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The Minecraft enchanting table writes in the Standard Galactic Alphabet, a cipher with one symbol for each of the 26 English letters. Tom Hall made it for Commander Keen in 1990. The words on the table are random and do not tell you which enchantment you get.
Use the translator below to read Galactic text as English, or to write your own message in Galactic letters and copy it. It is free and needs no account.
The Standard Galactic Alphabet is an invented script with one symbol for each of the 26 English letters. Tom Hall made it for the alien worlds of Commander Keen, a 1990 game by id Software, and Minecraft later used it on the enchanting table. Players also call it the Minecraft alphabet or the enchanting table language.
Because each symbol stands for one English letter, Galactic text is English in disguise. Anyone with the chart below can read it, and there is no grammar or vocabulary to learn.
When you put an item on the table, each of the three options shows a short line of Galactic letters. The game builds that line from random words in a fixed list: words such as fire, water, cube, sphere, grow, shrink, spirit, beast and enchant. Translate one and you get a phrase like "fire cube shrink", which has no link to the enchantment behind the button.
The only real clue is the tooltip. Hover over an option and the game names one enchantment it will apply. The Galactic line is decoration, and the letters that float from the bookshelves into the table are decoration too.
For the full story, with the Easter eggs in the word list and the first enchanting screenshot from 2011, read Are the Runes in Minecraft Real?
Every Galactic symbol next to its English letter. Use the chart to read a short word by eye, or to check a symbol the translator shows in red.
Reading or writing Galactic takes four steps.
The enchanting table symbols look like runes, and many players call them runes. Here is how the Galactic alphabet compares with the two best known runic alphabets.
| Name | What it is | Origin | Letters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Galactic Alphabet | A cipher: one invented symbol for each English letter, so it writes English and nothing else | Tom Hall, Commander Keen, 1990 | 26 |
| Elder Futhark | A real historical alphabet that wrote early Germanic languages, one rune per sound | Germanic Europe, about the 2nd to the 8th century | 24 |
| Younger Futhark | The Viking Age runic alphabet, with fewer runes than sounds | Scandinavia, about 800 to 1100 | 16 |
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Where the alphabet comes from, and how Minecraft uses it.
The Standard Galactic Alphabet was made by Tom Hall for Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, released on 14 December 1990. It is a substitution cipher for the Latin letters A to Z.
Source: Commander Keen, Wikipedia
The words on the enchanting table are chosen at random from a fixed list and are purely cosmetic. They have no relation to the enchantment the item gets.
Source: Enchanting Table, Minecraft Wiki
The enchanting table was added in Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3, which became Java Edition 1.0.0 in 2011. The Galactic letters that float from nearby bookshelves into the table use the same alphabet.
Source: Enchanting Table, Minecraft Wiki
A table needs 15 bookshelves around it to offer level 30 enchantments, the highest level the table shows.
Source: Enchanting Table, Minecraft Wiki
English, written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. Each of the 26 English letters has one Galactic symbol, so the table text is a simple letter swap, not a separate language. Tom Hall made the alphabet for the Commander Keen games in 1990, and Minecraft borrowed it for the enchanting table.
Nothing useful. The table picks a few words at random from a fixed list, such as fire, cube, grow, shrink, spirit and enchant, and shows them in Galactic letters. The words do not tell you which enchantment you get, so there is no hidden hint to decode.
No. The Minecraft Wiki confirms the words are random and purely cosmetic. Hover over an option instead: the game shows one enchantment it will apply, and that tooltip is the only real clue the table gives you.
No. They look like runes, but the Standard Galactic Alphabet is a modern cipher for English, made for a 1990 video game. Real runes, such as the Elder Futhark, are historical alphabets with their own sounds and names. Our rune converter writes your text in real runes if you want those instead.
Choose Galactic → Text in the translator, then tap the keyboard symbol that matches each symbol on your screen, or paste Galactic text. The English letters appear as you go. The A to Z chart on this page also lets you read it by eye.
Choose Text → Galactic, type your name, and press Copy. The result is plain text made of look-alike Unicode characters, so it pastes into Discord, chat, signs in other games, or a social media bio.
The Standard Galactic Alphabet has no Unicode block of its own, so every letter is built from existing characters that look similar. Four letters need two characters to look right: P is !¡, Y is ||, and T and X carry a small dot. The translator reads them back as one letter.
Yes. Many sites write T and X with a space inside the glyph. The translator recognises those spellings too, so pasted text from other tools reads back correctly.
The version Minecraft uses covers the letters A to Z only. Numbers and punctuation stay as they are and show in red, so you can see which characters have no Galactic symbol.
The list includes klaatu, berata and niktu, a nod to the line from The Day the Earth Stood Still, xyzzy, the magic word from Colossal Cave Adventure, embiggen from The Simpsons, and in Java Edition a Cthulhu chant from H. P. Lovecraft. Java Edition also has the word baguette.
Yes. The Minecraft alphabet, the enchanting table language and the Standard Galactic Alphabet are three names for the same 26 symbols. Minecraft did not invent them: they come from Commander Keen, a 1990 game by id Software.
Yes, with no account and no sign-up. It runs in your browser, and nothing you type is sent to a server.
Minecraft is a trademark of Mojang Studios. This translator is an unofficial fan tool and is not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft.
Full rune descriptions in your pocket whenever you need them. In one app.