Once in a blue moon, Magic: The Gathering prints a card in an unusual language.
Since coming out in 1993, Magic has expanded to a wide variety of languages. Initially starting in English, the bustling 90s saw the collectible card game expand to German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese. In recent years, the number of languages has gone down, with Russian, Korean, and Traditional Chinese ending in 2022 with Dominaria United, and then Portuguese and Simplified Chinese stopping in 2024 following Bloomburrow. Despite this, the current number of languages covers a good chunk of the world. The current languages cover the main play areas, and thanks to lingua francas like English, Spanish, and French, most of the world can still play paper or online Magic with no problem.
However, every once in a while, Wizards of the Coast still puts out a Magic card in a random language. It can be to highlight the the theme or setting of the card, celebrating a pivotal event, or just for laughs. And the first one, well, yeah, it was just for laughs.
Meet Atinlay Igpay, the only card out there entirely in Pig Latin and the only odd language card that was never translated over from an existing card. You literally have to know Pig Latin to be able to read it. Even the copyright info:
A not even remotely legal Unhinged card, Atinlay Igpay reads as follows:
Eaturecray — Igpay
Oubleday ikestray
Enwhay ouyay eakspay ay onnay-igpay-atinlay ordway, acrificesay isthay eaturecray.
What that translates to is:
Creature — Pig
Double strike
When you speak a non-Pig-Latin word, sacrifice this creature.
And if that is confusing, the special judge's gift version of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite went even further, using only Phyrexian script (something Wizards has returned to in Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine):
Beyond that, prerelease cards have occasionally been in more classical languages throughout the years, although all of these are just the closest translation equivalents of the English original. And this includes a card in actual Latin (not Pig Latin) with the card Raging Kavu. It was a prerelease promo for Invasion:
Sanskrit also appeared on one of these cards for the Apocalypse pre-release version of Fungal Shambler:
And then thee were cards in Arabic, Hebrew, and even a Greek language version of Questing Pheldagrif, unintentionally implying that it is an animal from a Greek Myth:
For these pre-release cards, they all came out in the early 2000's, as the blocs at the time sorta covered the areas the languages were in and as a bit of a way to show off the whole range of cards they were putting out at the time. After all, who wouldn't want a Hebrew language version of Glory?
Non-standard language cards don't come out very often, but when they do, they often become collectors items. Except the Pig Latin one. Ityay isyay ustjay otnay orthway ootay uchmay.
