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The choice of languages is a feature that was introduced in weekly snapshot 11w49a and officially released in Minecraft 1.1. The language menu is accessible via a new button in the main menu to the left of the options button, and from the options menu.

Previously, language packs were needed in order to change the in game language. Language packs are obsolete, due to the official implementation of other languages.

Each language also has a font, although some languages share.[1]

History

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

Version Added Removed Total
Release Snapshot
1.1 11w49a 35 - 36
12w01a 17 3 50
(1.1 release) 6 - 56
1.2 12w05a 1 - 57
12w07a 1 - 58
1.3.1 12w21b 3 - 61
1.5 13w02a 2 1 62

Available languages

As of version 1.5.1, there are 62 languages, which are, in the order they appear in the menu:

# Name Language Official language in Added in
1 Afrikaans Afrikaans South Africa 12w01a (1.1)
2 اللغة العربية Arabic North Africa + Near and Middle East 12w01a (1.1)
3 Български Bulgarian Bulgaria 11w49a (1.1)
4 Català Catalan Andorra & Catalonia 12w01a (1.1)
5 Čeština Czech Czech Republic 11w49a (1.1)
6 Cymraeg Welsh Wales 11w49a (1.1)
7 Dansk Danish Denmark, Faroe Islands, Greenland. 11w49a (1.1)
8 Deutsch German Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium. 11w49a (1.1)
9 Ελληνικά Greek Greece, Cyprus. 12w01a (1.1)
10 Australian English Australian English Australia 12w21b (1.3.1)
11 Canadian English Canadian English Canada 11w49a (1.1)
12 English (UK) British English Great Britain, Australia, India, Singapore, Ireland... 11w49a (1.1)
13 Pirate Speak Pirate English None (Web language) 12w01a (1.1)
14 English (US) American English USA Pre 0.0.0
15 Esperanto (Mondo) Esperanto Constructed language (International) 12w05a (1.2)
16 Español (Ar) Argentinian Spanish Argentina 11w49a (1.1)
17 Español (Es) Spanish Spain 11w49a (1.1)
18 Español (Me) Mexican Spanish Mexico 1.1
19 Español (Ur) Uruguayan Spanish Uruguay 1.1
20 Español (Ve) Venezuelan Spanish Venezuela 12w01a (1.1)
21 Eesti Estonian Estonia 11w49a (1.1)
22 Euskara Basque France and Spain (Basque Country) 12w01a (1.1)
23 Suomi Finnish Finland 11w49a (1.1)
24 Français (Fr) French France, Belgium, Monaco, Switzerland, .... 11w49a (1.1)
25 Français (Ca) Canadian French Canada 11w49a (1.1)
26 Gaeilge Irish Ireland 12w21b (1.3.1)
27 Galego Galician Galicia (Spain) 1.1
28 עברית Hebrew Israel 11w49a (1.1)
29 हिन्दी Hindi India 1.1
30 Hrvatski Croatian Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina 11w49a (1.1)
31 Magyar Hungarian Hungary 11w49a (1.1)
32 Bahasa Indonesia Indonesian Indonesia 12w21b (1.3.1)
33 Íslenska Icelandic Iceland 11w49a (1.1)
34 Italiano Italian Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City State. 11w49a (1.1)
35 日本語 Japanese Japan 11w49a (1.1)
36 ქართული Georgian Georgia 12w01a (1.1)
37 한국어 Korean South Korea North Korea 11w49a (1.1)
38 Kernowek Cornwall Cornwall 13w02a (1.5)
39 Lietuvių Lithuanian Lithuania 11w49a (1.1)
40 Latviešu Latvian Latvia 12w01a (1.1)
41 Bahasa Melayu Malay Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei 12w01a (1.1)
42 Malti Maltese Malta 12w07a (1.2)[note 1]
43 Nederlands Dutch The Netherlands, Belgium, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Suriname. 11w49a (1.1)
44 Norsk Norwegian Norway 11w49a (1.1)[2]
45 Norsk Nynorsk Norwegian Norway 11w49a (1.1)
46 Polski Polish Poland 11w49a (1.1)
47 Português (Br) Brazilian Portuguese Brazil 11w49a (1.1)
48 Portuguese (Po) Portuguese Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, .... 11w49a (1.1)
49 Quenya Quenya (High Elvish) Constructed language (Lord of the Rings: Valinor, Lindon and Rivendell) 1.1
50 Română Romanian Romania, Moldova 12w01a (1.1)
51 Pусский Russian Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, .... 11w49a (1.1)
52 Slovenčina Slovak Slovakia 12w01a (1.1)
53 Slovenščina Slovenian Slovenia 11w49a (1.1)
54 Српски Serbian Serbia (Kosovo), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro. 12w01a (1.1)
55 Svenska Swedish Sweden, Finland. 11w49a (1.1)
56 ภาษาไทย Thai Thailand 12w01a (1.1)
57 tlhIngan Hol Klingon Constructed language (Star Trek: the Klingon Empire) 12w01a (1.1)
58 Türkçe Turkish Turkey 11w49a (1.1)
59 Українська Ukrainian Ukraine, Transnistria. 12w01a (1.1)
60 Tiếng Việt Vietnamese Vietnam 1.1
61 简体中文 Chinese (Simplified) China, Singapore 11w49a (1.1)
62 繁體中文 Chinese (Traditional) Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau. 12w01a (1.1)
  1. Maltese added in 11w49a but removed in 12w01a. It's re-added in 12w07a.

Upcoming languages

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

Removed languages

Name Language Official language in Added in Removed in Reason
Deutsch (Ös) Austrian German Austria 11w49a (1.1) 12w01a (1.1) Unknown (probably because Austrian German mostly equals standard German)
Español (La) Latino-American Spanish South America 11w49a (1.1) 12w01a (1.1) Replaced by Mexican, Venezuelan, and Uruguayan Spanish translations.
Norsk Bokmål Norwegian Norway 11w49a (1.1) 13w02a (1.5) Added 'Norsk' (no_NO) instead.

Bugs and inaccuracies

  • The "Ouch. That looked like it hurt" message (shows when the /kill command is used) does not appear to ever translate.
  • Some languages use Unicode fonts when they should not (example: Spanish doesn't, but French does, even though the standard font contains all French characters).
  • Written Arabic uses connected letters, but the letters do not connect (e.g. "اللغة العربية" is written like "ا ل ل غ ة ا ل ع ر ب ي ة") in the translations.
  • In some languages, the text is too long and overflows the button it is written on.
  • Splash texts are not translated and therefore always show up in English.
  • The option for Hebrew reads "אנגלית" (English). It should be "עברית" (Hebrew).
  • Minecraft's language option is only for displaying. In some languages (such as Chinese, Japanese and so on) players cannot input text in their languages. This is because Minecraft doesn't support Input method. Such users still use Mods which supports it.
  • Some in-game messages are not translated to any languages.[3]

Trivia

  • Minecraft is available in three constructed languages: Esperanto (devised as an international language and spoken fluently by around 100,000 people worldwide), Klingon (an alien language from Star Trek devised by linguist Marc Okrand), and Quenya (one of the Elvish languages devised by J.R.R. Tolkien). It is also available in the joke "language" of Pirate Speak, which is English written in the way a stereotypical pirate talks. Australian English also pokes fun and humorous stereotypes such as naming furnaces "Barbies", slang for barbeques, calling creepers "Bunyips" or calling a Minecart a 'Holden', Holden being General Motor's marque for cars sold in Australia.
  • 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.

References

  1. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean shares the use of Han characters. See wikipedia:CJK Unified Ideographs.
  2. File 'no_NO.lang' is found in 11w49a, but it's not selectable from language menu. no_NO is added to language menu in 13w02a.
  3. 5002
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