The Minecraft enchanting table language is the Standard Galactic Alphabet (SGA). It's a font with one glyph for each of the 26 Latin letters, based on a script that game designer Tom Hall created for the Commander Keen games. The runes on each enchantment button spell out words in ordinary Latin letters, but they're picked at random from a fixed word list and have no connection to the enchantment you'll get.
So you can translate it, but all you'll get is three to five random words per option, and those words only tell you which words were drawn. The real enchantment preview is the plain-English tooltip you see when you hover over an option. Unless we say otherwise, everything below comes from the Minecraft Wiki's Enchanting Table and Standard Galactic Alphabet pages, checked in October 2026.
What language is the Minecraft enchantment table?
It isn't a language. It's an alphabet: English letters drawn differently. The wiki describes SGA as a font in Minecraft, called alt internally in Java Edition, that covers a constructed script of the same name. Tom Hall made the original script for the Commander Keen games, which ran from 1990 to 2001. Minecraft's font version dates from 2011.
It arrived with the table itself in Java Edition 1.0.0 (Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3). Notch showed it off early. On 1 October 2011 he tweeted the first image of the enchanting screen, and its three offers translate to "Well Played Internets You Are Good", "These Names Will Be Random And Confusing" and "Each Spell Costs Experience Levels".
There are two names in search because the block was called the Enchantment Table until Java snapshot 17w47a (1.13). After that it became the Enchanting Table, and Bedrock followed in 1.21.30. "Enchantment table language" is the older name, and plenty of people still use it.
The Standard Galactic Alphabet: letters only
The font maps onto the standard ASCII layout (the texture file is ascii_sga.png), but only the letters A to Z are textured. Lowercase a to z is an exact copy of uppercase, so each letter has one glyph and there's no upper or lower case. The wiki lists no other supported characters.
We don't reproduce the glyphs here; the wiki publishes the chart as an image. For the full A–Z chart, use the Minecraft Wiki's Standard Galactic Alphabet page.
One detail is easy to miss. Per the wiki, none of the table's words contain a J or a Q. Both letters still have glyphs, though, and you can spot them among the letter particles that drift from nearby bookshelves into the table. Those particles don't appear if your Particles video setting is on Minimal.
Minecraft enchanting table language numbers
There aren't any. The SGA font covers only the 26 letters. Digits and punctuation aren't part of it, so there's no enchanting-table glyph for "3" or for a full stop. A chart that shows SGA numerals didn't take them from Minecraft's font.
The complete word list
Every word that can show up on an enchanting table button is below, spelled and ordered as on the Minecraft Wiki. Fifty-five words appear on both editions. Seven more are flagged as Java-only, which makes 62 on Java by our count.
| Edition | Words |
|---|---|
| Java and Bedrock (55) | the, elder, scrolls, klaatu, berata, niktu, xyzzy, bless, curse, light, darkness, fire, air, earth, water, hot, dry, cold, wet, ignite, snuff, embiggen, twist, shorten, stretch, fiddle, destroy, imbue, galvanize, enchant, free, limited, range, of, towards, inside, sphere, cube, self, other, ball, mental, physical, grow, shrink, demon, elemental, spirit, animal, creature, beast, humanoid, undead, fresh, stale |
| Java only (7) | phnglui, mglwnafh, cthulhu, rlyeh, wgahnagl, fhtagn, baguette |
Where the in-jokes come from
Several words are references. These are the origins the wiki gives, and we haven't added anything beyond them:
| Words | Origin, per the Minecraft Wiki |
|---|---|
| the, elder, scrolls | Likely a joke at Bethesda, maker of The Elder Scrolls. Bethesda's parent company Zenimax tried to sue Mojang over the name of Mojang's game Scrolls. |
| klaatu, berata, niktu | A misspelled reference to "Klaatu barada nikto" from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. |
| xyzzy | A magic spell in Colossal Cave Adventure, later used as an Easter egg or cheat code in several games. |
| embiggen | Coined by The Simpsons line "A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man". |
| phnglui, mglwnafh, cthulhu, rlyeh, wgahnagl, fhtagn | H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", or "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." |
| baguette | Java-only. The wiki gives no origin. |
How the text is generated
When you put an item in the table, it shows three randomised offers. For each one, per the wiki, three to five words are chosen from the list, joined together and displayed. That's the whole system:
- It's random and purely cosmetic. The wiki says the glyphs don't affect the enchantment.
- It has no relation to what you'll get. If "creature" or "undead" turns up, that's chance. The wiki notes the words sometimes refer to mobs by accident.
- It isn't saved. The words are shown only in the enchanting table and don't appear on the enchanted item.
The information you actually need is in the tooltip. Hovering over an option, a feature added in Java 1.8 (14w02a), shows one enchantment that offer will apply, written in plain English, such as "Looting III?". The offer may add others too. On mobile, tap the option before you put in the lapis. Our enchanting table setup guide explains how that preview works, along with bookshelves, level 30 and lapis costs.
How to read the enchanting table language
You have two options.
Decode it by hand
- Take a screenshot of the enchanting screen so you can zoom in on the runes.
- Open the wiki's SGA chart next to it.
- Match each rune to its letter. Case doesn't matter, because each letter has a single glyph.
- Check what you've got against the word list above. Every word on the table comes from that list, so if your result is close to a listed word, that's the word. If you think you've read a J or a Q, look again, because no listed word contains either.
Use an enchanting table translator
Search for "enchanting table translator" and you'll find third-party tools at the top. As of October 2026 these include mcgic.com, lingojam.com, crafty.gg and c.r74n.com. We haven't tested any of them, so we can't vouch for how accurate they are or how they handle punctuation.
People also search for enchantment table language to copy and paste. We couldn't verify whether SGA exists as standard text characters you can paste anywhere, so we won't send you to a source for that.
Enchanting table language on Bedrock
Bedrock uses the same alphabet. The SGA font was added in Pocket Edition Alpha v0.12.1 (build 1). The one text difference the wiki documents is the word pool: the six Lovecraft words and "baguette" are Java-only, so Bedrock draws from 55 words. The wiki records nothing else different about the glyphs.
FAQ
Does the enchanting table text mean anything?
No. It's English words written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet, chosen at random from a fixed list. As one r/Minecraft answer put it, the words "dont tell anything about what enchants it would give." The wiki agrees. The hover tooltip is the real preview.
Can you change what the enchanting table says?
Not in any way that matters. The words are random and decorative. The wiki pages we checked document no setting to pick them, and they never affect the result. If the enchantment you're really after is Mending, see our guide to getting Mending fast.
Is it a real language?
No. It's the English alphabet in Commander Keen's script, spelling a list of English words, invented spell words and pop-culture references.
The short version
The enchanting table language is the Standard Galactic Alphabet: 26 letter glyphs, no numbers, spelling three to five random words from a fixed list on each offer. You can decode it with the wiki's chart, but the only preview of what you'll actually get is the hover tooltip, and even that shows just one enchantment.