史海捞针

“可口可乐”这个名称是谁创作出来的？

　　“可口可乐”被誉为广告经典，但谁是作者，众说纷纭，最流行的说法是：

　　可口可乐问世后，一直没有理想的中文名称。为了开拓东方市场，该公司于 1936年在报上刊登启事，公开征求译名，结果旅英华侨蒋彝所译“可口可乐”胜出，成为世界广告史上的经典翻译。

　　但实际上早在 1930年（民国十九年）3月26日，Coca Cola 公司就已经在上海呈交了注册“可口可乐”商标的申请书，代理人是阿乐满律师。

　　那么到底是谁创造了“可口可乐”这个词呢？最可能的就是上述商标申请书中的“代理人”阿乐满律师。有一篇文章详细地介绍了有关情况，下面的内容摘自该文（改了个别错别字并配数幅图片）：

　　要论翻译条件，上文提到的阿乐满其实也是上佳人选。他当初（1916年）乃是以美国驻中国公使馆见习译员（student interpreter）之身份来中国的，中英文皆不错，出庭时不仅不需要翻译，甚至可以客串译员。其次，阿乐满在 1922～1932年以合伙人身份供职于美国（礼明、樊克令、阿乐满）律师公馆（FLEMING, FRANKLIN & ALLMAN ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW），公馆与可口可乐等公司有着业务往来

　　依笔者愚见，一个能将自己英文姓氏“Allman”译写为“阿乐满”的人大抵是具有译出“可口可乐”之潜质的。实际情况又是否如此呢？有论者于 1993年6月15日发布消息，称可口可乐公司与其分享了一份 1957年的档案材料。

　　巧的是，该材料的作者正是阿乐满。上述材料是一篇短文，题为 Transliteration of Coca-Cola Trademark to Chinese Characters（Coca-Cola 商标之汉译）。文章刊于可口可乐公司内部刊物 Coca-Cola Overseas（可口可乐在海外），其中对可口可乐当年在中国的境况及其中文译名的生成等有着较为详细的记述，兹撮要编译如下：

　　可口可乐于 1928年进入中国，由利维斯（P.S.Lewis）等人负责，目标客户是五万万中国人和时在上海的外国人。要“征服”上述两个群体殊不容易，因为中国人世世辈辈都喝茶（绿茶），而外国人此前主要跟着英国人喝苏格兰威士忌（Scotch）、杜松子酒（gin）和红茶（black tea）。利氏不敢奢望中国人和沪上外国人都改喝可口可乐，但他坚信，一定会有越来越多的人喜欢上可口可乐。利维斯的判断没错，没过多久，可口可乐即打入英国的传统地盘——上海总会（the Shanghai Club）和（哥伦比亚）乡村俱乐部（the Country Club），英国佬最终也承认，可口可乐确乎美味而怡神（delicious and refreshing）。

　　为了把可口可乐推向广大中国市场，首先得有一个中文译名。可不论是文字还是口语，中文与欧洲语言都相差不可以里计。“我们”（We）认为应该找一个读音上与原文最接近的表达，原文有四个音节，中文需要四个汉字。而在大约四万个汉字中，符合候选条件的仅有两百个左右。

　　就在“我们”想方设法为 Coca-Cola 寻找中文译名之时，不少商家也纷纷建言献策。遗憾的是，他们推荐的名称都只注意到读音而未顾及意思，个个怪异甚或荒唐，比如“蝌蝌啃蜡”（bite the wax tadpole，或许应是 tadpole bites the wax）和“骒马口蜡”（female horse fastened with wax）。

　　“我们”在注重译名读音的同时，也适当兼顾意思，最终挑选出“可口可乐”四个字。一个英语品牌名称译成中文，不仅读音上八九不离十，意思上还“可口”又“可乐”（to permit mouth to be able to rejoice -- or something palatable from which one derives pleasure），真是可遇而不可求。

　　从《译名》等文献可知，最晚在 1930年五月以后，可口可乐已然比较常见，而 1930年供职于有关律师公馆的阿乐满，其 1957年文章中的“我们”具体都是哪些人，不得而知，但阿氏本人应该是其中之一。鉴于阿氏文章是刊于可口可乐之内部刊物（Coca-Colain-house publication），或许可以说，可口可乐公司就是“可口可乐”这一译名的真实译者。

　　（“可口可乐”译者简考，杨全红，中华读书报，2018年3月7日，http://epaper.gmw.cn/zhdsb/html/2018-03/07/nw.D110000zhdsb_20180307_1-19.htm）

（黄佶，2018年5月6日，微信公众号“黄道佶曰”，
2025年8月22日再次发布时略有调整）

相关文件：

Transliteration of 'Coca-Cola' Trademark to Chinese Characters
8/8/2015

Author
Eric Manuel Torres, Executive Director (CEO) of ATIS shares thoughts on the Translation and Interpreting industry in Australia and also news about the family business.

Here is an oldie but a goodie. The article below, written by H.F. Allman possibly during the late 1950's, shows the sometimes funny nature of translation. Indeed, things can get 'lost in translation' and we can get a laugh, but most times the accuracy and quality of translations are paramount. This is especially the case in medical or legal translations. Or, as is seen in case for 'Coca-Cola', when money and commercial success is on the line.

Australia is looking towards China and Asia in general for trade and commerce. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two about the need for good translations when entering foreign markets. Indeed, much of the lessons of Allman's article can be applied when dealing with any foreign language market. Getting the right meaning across is vital.

Some people have suggested that the story of the transliteration of 'Coca-Cola' is a myth, but 'Coca-Cola' has not only confirmed it but is enshrined as part of the companies history. So, without further ado, enjoy this fine and funny translation article.

Transliteration of Coca-Cola Trademark to Chinese Characters

by H.F. Allman,
formerly Legal Counsel in China for The Coca-Cola Company

The introduction of Coca-Cola in China back in 1928 presented some unusual problems to the late P.S. ("Red") Lewis and associates. The potential market was the 500 million Chinese, or a reasonable number thereof, and the large foreign community in China. For ages the Chinese had been accustomed to drinking their own delightful green tea -- hot and straight. The social customs of the foreign communities had long been set by the British -- and who had ever heard of any Colonial Britisher drinking anything but Scotch, gin, or black tea?

"Red" had no delusions that all of these people would suddenly become customers for Coca-Cola. Nevertheless, he firmly believed that an ever-increasing number of Chinese would come to like Coca-Cola and -- he was right. Before long, Coca-Cola appeared at the Shanghai Club and the Country Club, both utter British strongholds but frequented by Americans in the community. They convinced the British that Coca-Cola was indeed delicious and refreshing.

It was obvious that the Coca-Cola trademark had to be transliterated into Chinese characters in order to reach the millions in the market. Chinese, both written and spoken, is so completely alien to any European language that the simplest foreign word or term is a tongue twister to the Chinese.

To find the nearest phonetic equivalent to Coca-Cola required a separate Chinese character for each of the four syllables. Out of the 40,000 or so characters there are only about 200 that are pronounced with the sounds we needed and many of these had to be avoided because of their meaning.

While doing the research for four suitable characters we found that a number of shopkeepers had also been looking for Chinese equivalents for "Coca-Cola" but with weird results. Some had made crude signs that were absurd in the extreme, adopting any old group of characters that sounded remotely like "Coca-Cola" without giving a thought as to the meaning of the characters used.

One of these homemade signs sounded like "Coca-Cola" when pronounced but the meaning of the characters came out something like "female horse fastened with wax" and another "bite the wax tadpole". The character for wax, pronounced La, appeared in both signs because that was the sound these untutored sign makers were looking for. Any Chinese reading the signs would recognize them as a crude attempt to make up an arbitrary phonetic combination.

Although we were primarily concerned with the phonetic equivalent of "Coca-Cola", we could not ignore the meaning of the characters, individually and collectively, as the free-wheeling sign makers had done.

The closet Mandarin equivalent to "Coca-Cola" we could find was K'o K'ou K'o Le^. The aspirates (designated by ') are necessary to approximate the English sounds. There is no suitable character pronounced La in Chinese so we compromised on Le^ (joy) which is approximately pronounced ler. We chose the Mandarin because this dialect is spoken by the great majority of Chinese.

Incidentally, Chinese has to be interpreted into English rather than translated, and vice versa. All Chinese characters have more than one meaning but the [four chosen] (depending on context) commonly mean:

K'o = To permit, be able, may, can
K'ou = Mouth, hole, pass, harbor
K'o = as above
Le^ = Joy, to rejoice, to laugh, to be happy

It would seem that the Chinese trademark means to permit mouth to be able to rejoice -- or something palatable from which one derives pleasure.

Not once in ten million times could a company literally pronounce their trademark in English and have the sounds mean something desirable in the Chinese language.

The mainland of China is out of the market indefinitely [not true now, but this was probably written years ago] but fortunately most of the 2,000,000 Chinese in Hong Kong and the 9,000,000 in Taiwan understand Mandarin. Even the 10,000,000 overseas Chinese, who mostly speak Cantonese or Fukienese, realize that K'o K'ou K'o Le^ is the Mandarin Chinese trademark for "Coca-Cola".

https://atisaustralia.weebly.com/atis-blog/transliteration-of-coca-cola-trademark-to-chinese-characters

其它版本：

https://www.proz.com/forum/translation_theory_and_practice/8051-transliteration_of_coca_cola_trademark_to_chinese_characters.html

相关链接：

专题：翻译经济学的原理和在跨文化传播中的运用

Loong 在国际上的应用情况汇总

中国外交系统改译龙进展情况

译龙为 Loong 实际使用案例（按分类排列）

【全民狂欢，创造历史】Loong 纷纷空降购物中心等公共场所

推广 loong 的广告（黄佶）

【龙 loong 网总索引】

（返回顶部）