Minecraft: What Are Enchanted Letters? (& How To Translate Them)

Although plenty of players might spend most of their time exploring the vast overworld that Minecraft has to offer, it’s no secret that this game features a lengthy list of mysterious aspects – from hidden areas to dark and spooky caves, sunken treasure chests, and much more. Minecraft also uses really interesting language during enchanting processes, leaving countless fans wondering what Minecraft’s enchanted letters are, as well as how to translate them.

What are Minecraft’s enchanted letters?

Enchantments can seriously revolutionize any Minecraft player’s experience, as they can totally transform just about any piece of gear, armor, weapon, or tool in the game. Different enchantments all have various benefits and pros, topped with different cons in some cases, but they can all be useful for Minecraft players depending on the item and the situation.

One thing that all enchantments have in common is the language and letters that they use, typically appearing on the right side of the enchantment table in-game. Players only find out what enchantment it really is by hovering over the item – fragmented letters often float around the enchantment table while it’s in use. Much like the audible language in Minecraft, the letters transcribed on different enchantment texts are generally impossible for the average person to understand off the top of their head.

Having the ability to enchant your items in Minecraft is nothing new since the feature has been around for quite a while already. But, the cryptic and alluring language that Minecraft enchanting papers use is far older than one might expect. We’ve outlined everything you need to know to interpret Minecraft’s cryptic texts, with images thanks to fans on the Minecraft Wiki.

Standard Galactic Alphabet

Although it might seem as if the language that Minecraft uses is completely made up by Mojang or others who were a part of Minecraft’s creation, this isn’t quite the case. While the language that players hear while playing the game might be nonsensical, the language and letters featured in Minecraft’s enchantments actually follow an existing canonical and fictional language.

In fact, the letters that can be found in each of the enchantment papers in Minecraft follow Commander Keen’s Standard Galactic Alphabet, stemming from the Commander Keen PC game that started gaining traction way back in 2001. The Standard Galactic Alphabet, otherwise known as SGA, is a fictional language that became fairly popular but still uncommon in various video games and pop culture pieces since its initial debut over two decades ago.

As the name of the language and alphabet might suggest, the Standard Galactic Alphabet was used to represent an alien form of language by means of written communication. The language became a massive source of inspiration for various other fictional and galactic languages as well, alongside some similar languages featured in Star Wars and Futurama, and each of the letters in the SGA can be linked to a letter in the English language.

How to translate Minecraft’s enchanted letters?

Having access to the official Commander Keen Standard Galactic Alphabet is what makes translating each Minecraft enchantment book possible. It’s really simple and easy to follow as long as you refer to the available translation page, as seen below:

All players would need to do is have a close look at the enchantment paper that they have in their Minecraft playthrough, and compare it with the Standard Galactic Alphabet translation sheet. Doing so will give players a pretty accurate English translation.

If you are trying to get a proper understanding of each of the texts in Minecraft in the simplest way possible, you will need to start off by taking screenshots of the enchantments you’d like to translate. Players can generally take screenshots in different ways on PC, as seen below, and doing so will make going back and forth between the pieces much easier.

Once you start translating, everything should be pretty similar to the rules of the English language, considering that the spacing in the texts works in the same way as spacing in the English language. The main variation in terms of language rules is that there is no difference between upper case and lower case in the Standard Galactic Alphabet.

However, this can definitely take some time if you’re eager to get through tons of enchanted papers in Minecraft. Alternatively, Minecraft players could also try out the LingoJam Standard Galactic Alphabet translator, a conversion tool that works similarly to Google Translate created by avid Minecraft fans who are as curious as you are!

Players can have tons of fun making up their own phrases using the tool, or getting through all of the Minecraft enchanted letters in a pinch. That being said, it needs to be pointed out that the content of the Minecraft enchanted letters may not be what most fans have expected.

What do the enchanted letters mean?

Without spoilers, the Minecraft enchanted papers do not actually contain any information that is relevant to the specific enchantment you are using, nor does it contain anything that relates to Minecraft at all. In fact, most of the time, players will be met with a string of seemingly nonsensical words and phrases that have no direct translations to the English words either (such as the Enchantment name).

There is actually only a limited supply of words that can be translated into English words, although they would typically differ in their arrangements. Minecraft fans have also managed to identify some really odd and non-English words as well, which many assumed to mean ‘nothing’. But, some of these phrases or words are actually linked to even more cryptic languages, as seen below:

These odd and often ominous words have only sparked fans’ curiosity even further. For example, some of these non-English words have been sourced from the novels created by H.P. Lovecraft. With so much mystery, it’s no surprise fans are eager to uncover as many hidden gems as possible.

Minecraft certainly flaunts a massive range of mysteries for players to discover, although many of them will typically go uncovered. Thankfully, players will be able to get a proper understanding of the enchanted letters that they use in-game using these easy translation tools and methods.

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