Language



Languages is a feature that allows changing languages for people who prefer to play in a language other than English. The language menu is accessible via a button in the options menu.

Available languages
List of languages in the order they appear in the menu:

Font
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ #  $  £  %  ^  &  *    _ - + = ~ [ ] { } | \ : ; " ', < > . ? . /

Minecraft's default font 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.

It has some of the Unicode characters. These characters are stored in,   and   file. If a character is typed (e.g. in chat, on a sign, in a book, etc.) that isn't either in these files, the font changes to Minecraft's "Unicode font" (stored in ) that has thinner lines. The "Unicode font" supports the "BMP" (Basic Multilingual Plane) section of Unicode characters, from 0000 to FFFF (decimal 65535), which is also limited, because it's only a part of Unicode characters, not all of them.

The list of currently supported characters can be seen below in order of appearance in the sheets:

History
Here is a table that summarizes the modifications of languages through the updates:

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

Removed languages
Austrian German was removed from Minecraft temporarily in version 12w01a because it was too similar to German. However, it has been re-included to the game again in version 1.10.

Issues

 * In some languages, the text is too long and overflows the button it is written on.
 * Minecraft doesn't support combining characters, leading to some characters displaying improperly, e.g. diacritics appear as a separate character in some languages like Hindi, Tamil, or Yiddish.
 * Splash texts are not translated and therefore always show up in English regardless of language setting.
 * As of 1.6.1, a custom (not just translated) splash text can be used by 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 was fixed, but still is not functional for all systems.
 * Because of 17w43a upgrades LWJGL, the issue is basically resolved.

Trivia

 * Minecraft is available in eight constructed languages:
 * Anglish; a language based on modern English but with all non-Germanic loan words removed,
 * Esperanto; devised as an international language now estimated to be spoken by about 2,000,000 people worldwide,
 * Ido; a language derived from Esperanto,
 * Interslavic; a 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 language created by the Logical Language Group,
 * Quenya; one of the Elvish languages devised by J.R.R. Tolkien,
 * Talossan; a language created for the Talossa micronation. It has been removed in Java Edition 1.17 snapshot 21w03a as its translations were incomplete.
 * It is also available in the joke "languages" of
 * 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.
 * According to the Bedrock Edition Chat Settings and the Bedrock Edition game files, the name of the font used by the game is called "Mojangles".
 * 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, this functionality was added to resource packs.
 * Before, obfuscated text would choose random characters of only the same width. Now, it's no longer the case, as all supported characters are taken into account.
 * 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.