard to eliminate the street signs before the start of the Olympic games, at least in Beijing.

Users of the handicapped restroom might not appreciate this sign

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese embarrassed by the signs, have undertaken a months long campaign to eliminate them. The campaign includes linguistic monitors who patrol the streets spot-checking signs.

Considering the numerous examples of these signs circulating on the internet, it is unlikely that the Chinese will be completely successful in this campaign. Just plug the word "chinglish" into any search engine and check out the results.