Localisation mistakes are nothing new but few have become as popular as the localisation mistake made when the Zero Wing video game from 1991 was translated into English. At the very beginning of the game, in the opening cutscene one character’s dialog reads as follows: “All your base are belong to us“. This short phrase will become very popular many years later. This was not an isolated incident when it came to this game though, the whole game was poorly translated from the original Japanese into English. A quick example of a line of text from the game, with the accompanying poor translation and correct translation:
Original: 機関士：何者かによって、爆発物が仕掛けられたようです。
Translation: Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Correct translation: Engineer: Somebody has planted a bomb.
(Wikipedia, 2015)
The phrase uttered at the beginning of the game has appeared in numerous articles, books, comics, clothing, movies, radio shows, songs, television shows, video games, webcomics, and websites. It is an interesting case of a relatively mediocre game that wasn’t received that well critically when launched, to become an internet phenomenon at a much later date, due to its poor localisation. The video game industry has come a long way since then and the localisation efforts of game companies have improved exponentially. Localisation mishaps still occur though and I will cover more of them in future posts. But until then, remember that: “All your base are belong to us“.
– Marius Anton
Bibliography: Wikipedia, (2015). All your base are belong to us. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us [Accessed 15 Nov. 2015].
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