Donkey Kong Bananza's Secret Language Revealed and Translated

It's an impressive feat to crack a secret in-game language, but doing so before the game's release is truly remarkable. This is exactly what YouTuber 2Chrispy accomplished with the upcoming game, Donkey Kong Bananza. Just as players previously deciphered the hidden language in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, 2Chrispy utilized trailers, preview footage, and the Nintendo Today app to decode the Ancient Monkey Scrolls in Donkey Kong's latest adventure.

In a detailed video, 2Chrispy shared his process, saying, "In the trailer, there were a lot of hidden details. But the one that stuck out most to me was the banana language. Watch to see how I decoded and deciphered every monkey letter I could find." By carefully analyzing an in-game item called Chip Exchange, he managed to translate nearly all of the banana alphabet, or "Bananabet," leaving only five characters unsolved.

Donkey Kong Bananza's secret language has been translated. Image credit: 2Chrispy.

With his newfound transcription skills, 2Chrispy has successfully translated various signs, notes, and documents seen in the available footage. For more details on these translations, check out his video on YouTube.

For example, in one screenshot, he translated an overhead sign to read "welcome," a neon sign as "factory," and a sign in a snow level as "ice." He also deciphered notices that said "hint," "item," and a mysterious sign stating: "Message. Thank you for reading. Someone."

A sign that reads "Message. Thank you for reading. Someone." Image credit: 2Chrispy.

"I'm excited to see what other text we'll find in the game," he added. "Could we see references to DK lore? Missing Kongs? Any mention of the Kremlings or King K. Rool?"

Our first hands-on preview of Donkey Kong Bananza highlighted its stunning visuals, stating, "I think Bananza is on track to be one of the most gorgeous Nintendo games I’ve seen. It really does take advantage of Switch 2's hardware — the environments are beautiful and DK’s animations are wonderfully expressive, and I left feeling like the next generation of first-party Nintendo games had truly arrived."

With the release date and tech specs now available for the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2, along with insights into the pricing of first-party games on the new system, you can dive deeper into all the details through our comprehensive coverage and discussions with industry experts. For more on Nintendo Switch 2, catch up on everything shown at last month's Nintendo Direct. Donkey Kong Bananza is set to launch on July 17 for $69.99, exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.