• Chapter 0 - Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Reading and Writing
• Chapter 2 - Building Words
• Chapter 3 - Sentence Structure
• Chapter 4 - Unclear Aspects

Chapter 0 - Introduction

This page is a step-by-step tutorial for the Phyrexian language. It will cover the full extent of the community's current knowledge in the grammar of Phyrexian.

Chapter 1 - Reading and Writing

Reading Flow

Phyrexian, like many languages in the real world, uses sequences of symbols to represent the pronounciation of words. These symbols are laid out along lines that connect them into words, and then the words into sentences.

These connecting lines can flow in two ways:

Writing

To write your own text in phyrexian (in the computer), you will have to install one of the fonts you can find on the github repository for this website.

Phyrexian Regular is the official font used for cards. Two fonts (Phyrexian Regular and Basilica) are directly converted from official phyrexian text (symbols on table below). The others have been designed for ease of typing in common keyboards.

Alternatively, you can use our search page's virtual keyboard to type the text you want, then print the screen.

Symbols and pronounciation

The symbols along Phyrexian script represent either letters for each sound (phonemes) in a word or punctuation that separates letters into words and sentences. All these symbols are displayed in the table below.

You may notice letters that are similar in sound share the same main glyph, and are differeniated by small symbols (diacritics) to the right and to the left of the main glyph. The left-hand diacritics indicate a "metallic consonant", that include the sound of clanking or slicing pieces of metal against each other, and cannot be pronounced by humans. The alternative is to replace "clanked" sounds with plosive consonants and "sliced" ones with aspirated consonants.

It's important to note that, while there are official sources for how to pronounce each symbol, some sources can be contradictory. These contradictions stem from using comparisons as the ones below, where accents might pronounce some vowels and consonants differently. While we don't have a one-to-one reference to IPA (international phonetic alphabet), the closest official source to that is the table present at Wizard's article about the language. This tutorial will keep using word comparisons for accessibility.

Punctuation
Symbol	Romanized Equivalent	Use
^	^	Start of normal sentences. Translations would end in a full stop.
?	?	Start of question sentences. Translations would end in an interrogation point.
!	!	Start of exclamatory sentences. Translations would end in an exclamation point.
"	"	Start of quoted sentences. It's unclear how to express the other sentence start symbols inside a quote.
.	.	Usual end of sentences.
:	:	End of sentence that serves the same purpose as a colon. Next sentence does not need a start symbol.
-	-	Word separator. Will not be present when at a line break
,	,	Word and phrase separator (similar to comma). Will not be present when at a line break
Vowels
Symbol	Romanized Equivalent	Use
i	i	As in pit
y	y	As in few or in French tu
e	e	As in they
a	a	As in car or father
ɒ	ɒ	As in saw or macaw
o	o	As in show
ø	ø	As in German schön or French peu
u	u	As in super
ə	ə	As in shut or up
Consonants
Symbol	Romanized Equivalent	Use
m	m	As in mango
n	n	As in nose
ŋ	ŋ	N with the back of the tongue, as in sing
ɴ	ɴ	N with the throat, as in lung
s	s	As in street
š	š	As in shovel
z	z	As in zebra
ž	ž	As the S in vision
ɬ	ɬ	L with the middle of the tongue
ɮ	ɮ	Try to say the S of vision with the tongue against the roof of the mouth
l	l	As in lock
r	r	Trilled R, as in Spanish words and the Scottish accent
č	č	As in check or chore
dž	dž	Like a dg/dz sound, as in jug or lodge
w	w	As in walk
j	j	As in you
ẅ	ẅ	Y wish the back of your tongue
'	'	Glottal stop as in uh-oh or if you try to say "a apple"
h	h	As in hat
p	p	As in pong
f	f	As in fire
π	π	Plosive P. Try to hold the P while accumulating air in the mouth before releasing
φ	φ	Aspirated P. Try to do an F with your lips
b	b	As in ball
v	v	As in video
t	t	As in time
θ	θ	As in thin
ť	ť	Plosive T. Try to hold the T while accumulating air in the mouth before releasing
ţ	ţ	Aspirated T. Try to do an H and a T at the same time
d	d	As in dance
ð	ð	As in the or this
k	k	As in karma
x	x	As in the Scottish pronounciation of loch
ǩ	ǩ	Plosive K. Try to hold the K while tightening the throat before releasing
ķ	ķ	Aspirated K. Try to do an H and a K at the same time
g	g	As in good
ɣ	ɣ	A G without touching your tongue. Like the Greek gamma
q	q	As the C in caught or country
χ	χ	Like the CH in the Scottish loch, but with your throat
ǧ	ǧ	Plosive G. Try to hold the G while tightening the throat before releasing
ǥ	ǥ	Aspirated G. Try to do an H and a G at the same time
ɢ	ɢ	Like the plosive G, but with your throat
ʁ	ʁ	Like the French R, made with the throat

Numbers

Phyrexian uses a hexadecimal system to count. That means they have 16 distinct symbols for numbers from 0 to 15, then combines these symbols in sequence to get higher numbers (for comparison, our arabic numerals are in base 10, having ten distinct symbols from 0 to 9 and then looping back).

While not present in the main fonts (these just use arabic numerals along the connecting line), we hypothesize this is how Phyrexian should properly represent numbers along their text.

The Basilica font, in turn, implements these numbers with the 0-9 and A-F portions of the "Mathematical Monospace" part of Unicode (the universal code table for most symbols from different languages). Use this website to type whichever numbers you like and paste in text with the Basilica font to get the numbers.

Here's a visual explanation from the Beadle & Grimm's guide:

Chapter 2 - Building Words

Word Roots

In general, words in Phyrexian are short and formed of mostly consonants, with vowels and prefixes changing to adapt the meaning of a root word. Words roots begin and end with a consonant, generally in the format CVCC (C for consonant and V for vowel), but also CCVCC in some cases.

Also, to indicate plurals Phyrexian will double the first vowel in the root, making the root adopt a CVVCC format.

Here are some examples:

• Death: θuqx - θuqx

• Deaths: θuuqx - θuuqx

• Life: nsa'q - nsa'q

• Blood: huqt - huqt

Names

Native Phyrexian names are similar to their spelling in English, but often drop vowels in their spelling. It's unclear wether the vowels should be inferred or if we should assume that, in universe, the vowels were introduced into the English spelling to make them more "human readable".

When adapting names and foreign words to Phyrexian, we try to replicate the word's phonemes with the Phyrexian letters. The rule for consonants at the beginning and end is mantained, and glottal stops are used to enforce it.

Here are some examples:

• Sheoldred: šøldrd - šøldrd

• Jace: džes - džes

• Vraska: vraskə' - vraskə'

• Tamiyo: tam'oo' - tam'oo'

• Ajani: 'ədžɒnii' - 'ədžɒnii'

Root Modifiers

Many Phyrexian words are built by joining a word root to a particle immediately before it. This is similar to English, where the suffix "X -er" means "a thing that does X" (worker, sleeper, walker).

Many of these are not entirely understood due to the lack of examples for them, so I will not try to create a table explaining each one. This will be explored in a later chapter and, for now, here are some brief examples of this concept in action (of cases we are very sure about):

• Collective prefix: ke

  Collective of land (θəɢð) = World: keθəɢð - keθəɢð

  Collective of creature (φe'x) = Herd: keφe'x - keθəɢð

• Opposition prefix: əx

  Opposite of player (nɒqč) = Opponent: əxnɒqč - əxnɒqč

  Opposite of pure (tunm) = Impure: əxtunm - əxtunm

• Ability prefix: ɣwi

  Ability to fly (tøšq) = Flying: ɣwitøšq - ɣwitøšq

  Ability to "oversee" (pnrukm) = Vigilance: ɣwipnrukm - ɣwipnrukm

• "One that-" prefix: naķm

  One that whispers ('idžee't) = Whisperer: naķm'idžee't - naķm'idžee't

  One that speaks (pihš) = Speaker: naķmpihš - naķmpihš

  One that defiles (zept) = Defiler: naķmzept - naķmzept

Composite Words

Much like some real world languages, Phyrexian can concatenate multiple words when they add to the meaning of each other. The main reason for this to happen is with adjectives, which specify qualities for another word. If this concatenation was applied to English, we could write a "phyrexian beast" as "phyrexianbeast".

Here are some examples in Phyrexian:

• Great + Evolution: šχa'θ + ɢiss - šχa'θɢiss

• Perfect + Phyrexian + World: jnaķm + φyrx + keθəgð - jnaķmφyrxkeθəgð

• Legendary + Colorless + Artifact + Token: ʁajg + əxsopšikt + qxuna'k + fa'ipeθ - ʁajgəxsopšiktqxuna'kfa'ipeθ

• Green + Phyrexian + Beast + Creature + Token: ɮiww + φyrx + pnpe'k + φe'x + fa'ipθ - ɮiwwφyrxpnpe'kφe'xfa'ipθ

Word Modifiers

On top of having modifiers for each of the roots that can compose a word, Phyrexian can also have modifiers for the whole word, that come before or after the concatenated unit of roots. These normally carry meaning that doesn't modify the meaning of the roots, but specifies it within the phrase or within a larger context.

These are similar to prepositions in English, where you would say "I want this option", "It's in the fridge", "It's on the table", etc.

Once again, these are not completely understood and will be explored in a later chapter. Here are examples that we're more sure of:

• Addition suffix: xə

  Creatures (φee'x) and Artifacts (qxunaa'k): φee'xqxunaa'kxə - φee'xqxunaa'kxə

• Alternative suffix: ðə

  Creatures (φee'x) or Artifacts (qxunaa'k): φee'xqxunaa'kðə - φee'xqxunaa'kðə

• Location (on) prefix: əšq

  On a permanent ('astiww): əšq'astiww - əšq'astiww

Modifying verbs

One last method that Phyrexian uses to modify its words is through relational infixes. These are extra vowels that usually go before the last consonant of a word and can specify possession or who is doing the action in a verb.

Since understanding them requires us to understand verbs and sentence structure, they will be discussed in a later chapter.

Chapter 3 - Sentence Structure

For this chapter, we will analyse the following phrase:

Verb positioning

Phyrexian has a very different way of constructing sentences when compared to English. To construct its phrases English commonly uses the SVO structure:

• Subject: who the phrase is referring to
• Verb: an action that the subject performs
• Object: who is being acted on

In our example, "Yawgmoth" is the subject, "killed" is the verb, and "Urza" is the object.

In the case of Phyrexian, when all elements are present, generally the SOV structure is used ("Yawgmoth Urza killed"), with the verb always at the very end of the phrase:

Verb Conjugation

The verbs at the end of the phrases also carry information on who is performing or receiving the verb's action. This is done by inserting a vowel before the last consonant.

This is why, in our example the word "kill" (qab_' - qab_') is written as qabe' - qabe'. Different vowels would have to be used if the verb had a different Subject or Object (I kill him, You kill me, He kills them, etc).

To understand who is doing and receiving the actions of a verb, we use the 1st (me), 2nd (you), and 3rd (they) persons, like in English, and an additional 4th person to specify a second third party in a phrase (In "Yawgmoth killed Urza", both the Subject and Object are not "me", nor "you") or to indicate an unspecified third party: "One". Conjugations don't change in plural cases (I = We, He/She/It = They).

In some conjugations, it will also be necessary to change one of the previous letters in the word, meaning we will have either vowel rounding (u-) or consonant metalicizing ('-). If the previous vowels or consonants can't be changed like this, no change is necessary and there will be some ambiguity in the conjugation.

Here is a table with each conjugation, with the word "Defile" (zept - zept) as an example:

	Doing
↓ Receiving	1st (me)	2nd (you)	3rd (they)	4th (they)
1st	o - o zepot - zepot I defile me	aa - aa zepaat - zepaat You defile me	a(-') - a(') zepať - zepať They defile me	a - a(') zepat - zepat One defiles me
2nd	(u-)a - (u)a zøpat - zøpat I defile you	(u-)u - (u)u zøput - zøput You defile you	(u-) - (u) zøpt - zøpt They defile you	(u-)e - (u)e zøpet - zøpet One defiles you
3rd	('-)a - (')a zeπat - zeπat I defile them	('-)u - (')u zeπut - zeπut You defile them	none zept - zept They defile them	y - y zepyt - zepyt One defiles them
4th	(u-)a - (u)a zøpat - zøpat I defile One	ø - ø zepøt - zepøt You defile One	e - e zepet - zepet They defile One	ee - ee zepeet - zepeet One defiles One

Some of these conjugations can also be used for nouns, indicating possession:

• The card (3 -> 3): ɢwinš - ɢwinš

• My card (1 -> 1): ɢwinoš - ɢwinoš

• Your card (2 -> 2): ɢwynuš - ɢwynuš

• Their card (4 -> 3): ɢwinyš - ɢwinyš

Mood/tense markers

While in English we carry information about when an action is performed (a phrase's tense) in verbs and surrounding words (walks / walked / will walk), Phyrexian conveys this through a word at the beginning of every phrase. Think of it as a declaration:

The purpose of these words isn't just to convey when a phrase is happening: they also inform in which manner the phrase is happening. Every marker also has versions for its negative equivalent (Affirmative vs Negative) if it's being used as a question (Declarative vs Interrogative).

Also, some mood marker can use an auxiliary marker to aid with its meaning. Here are the cases we've so far:

• When: xuφ

  If + When = Whenever: baxuφ - baxuφ

  Past + When = specifies when in the past: 'uxuφ - 'uxuφ

• Would and Instead: qilx and qit

  If + Would ..., Instead ... : baqilx ..., qit ... - baqilx ___,qit ____

  Not ..., Instead ... : əx ..., qit ... - əx ___, qit ___

This becomes clearer by inspecting the table below:

Present (non-past)
	Declarative			Interrogative
	Aff.	Neg.	Example	Aff.	Neg.	Example
Indicative	xe - xe	əx - əx	Yawgmoth kills Urza Yawgmoth does not kill Urza	ɴe - ɴe	əɴ - əɴ	Does Yawgmoth kill Urza? Does Yawgmoth not kill Urza?
Generic	ve - ve	vəx - vəx	Yawgmoth normally kills Urza Yawgmoth normally doesn't kill Urza	vɴe - vɴe	vəɴ - vəɴ	Does Yawgmoth normally kill Urza? Does Yawgmoth normally not kill Urza?
Optative (permission)	xwe - xwe	əxw - əxw	Yawgmoth may kill Urza Yawgmoth may not kill Urza	we - we	əw - əw	May Yawgmoth kill Urza? May Yawgmoth not kill Urza?
Hypothetical	xba - xba	kpa - kpa	Yawgmoth might kill Urza Yawgmoth might not kill Urza	'axəb - 'axəb	'axp - 'axp	Yawgmoth might kill Urza? Yawgmoth might not kill Urza?
Conditional	ba - ba	bu - bu	If Yawgmoth kills Urza If Yawgmoth doesn't kill Urza	'uuba - 'uuba	'uubu - 'uubu	If Yawgmoth kills Urza ... ? If Yawgmoth doesn't kill Urza ... ?
Potential	ťe - ťe	əť - əť	Yawgmoth can kill Urza Yawgmoth can't kill Urza	ŋe - ŋe	əŋ - əŋ	Can Yawgmoth kill Urza? Can't Yawgmoth kill Urza?
Jussive	ǩaπa - ǩaπa	əxπa - əxπa	Yawgmoth must kill Urza Yawgmoth must not kill Urza	ŋaπa - ŋaπa	əŋkπa - əŋkπa	Yawgmoth must kill Urza? Yawgmoth must not kill Urza?
Imperative	lo - lo	əl - əl	Yawgmoth, kill Urza Yawgmoth, don't kill Urza	ŋo - ŋo	ləŋ - ləŋ	Should Yawgmoth kill Urza? Should Yawgmoth not kill Urza?
Past
	Declarative			Interrogative
	Aff.	Neg.	Example	Aff.	Neg.	Example
Indicative	'u - 'u	ǩa - ǩa	Yawgmoth killed Urza Yawgmoth didn't kill Urza	ə - ə	ǩə - ǩə	Did Yawgmoth kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth not kill Urza?
Generic	vu - vu	va - va	Yawgmoth normally killed Urza Yawgmoth normally didn't kill Urza	və'a - və'a	vəǩə - vəǩə	Did Yawgmoth normally kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth normally not kill Urza?
Optative (permission)	'uxwe - 'uxwe	'axw - 'axw	Yawgmoth had the option to kill Urza Yawgmoth didn't have the option to kill Urza	'əwe - 'əwe	'əwa - 'əwa	Did Yawgmoth have the option to kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth have the option to not kill Urza?
Hypothetical	'uxba - 'uxba	'up - 'up	Yawgmoth might have killed Urza Yawgmoth might not have killed Urza	'əxp - 'əxp	'əp - 'əp	Yawgmoth might have killed Urza? Yawgmoth might not have killed Urza?
Conditional	'uba - 'uba	'ubu - 'ubu	If Yawgmoth killed Urza If Yawgmoth did't kill Urza	'ubaa - 'ubaa	'ubuu - 'ubuu	If Yawgmoth killed Urza ... ? If Yawgmoth didn't kill Urza ... ?
Potential	ťu - ťu	tǩa - tǩa	Yawgmoth could kill Urza Yawgmoth couldn't kill Urza	ťə - ťə	tǩə - tǩə	Could Yawgmoth kill Urza? Couldn't Yawgmoth kill Urza?
Jussive	žo - žo	tǩa - tǩa	Yawgmoth must've killed Urza Yawgmoth must not have killed Urza	ŋaπa - ŋaπa	əŋkπa - əŋkπa	Must Yawgmoth have killed Urza? Must Yawgmoth not have killed Urza?
Imperative	ložo - ložo	lukπa - lukπa	Yawgmoth had the order to kill Urza Yawgmoth didn't have the order to kill Urza	ləž - ləž	lekπa - lekπa	Should Yawgmoth have killed Urza? Should Yawgmoth not have killed Urza?
Narrative Past (stories and gospel)
	Declarative			Interrogative
	Aff.	Neg.	Example	Aff.	Neg.	Example
Indicative	'ušta - 'ušta	šǩa - šǩa	Yawgmoth killed Urza Yawgmoth didn't kill Urza	'əšta - 'əšta	šǩə - šǩə	Did Yawgmoth kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth not kill Urza?
Generic	všta - všta	všǩa - všǩa	Yawgmoth normally killed Urza Yawgmoth normally didn't kill Urza	vəšta - vəšta	všǩə - všǩə	Did Yawgmoth normally kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth normally not kill Urza?
Optative (permission)	šxwə - šxwə	əšxw - əšxw	Yawgmoth had the option to kill Urza Yawgmoth didn't have the option to kill Urza	šwə - šwə	əšwə - əšwə	Did Yawgmoth have the option to kill Urza? Did Yawgmoth have the option to not kill Urza?
Hypothetical	všta - všta	všǩa - všǩa	Yawgmoth might have killed Urza Yawgmoth might not have killed Urza	vəšta - vəšta	'əpšta - 'əpšta	Yawgmoth might have killed Urza? Yawgmoth might not have killed Urza?
Conditional	'ubašta - 'ubašta	'ubušta - 'ubušta	If Yawgmoth killed Urza If Yawgmoth did't kill Urza	'uubašta - 'uubašta	'uubušta - 'uubušta	If Yawgmoth killed Urza ... ? If Yawgmoth didn't kill Urza ... ?
Potential	ťušta - ťušta	tǩašta - tǩašta	Yawgmoth could kill Urza Yawgmoth couldn't kill Urza	ťəšta - ťəšta	tǩəšta - tǩəšta	Could Yawgmoth kill Urza? Couldn't Yawgmoth kill Urza?
Jussive	eežo - eežo	'uπašta - 'uπašta	Yawgmoth must've killed Urza Yawgmoth must not have killed Urza	əəž - əəž	ŋekπašta - ŋekπašta	Must Yawgmoth have killed Urza? Must Yawgmoth not have killed Urza?
Imperative	leežo - leežo	luπašta - luπašta	Yawgmoth had the order to kill Urza Yawgmoth didn't have the order to kill Urza	ləəž - ləəž	lekπašta - lekπašta	Should Yawgmoth have killed Urza? Should Yawgmoth not have killed Urza?

Chapter 4 - Unclear Aspects

We may know a lot about Phyrexian, but there are still many aspects of it that are unclear. While there are complete unknowns, like some of the words in the All Will be One trailer, some other things are enough to get some grasp on and extrapolate. Here we will explore some of these.

Root and Word modifiers

As explained on Chapter 2, we can attach some particles to either word roots or full words to change their meaning and give them more context within a phrase. Here I've compiled all of the ones that we could isolate from our text samples (we might have cases where we couldn't differentiate if we have a particle or not).

Root Modifiers
Particle	Meaning	Example
əx - əx	Negative	Opponent = not + Player əxnɒqč = əx + nɒqč əxnɒqč
pl - pl	Completion	Complete = complete + Make plnaķm = pl + naķm plnaķm
plθ - plθ	Incompletion	Half, rounded down = incomplete + Half plθəxķus'ər = pl + θəxķus'ər plθəxķus'ər
pn - pn	Greater	Vigilance = greater + See pnrukm = pn + rukm pnrukm
ke - ke	Collective	World = collective + Land keθəɢð = ke + θəɢð keθəɢð
ɣwi - ɣwi	Ability	Haste = ability + Move + Fast ɣwiziklvuwk = ɣwi + ziklvuwk ɣwiziklvuwk
naķm - naķm	One that-	Whisperer = one that + Whisper naķm'idžee't = naķm + 'idžee't >naķm'idžee't
iww - iww	Thing	Corpse = Dead + thing θuqxiww = θuqx + iww θuqxiww
χi - χi	?	Look for = ? + Ask χi'ətsxen = χi + 'ətsxen χi'ətsxen
χhe - χhe	?	Surveillance = ? + see χherukm = χhe + rukm χherukm
j - j	?	Perfection = ? + make jnaķm = j + naķm jnaķm
'ə - 'ə	?	Flesh = ? + Phyrexian 'əpyrx = 'ə + pyrx 'əpyrx

Word Modifiers
Spatial
h - h	to	return this to your hand
əšq - əšq	on	put a counter on this
dl - dl	in	target a card in your graveyard
Temporal
φɒ' - φɒ'	until	until your next turn
žki - žki	for	you can do this for this turn
Semantic
xə - xə	and	Creatures and Artifacts = Creatures + Artifacts + and φee'xqxunaa'kxə = φee'x + qxunaa'k + xə φee'xqxunaa'kxə
ðə - ðə	or	Creatures or Artifacts = Creatures + Artifacts + or φee'xqxunaa'kðə = φee'x + qxunaa'k + ðə φee'xqxunaa'kðə
'up - 'up	any	produce mana of any type
ɢə - ɢə	this/that	sacrifice this creature
ɣẅ - ɣẅ	from	a card from your deck
qər - qər	with	destroy all permanents with counters
w - w	of	abilities of permanents
w - w	of	abilities of permanents
xe__'ə - xe__'ə	amount	once per turn, up to one creature
tč - tč	order	First = One + order 'iitč = 'ii + tč 'iitč
ʁi - ʁi	?
'št - 'št	?
t'e - t'e	?
lyφ - lyφ	?