r/PhyrexianLanguage

Initially when I saw Valko Indorian's card in MBC, I was elated then disappointed that the flavor text did not contain new Phyrexian words. Then I realized that the art contained the text, as evidenced by the fact that the second line on the left clearly contains əə, which would be part of bracketed word in the flavor text, being [organic pl 2:4] or təəmøn. I therefore present a first attempt at reading the text in Valko Indorian's card art:

^xe [pres-ind]
təəmøn [n-organic-pl-2:4]
'štžɒɒðuʁ [for]-[n-mother-pl-2:2]
luč(d)uɬul lu-[v-weep-2:3]
loxuφ [pres-imp]-[when]
čkaaqøq [n-biomech-pl-2:4]
φlφyrxvrdolk?(q)ɒm(t) [complete]-[Phyrexia]-[adj-eternal]-[n-love]
glødž(ð)am. [v-comfort-1:2]
^'elš [Elesh]
norn. [Norn]

Indorian breaks up the text into 10 lines so I have also followed his scheme. Now I shall compare each line as it appears to its rendering and remark on them.

Line 1: ^xe

Line 1: ^xe at actual size next to render

^xe appears in the flavor text and 3 times in full in the art. It is a particle which indicates the present declarative affirmative indicative tense/mood.

Line 2: təəmøn

Line 2: təəmøn at actual size next to render.

təəmøn is translated in the flavor text as [being organic pl 2:4] and appears 3 times in full and 1 time partially in the art. It is as expected the plural and 2:4 conjugated form of təmn, which means an organic being.

Previously, the community has used a greater than sign (>) to indicate that the two parts of the conjugation have a direction. Here a colon (:) is used, with the usual direction of the text serving that purpose. Personally I think the colon is cleaner.

Line 3: 'štžɒɒðuʁ

Line 3: 'štžɒɒðuʁ at actual size next to render.

'štžɒɒðuʁ is translated in the flavor text as 'št[mother pl 2:2] and appears 2 times in full and 2 times partially in the art. It is made of two parts, an initial particle 'št and žɒɒðuʁ, the plural and 2:2 conjugated form of žɒðʁ, which means mother.

'št appears twice in the corpus, once in in K'rrik and once in Norn's Annex. In each case, it appears in translation near the word "for". In both cards the phrase "for each" appears so in Norn's Annex 'štaχəw', 'št-each does also while K'rrik has an intervening black mana symbol appearing between the aχəw' and 'št in that order. It would make sense for the organics to weep for their mothers so that seems to be what it means.

Line 4: luč(d)uɬul

Line 4: luč(d)uɬul at actual size next to render.

This is the first line that presented a real difficulty.

luč(d)uɬul is translated in the flavor text as [weep 2:3] and appears 2 times in full and 2 times partially in the art. It is made of two parts, an initial particle lu and č(d)uɬul, which if taken as the 2:3 conjugation of a verb would make that unconjugated verb č(d)uɬl.

lu does not appear in the corpus as its own particle.

I put (d) in parenthesis because just by reading it, I am unsure this is the correct glyph. However, by another clue I am confident of this identification. The 2:3 conjugation is metalicizing and all metalicized sounds have glyphs which have a metalicizing diacritic in the upper left. The glyph in question clearly has a forward slash and appears to have some other mark below the slash while having nothing in the upper left. There is only one glyph which has a forward slash, a mark below the slash on the right and doesn't metalize, namely d.

Perhaps I should be less confident about the identification of č and that it could be dž. Personally, it looks to bulky to be dž and it compares favorably with the č we know must exist 2 lines later.

Line 5: loxuφ

Line 5 loxuφ at actual size next to render.

loxuφ appears in the flavor text and appears 2 times in full and 2 times partially in the art. This is the last time text appears on the left of the art, which afforded the greatest number of pixels. It is made of two parts, the present declarative affirmative imperative tense/mood particle lo and the particle xuφ, meaning when. This is its first appearance in the corpus.

Line 6: čkaaqøq

Line 6: čkaaqøq at actual size next to render.

čkaaqøq is translated in the flavor text as [being mixed organic/inorganic pl 2:4] and appears 1 time in full and 2 times partially in the art. It is as expected the plural and 2:4 conjugated form of čkaqq, which means a biomechanical being.

Line 7: φlφyrxvrdolk?(q)ɒm(t)

Line 7: φlφyrxvrdolk?(q)ɒm(t) at actual size next to render. ə is used a dummy glyph since the consonant in that place is unrecognizable.

φlφyrxvrdolk?(q)ɒm(t) is translated in the flavor text as φl-[phyrexia-eternal-love] and appears 1 time in full and 2 times partially in the art. In the case of the second partial appearance, it is because the full text would be too long and impact the other text above that it is cut short. It is made of 4 parts: the particle φl meaning complete, φyrx meaning phyrexia(n), vrdolk which presumably means eternal, and ?(q)ɒm(t) which presumably means love.

The appearance of φlφyrx is unique, but is perhaps equivalent in sense to "New Phyrexia", it being a perfected or completed version of Old Phyrexia. It could also perhaps refer to the completion of the love, this is unclear.

vrdolk is interesting in that it's the first word with a 3 consonant cluster, and the first in onset. Even if I misidentified these consonants, there isn't room for a vowel. The reason for introducing this is probably because phonotactics excludes many of the total possible CVCC and CCVCC words, requiring CCCVCC words.

?(q)ɒm(t) contains 3 difficult glyphs. In the first, it is unclear whether there is a slash, it certainly gets brighter but I can't really say it comes out the other side. If it has a slash, then the size of the blob is indeterminate, perhaps making another k. If it doesn't have a slash then it must be l. The other two glyphs I have placed in parentheses could either be q or t, but the low resolution does not permit seeing which direction in either case. That the first is a q and the second a t is just my guess.

Line 8: glødž(ð)am.

Line 8: glødž(ð)am. at actual size next to render.

glødž(ð)am. is translated in the flavor text as [comfort 1:2] and appears 1 time in full and 2 times partially in the art. The ð could really be any of the other glyphs with a backslash and another mark in the upper right because there's not enough detail to tell at all. The 1:2 conjugation rounds so the unconjugated form should be gledž(ð)m. This now means that there are three consonant cluster codas, making the new syllable structure CCCVCCC.

Line 9: ^'elš

Line 9: ^'elš at actual size next to render.

^'elš appears in the flavor text and appears 2 times in full and 1 time partially in the art. It is the first part of the name Elesh Norn, who appears to be the person being quoted in this text.

Line 10: norn.

Line 10: norn. at actual size next to render.

norn. appears in flavor text and appears 2 times in full and 1 time partially in the art.

Summary:

By transcribing the text in the art of Valko Indorian I have identified four new Phyrexian words: čquɬl "to weep", ɢledžfm "to comfort", vrtolk "eternal", ktɒmt "love". I have also made the identification of 'št with "for" more solid.

All of these appear in a new quote from Elesh Norn meaning something along the lines of "Organics will weep for their mothers when we (biomechanical beings) comfort them with Phyrexia's eternal love."

If anyone can get their hands on physical card and can make a high quality scan, has any ideas for identifying unclear glyphs, or notices any mistakes, it would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT:

Having seen the higher resolution version posted by the artist and brought to my attention by u/Osmago, there are a few changes.

Line 4 is actually lučquɬul, with the q being unmetalicized. Possibly an error, possibly not.

Line 6 is actually čǩaaqøq, which to me appears to almost certainly be an error since this is a well known word.

Line 7 is actually φlφyrxvrtolkktɒmt

Line 8 is actually ɢlødžfam.

I have changed all these in the summary where necessary.

Hi! Im altering a skullclamp with custom artwork, and my cliente would like for the card title to be written on phyrexian. Can anyone help me translating skullclamp?