This one had me confused at first. When I saw the photo I was expecting this to be another story about a typo. Here, after all, is a sign with 泰达 on both sides, which is “Taida,” not “Teda,” in Pinyin. And I’ve grown so used to seeing Pinyin described as “English” that at first at didn’t realize what was meant. But there’s something else going on here, something much more interesting:
泰达大街两侧的路牌上，“泰达”的英文标识出现了“TEDA”和“TAIDA”两种写法，前者是“泰达”的英文拼法，后者则是“泰达”二字的汉语拼音。从开发区地名办了解到，泰达大街正式的英文写法为“TEDAAVENUE”，而“TAIDA”的写法是不正确的。
But this still isn’t very clear. I did some digging and found that the street name refers to the nearby Tianjin Economic-technological Development Area (TEDA), the Mandarin name for which is Tiānjīn Jīngjì Jìshù Kāifāqū (天津经济技术开发区).
In other words, this street really does have a name originating in English: TEDA. The Chinese characters for the street name, 泰达 (Tàidá), are secondary. They have nothing to do with the Mandarin name of the park; rather, they are an awkward transliteration of TEDA, the acronym of the English name.
This practice extends beyond the name of the street into references to the name of the industrial park itself. “泰达” is all over the park’s official Web site, which, significantly, is at www.TEDA.gov.cn. Thus, English trumped Mandarin in naming a PRC-government-sponsored industrial park in a Mandarin-speaking region of China, despite PRC regulations against just this sort of situation.
So the original story in Hanzi becomes a little clearer if put into Pinyin:
TEDA Dàjiē liǎngcè de lùpái shàng, “Tàidá” de Yīngwén biāozhì chūxiàn le “TEDA” hé “Taida” liǎng zhǒng xiěfǎ, qiánzhě shì “泰达” de Yīngwén pīnfǎ, hòuzhě zéshì “Tàidá” èr zì de Hànyǔ Pīnyīn. Cóng kāifāqū dìmíng bàn liǎojiě dào, TEDA Dàjiē zhèngshì de Yīngwén xiěfǎ wéi “TEDA Avenue”, ér “TAIDA” de xiěfǎ shì bu zhèngquè de.
This, by the way, is also an example of how capitalizing everything on street signs can sometimes lead to confusion.
resources:
- TEDA Dàjiē lùpái shàng Yīngwén biāozhì chūxiàn liǎng zhǒng xiěfǎ (泰达大街路牌上英文标识出现两种写法), enorth.com.cn, August 25, 2006
- Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area