Engrish. A Cruel Joke or a Legitimate Cultural Phenomenon?

In All Your Base Are Belong, Lori Kendall discusses the origin and development of a popular game phrase and popular game dialects. She opens by talking about how online game cultures have become a cross cultural environment where people who speak varying languages congregate. When groups of people communicate to one other from varying backgrounds often dialects emerge. For example along the Mexican border, a new language which mixes English and Spanish is spoken. This language is known as Spanglish.

With regard to online cultures, often phrases are mistranslated or mis-spoken. In some cases such mistranslations can become cultural phenomenons. One such mistranslation originated from a Japanese video game called Zero Wing. Zero Wing was released in 1989 and like many games from that era, the game sets up its premise by providing a short series of images and text at the opening sequence of the game. The Japanese game was translated into an American version and at one point in the game the text is mis-translated to "All of your base are belong to us." In 1998, the phrase was popularized when a picture of game with the phrase was posted to the internet. It marked the beginning of engrish in which poorly spoken English was a funny cultural phenomenon within online games. In my opinion such cultural phenomenons could be considered slightly arrogant. I believe that they encompass an arrogant American perspective that makes fun of people who struggle with English. While such antics may seem funny and catch easily I hope that this cultural phenomenon dies off quickly.