MTG Salvation

Another fact to my theory about plurals by doubling symbols. Compare:

N"E|X:HD^Z"ON"Xx|Z^FFXxN*|M:L_^_^ [B]X:ENxOOZ^N`[/B] N^F'ZFA`E'ZEXx.
The Gitaxians whisper among themselves of other [B]worlds[/B].

'X^L'X:L|Z^O [B]X:ENxOZ^N`[/B]|ZGXxX:XxN*GMx| N"JM^LZ^
We will flay the false skin of this [B]world[/B]

One more similar pattern:

'ZQ|[B]MxHX:D^[/B]X:Xx[U]~X:FD^N"[/U][B]X:ENx[/B]OZ^N` MxNxL'ZNxT^~X:FT|~X:_^T^L~X:ET
The Great Work of New Phyrexia is complete

N*E'ZQT|[B]M^HX:D^[/B]LX:[U]~XvFD^N^[/U][B]X:ENx[/B]FZ^N`| T^LXx_^FAx|X:D^EX:FZ^
to reveal the face of a new Phyrexia

N"E|V^J'ZZ"'ZO'ZVZ"VOVV| TL'ZT^|[B]M^HX:D^[/B]LX:Xx'ZT^T^EN"FN" N"F_^Q'ZENv
[B]New [/B]sources of mana power the Machine Orthodoxy

ZL|Z^FFXxN"|X:OT^_LT^_ 'X:L'X:L|'NL|[U]'X:GD^N*[/U][B]X:EN*[/B]OZ^N` 'ZEMxN"L'ZNxT^_LX:GXx.
If they exist, we must bring Phyrexia's magnificence to them.

M^HX: D^ must be 'new' and X:ENx is probably 'of' or a possessive case.

...aaaaaaand seems I finally got 'other' though the syntax is nightmarish:

N*E| [B]M:L_^_^[/B]| X^O| X^N"Q'X:Q_^N"| EN"O [U]'X:EE'ZN*[/U] +2/+2 N^FXxLX:EX^.
[B]Other [/B][U]creatures[/U] you control get +2/+2.
N"E| X:HD^Z"ON"Xx| Z^FFXxN*| [B]M:L_^_^[/B] [U]X:ENx[/U] [U]OOZ^N[/U]` N^F'ZFA`E'ZEXx.
The Gitaxians whisper among themselves [U]of[/U] [B]other [/B][U]worlds[/U].

On to figuring out 'the Great Work' (seems I've made a LOT of mistakes on modifiers ):

[U]'ZQ|[/U]MxHX:D^X:Xx~X:FD^N"X:ENxOZ^N` [B]MxNxL'ZNxT^[/B]~X:FT|~X:_^T^L~X:ET
[B]The Great Work[/B] of New Phyrexia is complete
[U]'ZQ|[/U][B]M^N^L'ZN^T^[/B]L'X:T|'ZFFN*XxNvQ'ZE&
[B]The Great Work[/B] has begun
'ZE_^Mx|^TH^D^T [B]MxNxL'ZNx[/B]A`KT^HZXx.
Elesh Norn, [B]Grand [/B]Cenobite
ZL|Z^FFXxN"|X:OT^_LT^_ 'X:L'X:L|'NL|'X:GD^N*X:EN*OZ^N` 'ZE[B]MxN"L'ZNx[/B]T^_LX:GXx.
If they exist, we must bring Phyrexia's [B]magnificence [/B]to them.

'ZQ| is probably past tense.

Quote from Potira

If this is a clearly phonetic language, shouldn't you guys be mapping it back to phonetic writing instead of English letters?

I know the map is currently supposed to define symbols for transcription, not sounds. Still, one might get stuck by that farther down the road.

As soon as someone comes up with a phonetic map, I'll gladly replace my code. In those videos Phyrexian language sounds like a really really bad radio to me and I can't make a thing of it.

Quote from Hyperworm

How did I miss that?
Sorry for the trouble -_-;;;

I was updating previous posts several times so it was easy to miss.
There may be other mistakes - decoding alien languages is not what I do every day

Quote from Hyperworm

EDIT: Just now realizing that maybe the key itself is wrong, rather than the transcription...
in fact I'm not sure I see any character like 'X: . Flip X horizontally in the key and that bit is fine...

Yes, the key was wrong - already corrected it in #143

Quote from Hyperworm

That doesn't resolve the missing Z:EN* though.

Corrected - see above post.

Quote from Hyperworm

Back to offer more thoughts.

1.
Savil's post
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6537451&postcount=128
is extremely useful, but either I'm not following it properly or there are a lot of mistakes in transcription
"Phyrexia", highlighted in Tracebam's post
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6537252&postcount=119
and seen at the end of the second segment in "If they exist, we must bring Phyrexia's magnificence to them."
is transcribed there as
'X:GD^N*OZ^N`
Reading from the right hand side (i.e. bottom) of that and continuing left/up, clearly N*OZ^N` is approximately correct, but then for some reason we skip from that N* symbol to the N* above it, moving straight onto D^, skipping the two symbols in between the two N*.
Further, the beginning symbol isn't 'X: because that would have the slash going the wrong way.
Savil : Can you please check and revise the work you did on the transcription?

I'll highlight all instances of Phyrexia found (I'm not sure they're same as Trancebam's):

ZL|Z^FFXxN"|X:OT^_LT^_ 'X:L'X:L|'NL|[B]'X:GD^N*[/B]X:EN*OZ^N` 'ZEMxN"L'ZNxT^_LX:GXx.
If they exist, we must bring Phyrexia's magnificence to them.

[B]~XvGD^N*[/B]YJ'ZN".
Phyrexian (language)

'ZQ|MxHX:D^X:Xx[B]~X:FD^N"[/B]X:ENxOZ^N` MxNxL'ZNxT^~X:FT|~X:_^T^L~X:ET
The Great Work of New Phyrexia is complete

N*ETD^HZ^T^|'ZOZO'ZFV|[B]~XvFD^N*[/B] X:_^XxN*EN*FMx|OMxX^TT^FD^FN*
Beneath the Phyrexian skin, the heart of Mirrodin burns

N*E'ZQT|M^HX:D^LX:[B]~XvFD^N^[/B]X:ENxFZ^N`| T^LXx_^FAx|X:D^EX:FZ^
to reveal the face of a new Phyrexia

So 'Phyrexia' is more likely ~XvGD^N* or ~XvFD^N*


Edit: oops, I did miss three symbols X:EN* in 'If they exist, we must bring Phyrexia's magnificence to them.'
Corrected it.

Updated code map - replaced S with |, added C and &, corrected X


Updated coded transcripts

Quote from LukeAbbott

It might be a bit more appropriate to use | in place of S in your key under the assumption the that character seems to separate words?

Good idea, and it represents the symbol better than S. Though I'm not exactly sure that symbol is a separator - it might be some sort of suffix.

As I noted above, this may be a word (auxiliary verb perhaps) that specifies that sentence is in simple present tense.

Coding for the rest of phrases (OUTDATED - see http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6538074&postcount=143 ):


Now to do some analysis...

Noticed that many phrases begin with N*ES or N"ES (probably the same symbols which I incorrectly recognized) and those phrases are in simple present tense. Sentences that don't start with N*ES use different tenses or have different structure.

You forgot Legendary in the creature type

Thank you! I've wondered why 'creature' is so long and now it makes sense.

N^LV^Z" [B]'X:E'ZN*[/B] X:N*LV^XxD^.
Legendary Creature - Praetor

N*ES M:L_^_^ S X^O S X^N"Q'X: Q_^N"SEN"O [B]'X:EE'ZN*[/B] +2/+2 N^FXxLX:EX^.
Other creatures you control get +2/+2.

N*ES XxO S ON"T^JJX^Ax S X^N"Q'X: E_^SN"E [B]'X:EE'ZN*[/B] -2/-2 N^FXxLX:EX^.
Creatures your opponents control get -2/-2.

Bolded parts could be 'creature' and 'creatures'. If so, syntax is weirder than we thought. Yoda syntax? 'Other you control creatures +2/+2 modified get'?

Another interesting observation: doubled identical symbols often come near plural nouns. The above example stands for 'creatures', other instances I've noticed:
JJ near 'opponents'
FF near 'Gitaxians'
FF near 'they' (ok, not technically a noun)
EE near 'whispers'
JJ near 'machines' (if it is read as 'The Machines Father')
also, VV near 'sources' and OO (not exactly) near 'worlds'.
It is possible that plural form in Phyrexian is formed by doubling certain symbols in the word.

Phonetic or not, the language needs some way of writing it conveniently, so I mapped Phyrexian symbols to English letters and punctuation marks, basing on the semblance to letters, which allows to write it down quickly and refer to certain symbols by their codes.
Underline modifiers are written before the code and overline modifiers are written after the code.
Here is my map (OUTDATED - see http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6538074&postcount=143 ):

Here are all coded phrases from Elesh Norn and New Phyrexia (OUTDATED - see http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6538074&postcount=143 ):


They may not be exactly accurate, especially the modifiers, because they all look alike and are hard to tell from each other on low-res pictures.
^,",*,: marks look very alike, as do ~ and '.

Some interesting conclusions can be made:
1) some symbols are modified more frequently then other. J,H,Q and F,G,E,K,L symbols do not have modifiers (unless you count G as modified F and K as modified E). S and O are never modified. X is always modified, often with both overline and underline modifiers.
'X and ~X look very alike but seem to be different. So X comes in varieties:
Xx X^ X: 'X: ~X: Xv ~Xv
N and Z often have modifiers:
Nx N^ N* N"
'Z Z" Z^
Other symbols can have few modifiers: T or T^, Mx or M: (never without), D^ (seems that symbol D actually comes with ^ modifier initially), V or V^, Ax or A` (again, never without).
2) some symbols are really rare. Y, G and K, in particular. Though G is probably either modified F or it's the same symbol and low-res makes it look like F or G.
I've met K only once, in 'Grand Cenobite', but it is clearly distinguishable from E.
3) 'Phyrexia' corresponds to ~XvGD^N* or ~XvFD^N* sequence (met four times in those phrases), which adds to the theory that F and G are the same.
4) most of the sentences start with N, Z or X - some kind of article?

It would be nice to figure out the alphabet. Here's my try to find all seen characters (letters?), excluding obvious punctuation.
The right part of image is most certainly incomplete because of the low-res pictures.

In MBS the Mirran intro packs had the mirran symbol on the left and Phyrexian on the right. 'Action' has both faction symbols on the right, so it's probably just another nail in MP's coffin. Sad.

It could decolor objects and mana. Something like
When ~ ETB, choose a color.
Mana symbols of the chosen color on all cards that aren't on the battlefield, spells, and permanents are colorless.
All cards that aren't on the battlefield, spells, and permanents lose the chosen color.
(like Celestial Dawn in reverse)

Or maybe it just decolors the produced mana of the chosen color.

Caging a sun feels too epic to have a bauble effect.

The Mirrodin site has expanded art, and that art probably belongs to MBS basic lands which combine with SoM basic lands into 6-piece panoramas (or even 8-piece if 3rd set adds ten more).