Language

This article is about in-game languages. For customizing language files, see Resource pack § Language. For the runic script used by illagers in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Illageralt. For the villager language in Minecraft: Story Mode, see MCSM:Villagerese.

Various languages outside of the system default may be selected in-game using the language menu, accessible in options‌^{[JE only]} or settings.‌^{[BE only]} Most of these languages are real; however, some Java Edition-exclusive languages, such as LOLCAT and Shakespearean English, are intended as jokes.

Languages

Notes

The table above includes the following constructed languages:

• Anglish: a language based on modern English but with all non-Anglo-Saxon loanwords removed;
• Esperanto: an international language now estimated to be spoken by about 2,000,000 people worldwide;
• Ido: a language derived from Esperanto;
• Interslavic: an auxiliary language based on Slavic languages created to facilitate communication between Slavs;
• Klingon: an alien language from Star Trek, devised by linguist Marc Okrand;
• Lojban: a logical language created by the Logical Language Group;
• Quenya: one of the Elvish languages devised by J.R.R. Tolkien;
• Toki Pona: a philosophical language created by Sonja Lang, known for having a limited lexicon of around 120 words;
• Viossa: a language created by r/conlangs to simulate the conditions of naturalistic pidgin formation.

Java Edition is also available in the following joke "languages":

• LOLCAT: English written in the way a stereotypical Lolcat talks;
• Pirate Speak: English written in the way a stereotypical pirate talks;
• Shakespearean English: English based on the literary style of William Shakespeare;
• Upside down English.

Translating

Java Edition and the Minecraft Launcher are translated in Crowdin. Anyone can join and suggest translations, and the proofreaders decide if the translation is good or not.

Font

Minecraft's default font Mojangles is made up of a grid of dots. Each character supported by the font is between 1 and 6 dots wide. All ASCII characters between 32 (space) and 126 (~) are five dots wide, with the following exceptions:

The space between characters is one dot wide.

Many glyphs are supported by the Minecraft font, but not all of them. GNU Unifont is used for several languages that use detailed characters, like Chinese or Tamil. See Resource Pack#Legacy Unicode.

Differences between English dialects

The names of features sometimes differ between different dialects (regional variety) of English. The table below describes these differences. (Note: Anglish, English (Upside Down), LOLCAT, Pirate Speak, and Shakespearean English are not considered dialects and therefore are excluded.)

Feature	English dialect
	American (default)	Canadian	Australian	New Zealand	British
Blocks
Cake with candle	Cake with Candle		Candle Cake		Cake with Candle
Dragon Head	Dragon Head			Ender Dragon Head	Dragon Head
Packed Ice	Packed Ice				Compressed Ice
Potted Azalea	Potted Azalea			Potted Azalea Bush	Potted Azalea
Potted Dead Bush	Potted Dead Bush	Dead Potted Bush	Potted Dead Bush		Dead Potted Bush
Melon	Melon			Watermelon	Melon
Hay Bale	Hay Bale	Straw Bale	Hay Bale
Items
Baked Potato	Baked Potato				Jacket Potato
Beetroot	Beetroot	Beet	Beetroot
Beetroot Seeds	Beetroot Seeds	Beet Seeds	Beetroot Seeds
Beetroot Soup	Beetroot Soup	Beet Soup	Beetroot Soup
Chainmail Boots	Chainmail Boots	Mail Boots	Chainmail Boots
Chainmail Chestplate	Chainmail Chestplate	Mail Chestplate	Chainmail Chestplate
Chainmail Helmet	Chainmail Helmet	Mail Helmet	Chainmail Helmet
Chainmail Leggings	Chainmail Leggings	Mail Leggings	Chainmail Leggings
Cooked Chicken	Cooked Chicken			Roast Chicken	Cooked Chicken
Cooked Mutton	Cooked Mutton			Roast Lambchops	Cooked Mutton
Cookie	Cookie		Biscuit[note 1]
Glistering Melon Slice	Glistering Melon Slice			Glistering Watermelon Slice	Glistering Melon Slice
Leather Pants	Leather Pants				Leather Trousers
Melon Seeds	Melon Seeds			Watermelon Seeds	Melon Seeds
Melon Slice	Melon Slice			Watermelon Slice	Melon Slice
Raw Mutton	Raw Mutton			Raw Lambchops	Raw Mutton
Biomes
Savanna	Savanna	Savannah
Savanna Plateau	Savanna Plateau	Savannah Plateau
Enchantments
Channeling	Channeling	Channelling
Advancements/Achievements
Mob Kabob	Mob Kabob	Mob Kebab	Mob Kabob		Mob Kebab
Advancement Descriptions
Careful Restoration	Make a Decorated Pot out of 4 Pottery Sherds	Make a Decorated Pot out of four Pottery Sherds	Make a Decorated Pot out of 4 Pottery Sherds
Sticky Situation	Jump into a Honey Block to break your fall	Jump against a Honey Block to slow down your fall	Jump into a Honey Block to break your fall
Minecraft: Trial(s) Edition	Step foot in a Trial Chamber	Set foot in a Trial Chamber	Step foot in a Trial Chamber
Total Beelocation	Move a Bee Nest or Beehive, with 3 Bees inside, using Silk Touch	Move a Bee Nest or Beehive, with three Bees inside, using Silk Touch	Move a Bee Nest or Beehive, with 3 Bees inside, using Silk Touch
General
	Armor	Armour
	Chiseled	Chiselled
	Gray	Grey
	Behavior	Behaviour
	Sulfur	Sulphur
	Learned		Learnt	Learned
	Music Box				Musical Box
	while				whilst
	Whirs		Whirrs
Words ending in ise/ize	-ize		-ise
Debug Option Warning	[...], or eat your pet rock.	[...], or provoke nearby house hippos.	[...] or cause your fans to sound like a didgeridoo in a dust storm.	[...] or make your computer start speaking fluent Kiwi and calling you 'bro'.	[...] or cause your cookie to turn into a 'biscuit'.
Baby Pig in captions	Baby Pig	Piglet

History

Java Edition

Removed languages

File history

Bedrock Edition

Upcoming languages

Upcoming and still-in-progress translations are listed on the official Minecraft translation project page.

Issues

Issues relating to "Language" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Known issues

• Minecraft doesn't support combining characters, leading to some characters displaying improperly, e.g. diacritics appear as a separate character in some languages like Thai‌^{[JE only][1]}, Hindi, Tamil, Hebrew, or Yiddish.^[2]
• Splash texts are not translated and therefore always show up in English regardless of language setting.
  • Custom (not just translated) splash texts can be added using a resource pack.
• Minecraft's language option is only for text display. In some languages (such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and so on) players cannot input text in their languages. This is because Minecraft doesn't support the input method of the language. Some users can still use mods that support it.
  • Alternative language input was partially resolved in 14w34c and 15w43a when MC-2781 was fixed, but still is not functional for all systems.
  • Because 17w43a upgrades LWJGL, the issue is basically resolved.^[3]
  • Because 1.20-pre5 upgrades Unifont, almost all CJK characters can be displayed properly now.
• Right-to-left text is displayed in reverse in input boxes.^[4]

Trivia

• The five most-spoken languages that are not supported in Minecraft are Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Punjabi, and Urdu, all of which have more than 70 million native speakers and are primarily spoken in South Asia.^[5] The most-spoken non-Asian language that is not supported is Hausa, with 54 million native speakers.
• It is possible to add a custom language pack by modifying the minecraft.jar file, or, as of 13w16a, copying it to the assets/lang folder. In 1.6.1 (Java Edition 13w24a), this functionality was added to resource packs.
• All language files can be found in the same way as sound files (except the en_us.json file, where it is found on client.jar instead.)

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  Countries and territories colored by whether Minecraft comes in an official language (click "More details" button for more information)
• 
  Top 20 languages on 4 April 2016
• 
  Language selection screen in an earlier version
• 
  The world creation screen in Hebrew

Development images

• 
  Language selection screenshot
• 
  The Arabic language option
• 
  The Hebrew language option
• 
  Improved Arabic and bidirectional text handling

References