Magic: The Gathering has an entire evil language under it's belt that only took more than 20 years to formulate.
For nearly as long as there have been Phyrexians in Magic, there has been the Phyrexian script, their written language. However, unlike many other parts of Magic where everything is planned out beforehand, the Phyrexian script was slowly developed over several decades, with each new expansion adding a bit more into the alphabet, language, and grammar.
It's quite the ride.
Phyrexians first appeared in 1994's Antiquities with the card Phyrexian Gremlins and had handful of named cards pop up here and there between then and 1999's Urza's Destiny when the card Phyrexian Monitor was printed. Then, in early 2000, Phyrexians were thrust into the forefront thanks to an early Nemesis promotional comic.
At this early point, however, they didn't even have so much as an alphabet going for it. It was a basic scribble to letter system an was kind of left to the reader to decipher and interpret, with the glyphs sort of matching sounds.
Over the next decade, the language developed, with real world and fantasy mixing up to create something unique. Mongolian language style were introduced, giving it the written vertical appearance, with a line going through all the letters being adopted from older Irish languages. In total, 12 world languages were used to piece together Phyrexian, along with some original flairs.
It needed to look machine based to an extent, and it worked. By the time the Phyrexians returned big time in Scars of Mirrodin in 2010, it was somewhat set. There was an alphabet in place and players could translate all the background words they had been seeing all this time.
While more expansion included the language, there was another problem: numbers. R&D was on it once again, but it took awhile to find a system. Binary and other languages were thrown out, and the few times numbers were used they were spelled out. It wasn't until 2023 when Phyrexia: All Will Be One came out that a number system was introduced.
Based on hexidecimals, the new number system came out and was even included on things like dice.
To date, Phyrexian has been developed enough so that words and numbers can be put down, and has its share of quirks. Like Klingon, there is no word for "happiness" in Phyrexian, while evolution and pain use the same word. This isn't even getting into the pronunciation of each word, with the words meant to sound metallic and artificial. Mary Kathryn Amiotte-Beaulieu, who is currently the head Phyrexian linguist at Magic, reportedly speaks it regularly, and it sounds a bit jarring. And, to date, it has gotten that far. It can be written, spoken, and has developed enough that entire cards can now be written in the language.
The next expansion featuring Phyrexians in some capacity will likely expand the language even further, but considering the state of the planes of Phyrexia and New Phyrexia right now, it may be a minute. Nonetheless, Magic, over the span of few decades, managed to create a pretty complete language ready to go at any moment.
For now, it lives on in everything from cards to the few who speak it as a secret language at conventions.
