Introducing Mešvi 2.1: Language as Culture in Dark Dominion

The first iteration of Mešvi was Persian with centuries of simulated linguistic drift. But as I developed the Mešvi people—their matriarchal society, prophetic traditions, and goddess worship—I realized the language needed to be rebuilt from scratch. A language shapes and reflects the culture that speaks it. Mešvi 2.1 is what happens when you ask: what would a language look like if it were designed by a nomadic, matriarchal, and prophetic culture that sees the world through cycles of life and divine knowledge?

The answer is a language with no pronouns, where names change with life stages, where the verb system encodes how you know what you know, where nouns are classified by cultural domain, and where the very act of possession is constructed differently than in English. Mešvi doesn’t just describe the world—it reveals how the Mešvi people understand reality itself.

For English speakers: kh is pronounced like the “ch” in Scottish “loch” or German “Bach”; č like “ch” in “church”; š like “sh” in “ship”; ž like the “s” in “measure”. The r is lightly rolled (though a tap is acceptable). Long vowels (â, ê, î, ô, û) are held roughly twice as long as short vowels.

Šêšêmnâkh ke Šataran

Names That Change

In Mešvi society, a woman’s name isn’t fixed at birth—it evolves through four stages marking her journey through the reproductive cycle:

Lenai (virgin, 0 scars) → Lenaja (potential mother, 1 scar) → Lena (mother, 2 scars) → Lenâkh (crone, 3 scars)

Each transition is marked by a naming ceremony involving ritual facial scarification. The endings aren’t arbitrary—they encode social and biological status that everyone can read at a glance. A woman called Vima is a mother with authority and grandchildren. A woman called Sârakâkh is a crone, holding the highest wisdom and power in her community.

Men’s names, by contrast, never change. Dariûš is Dariûš from birth to death, marked with endings like -û, -ûš, or -an that remain static. This isn’t linguistic accident—it reflects the cultural reality that men exist outside the reproductive cycle that structures Mešvi society.

In Mešvi culture men aren’t allowed possessions and the fundamental social unit isn’t a conjugal pair or group, but the matrilineal household of blood relatives. Romantic/sexual relationships exist alongside this structure rather than creating new family units. This practice is called ravâra, and the men are called raravârû (walking husbands). A man’s female partner is his vâra, though some pairs form an exclusive bond and call each other lêkhvâra (heart-companion). A man never knows which children in the clan are “his,” lest he become possessive of them. Instead, his duty is to his sisters’ children.

There’s one fascinating exception to the life-stage system: the Nânâzhû, warrior-sentinels who serve multi-generational terms via body-swapping. Females use operational names with the -ja ending regardless of their actual life stage. A 117-year-old nâzhû might be called Sâvîrja, keeping her symbolically outside the cycle. Her birth name, perhaps Lirâvika, is set aside forever.

The sacred honorific -kah is used for only one person in history: Mažtorkah, the Last Prophetess of Kušma. This ending (and its corresponding verb prefix) is frozen, reserved for ultimate religious authority.

Galarimâkh Bez’šêmnâkh’nêf

A Language Without Pronouns

Mešvi is a pro-drop language, but more radically than Spanish or Italian. There are no pronouns at all—no words for “I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” “we,” or “they.” Subjects and objects are understood from context or marked on verbs through optional gender prefixes and required plural reduplication.

Consider this sentence:

Birezînrâ gesîra tara boboztan
rice-OBJECT pot in PLURAL-cook
“(We) cook the rice in the pot”

The subject “we” isn’t stated. The plural is marked by reduplicating the first syllable of the verb: boztan → boboztan. The object birezîna (rice) is marked with -râ because an adverb intervenes between object and verb.

When you need to be explicit about who’s doing what, Mešvi uses OSV word order—Object, Subject, Verb:

Birezînrâ Lenaja boztan
rice-OBJECT Lenaja cooks
“Lenaja cooks the rice”

Sesetárirâ vîvîla bibîn
stars-OBJECT children see
“The children see the stars”

For disambiguation or emphasis, optional gender prefixes attach to verbs:

• i- (virgin, pre-womanhood)
• a- (potential mother and mother)
• âkh- (crone)
• û- (male)

Û-ben, a-bennîst means “HE saw, SHE didn’t see.” The contrast is achieved through verb marking, not pronouns.

When you need emphatic contrast—I saw, not you—Mešvi uses the particle goda (specifically/self):

Goda ben, âkh-bennîst
specifically saw, crone-saw-not
“I specifically saw, she (the crone) didn’t.”

Čêrem Šûgarâkh’galarimâkh

The Four Noun Classes

Every noun in Mešvi belongs to one of four semantic classes, marked by suffixes. This isn’t grammatical gender in the European sense—it’s a classification system that encodes how the Mešvi people categorize reality itself.

Consider how this shapes meaning. The word for “shadow” shifts class based on context:

• tâyezela (Mother class) — a protective shadow, like a mother shading her child, or the benevolent shadow in the greeting “your shadow blesses my threshold”
• tâyezelû (Masculine class) — a threatening shadow, cast upon enemies in battle

The word for “voice” has four forms:

• ovakola (Mother) — everyday speech, family conversation
• ovakolâkh (Crone) — prophetic voice, teaching, wisdom
• ovakolû (Masculine) — commands, war cries, threats
• ovakoli (Virgin) — ritual invocations, blessings, prayer

The class system extends to verbs as well. The verb bîn (to see) carries different weight depending on context: domestic perception, prophetic vision, or martial threat assessment. When a prophetess says bibînesh (they saw, I witnessed), the prophetic context shifts the semantic weight toward divine vision rather than mere physical sight.

This classification reveals cultural priorities. Tuševû (enemy) takes Masculine class—enemies are transgressive, dangerous. Setári (star) takes Virgin class—stars are sacred, pure, full of potential. Lêkha (heart) takes Mother class—the heart is of the body, nurturing, central to family bonds. Galarimâkh (words) takes Crone class—language belongs to wisdom, prophecy, leadership.

Mâlkhara Bez’kamra

Possession Without “Having”

Mešvi has no verb “to have.” Instead, possession is expressed through three strategies:

1. Juxtaposition with the copula huva (is/are):

Lenaja khâvara huva
Lenaja tent is
“Lenaja’s tent”

This construction literally means “Lenaja tent is” but idiomatically conveys both “Lenaja has a tent” and “Lenaja’s tent”—context determines the emphasis.

2. Possessive construction with glottal stop:

lêkh’Kušma — “Kušma’s heart” (heart of Kušma)
galarimâkh’navîmkâkh — “the prophetess’s words”
vîvîla’Lenaka — “Lenaka’s children” (children of Lenaka)

This construction is used for inalienable possession (body parts, inherent qualities) and important relationships.

3. Temporary possession with kamra (accompanied by):

Birezînrâ kamra — “(I) have rice” (am accompanied by rice)
Dâšta kamranîst — “(I) don’t have meat”

The choice of construction conveys the nature of possession—permanent identity, inalienable relationship, or temporary accompaniment.

Lêkha Navîmet: Êtatâkh

The Prophetic Heart: Evidentials

In a culture built on prophecy and divine revelation, how you know something matters as much as what you know. Mešvi encodes this through evidential suffixes that mark the source of your knowledge:

• -esh (direct witness/perception)
• -eth (hearsay/scripture)
• -ath (inference/divination)

These appear on all tenses, including—crucially—the future. In Mešvi theology, prophets don’t predict the future; they witness it. A prophetess using -esh on a future verb is claiming to have directly perceived that future event.

Consider how the same statement changes with different evidentials:

Mažtorkah bezoreth
Mažtorkah return-SCRIPTURE
“Mažtorkah will return (scripture says)”

Mažtorkah bezoresh
Mažtorkah return-WITNESSED
“Mažtorkah will return (I have witnessed this future)”

Mažtorkah bezorath
Mažtorkah return-DIVINED
“Mažtorkah will return (I divine/infer this)”

The evidential system makes every statement an epistemological claim. You can’t just say something will happen—you must indicate how you know.

Evidentials stack with gender prefixes and plural marking in verb structure: GENDER + PLURAL + STEM(TENSE) + EVIDENTIAL + MOOD + NEGATION. For example, a-bebenesh = “they (women) saw (I witnessed them).”

This appears in Mešvi scripture, like this line from the Ibvauv:

Îmanai danavad, egrim amalasrâ kamranîst, nordet huva
faith alone, if action-OBJECT accompanied-not, dead is
“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead”

The prophetic future tense transforms statements about destiny:

Sâman ke fârih dunama likhtan, tukhzeri bezmâyînsarfala tara gušmîa; tutuševûrâ fivalan
When the liar bleeds, (his) seed waterless-vessel in will-sprout; enemies-OBJECT (I)-will-swallow
“When the liar bleeds, his seed will sprout in the waterless vessel; I will swallow my enemies”

Ovakol Vêkîd Galarimâkh’Mešvi

The Unique Sound of the Mešvi Language

Mešvi sounds like neither Persian nor Hebrew—it’s systematically transformed from both into something distinctly its own. Key sounds include kh (the guttural fricative of “Bach”), č (like “church”), and š (like “ship”). Long vowels are marked with circumflexes: â, ê, î, ô, û.

Stress falls on the first long vowel, or if there are none, on the penultimate syllable. Listen to how this creates rhythm:

• se-TÁ-ri (star)
• bi-re-ZÎ-na (rice)
• ge-VA-ra (to speak)

Words range from punchy monosyllables like lêkh (heart) and kuš (sacred) to flowing compounds like bezmâyînsarfala (waterless vessel) and Mešmâmâtar (Chief of Convents). The language avoids vowel sequences through systematic rules: identical or similar vowels merge to long vowels (a + ô = ô, as in setára + ôrekh → setárôrekhi, “starlight”), while different vowels require glottal stop insertion (î + îmana → î’îmana, “faiths”).

The traditional greeting showcases this phonology:

Tâyebesîk — “Your shadow blesses my threshold”
Tîrebesîk — “I am blessed to darken it”

These frozen idioms showcase Mešvi’s sound: the long â and î vowels create rhythmic weight, while the alternation between t- and b- sounds gives them a ceremonial cadence. They’re compressed from longer historical forms but carry deep cultural weight about hospitality and honor.

Galarimâkh Šâktan: Rôšan vâ Šataranâkh

Building Words: Clarity and Transformation

Mešvi creates vocabulary through two main strategies: transparent compounding and transformed borrowing from Persian/Hebrew.

Compounding makes semantic relationships visible:

• setárôrekhi (starlight) = setára (star) + ôrekh (light)
• Šeib’qi (holy war) = šeib (holy) + qi (the Way) — possessive: “holy of the Way”
• lêkhbîn (to understand) = lêkh (heart) + bîn (see)
• bezmâyînsarfala (waterless vessel) = bez (without) + mâyîn (water) + sarfala (vessel)

Several patterns work consistently:

• meš- prefix creates superlatives: dâstemet (true) → mešdâstemet (truest)
• bez- creates privatives: lêkh (heart) → bezlêkh (heartless)
• -îb creates titles from places: mâtara (convent) → mâtarîb (abbess)
• verb + nêf creates agent nouns: paz (cook) + nêf (soul/person) → paznêfa (cook/chef)

Transformed borrowing takes Persian and Hebrew roots through heavy phonological and morphological shifts. The rule is at least three transformations from source. Here’s how Persian khun (blood) becomes Mešvi dunama:

Persian khun → Mešvi dunama (blood)

1. Consonant shift: kh → d
2. Vowel insertion: u → u-a (creates second syllable)
3. Consonant addition: add final -m
4. Class marker: add -a (Mother class, body domain)

The result feels neither Persian nor Hebrew, but authentically Mešvi.

Kuš’galarimâkh

Cultural Touchstones

Central to Mešvi spirituality is the Triple Blessing, invoking the three aspects of the goddess Kušma:

Bihîzani, Gayera vâ Kokhîâkh hadîjâkh kahbâš
Virtue, Charity and Wisdom guide sacred-may-be
“May Virtue, Charity, and Wisdom be the guide of her (the sacred prophetess)”

This version uses the sacred prefix kah-, reserved exclusively for invoking Mažtorkah, the Last Prophetess. When blessing ordinary people, the prefix is omitted:

Bihîzani, Gayera vâ Kokhîâkh hadîjâkh bâš
“May Virtue, Charity, and Wisdom be (your) guide”

The three Virtues of Kušma map to life stages:

• Bâkire (Virgin) → Bihîzan (Virtue)
• Meša (Mother) → Gayera (Charity)
• Pîr (Crone) → Kokhîa (Wisdom)

The Šeib’qi (holy war) is both external conflict and internal spiritual struggle—a concept borrowed but transformed through Mešvi theology. The Ād Šeib’qi (Final Holy War) takes on eschatological significance.

Place names like Pâneh-Gorsang (Temple of the Great Rock) and organizations like Šûvârâkh’mâmâtarîb (Council of Abbesses) show how the language constructs formal registers through compounding and possessive chains.

Čerâ Mahîm

Why This Matters

When Sâvîrja addresses the Šûvârâkh’mâmâtarîb, her use of -ja despite being 117 years old signals she’s Nâzhû—everyone in the room understands this instantly. When she describes a future vision with -esh rather than -ath, she’s claiming prophetic authority, not mere divination. When a crone says lêkh’Kušma (Kušma’s heart, inalienable possession) rather than Kušma kamra (accompanied by Kušma), she’s declaring permanent devotion, not temporary faith. When she uses ovakolâkh instead of ovakola, she’s speaking with prophetic weight, not casual conversation.

These aren’t decorative details. They’re how power, identity, and truth function in Mešvi culture. The language doesn’t just describe the world—it structures how the Mešvi people can think about reality, knowledge, and their place in the divine order.

Nêmînaka Žôžômlarâkh

Sample Sentences

Simple command (basic imperative structure):

Dâštrâ barîk
meat-OBJECT cut
“(You) cut the meat”

With named subject (adding explicit agent in OSV):

Tutuševûrâ Mažtorkah fivalan
enemies-OBJECT Mažtorkah will-swallow
“Mažtorkah will swallow her enemies”

Relative clause (subordination):

Zana ke birezînrâ boztan
woman who rice-OBJECT cooked
“The woman who cooked rice”

Adding evidentials (complex syntax with epistemic marking):

Katâfil sasaîflašrâ vekîšad, zalekûrâ vastanand
even weak-ones-OBJECT united, king-OBJECT bind-SUBJUNCTIVE
“Even the weakest, united, can bind a king”

Prophetic declaration (full literary register):

Ovakoli šamket goda’lêkha, setári mešdâstemet âšemân’vâlana huva
voice still own-heart, star truest firmament-of-above is
“The still small voice of your own heart is the truest star in the firmament above”

Gâmlet Gevara’navîmkâkh

A Full Prophetic Declaration

Bezoran, ke mitâ žofhu nâdevan, ke dokhvata’Kavîkhta huva, ke Bârešana’bânudinâkh bâradan. Ād Šeib’qi tara, Fârih’kûlânrâ fivalan vâ tâyezelû fefeyšedû bara endagtan. Bebenesh.

“I will return, one who is reborn among the žofhu, a daughter of Kavîkhta, bearing the Rightful Heir. In the Final Holy War, (I will) swallow the False God and cast (my) shadow upon devils. (I have seen this.)”

Note on glossing: The glosses FUT, PAST, WITNESSED, etc. indicate tense and evidential suffixes that are actually present in the verb morphology. The subject “(I)” and number are understood from context (and marked through plural reduplication when present), not as separate grammatical morphemes. This is pedagogical shorthand to help readers understand the semantic content.

Če Mešvi Gâlaran

What Mešvi Reveals

Every language encodes a worldview. Mešvi’s lack of pronouns de-emphasizes individual ego in favor of contextual understanding. Its life-stage gender system makes reproductive cycles central to identity. Its four-class noun system categorizes reality by cultural domain—war and transgression, purity and potential, nurturing and home, wisdom and prophecy. Its evidential system treats knowledge-source as mandatory information. Its compounding philosophy values transparency and cultural legibility.

This is a language where you cannot say “I have” without specifying the nature of possession, where you cannot claim future knowledge without indicating its source, where a woman’s name tells her life story, where every noun reveals its cultural significance through its class marker. Mešvi 2.1 isn’t just a relexification of Persian like the original version—it’s a window into how a nomadic, matriarchal, and prophetic culture would structure reality itself through grammar.

The language reflects not just how the Mešvi people speak, but how they think, worship, and organize their society.

I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Bihîzani, Gayera vâ Kokhîâkh hadîjâkh bâš.

May Virtue, Charity, and Wisdom be (your) guide.

For readers who want to explore the language further, here are essential vocabulary items that appear throughout this article and in Mešvi texts:

Galarimâkh Mâyarikh

Essential Vocabulary

bâš — fervent optative particle (may it be, in blessings)
bevrîkh — to be blessed (Pattern A: bevrîkh → bevrekh → bevrakh)
bihîi — good (Virgin class: virtue)
bîn — to see (past: ben, future: ban)
boztan — to cook (past: baztan, future: buztan)
dâdan — to give
darêkhâkh — path/road (Crone class: wisdom)
dunama — blood (Mother class: body)
galarimâkh — words/language (Crone class: prophecy)
hadîjâkh — guide (Crone class: wisdom)
huva — is/are (invariant copula)
ke — who/which/that (relative pronoun)
khâvara — tent/home/dwelling (Mother class: domestic)
kuš — sacred/divine
lêkha — heart (Mother class: body)
lêkhvâra — heart-companion, beloved (Mother class: exclusive bond)
mâyîna — water (Mother class: domestic)
meš — mother/chief
navîmkâkh — prophetess (Crone class: prophecy)
ôrekhi — light (Virgin class: sacred)
ravâra — the practice of walking marriage (Mother class)
ravârû — walking husband (pl. raravârû) (Masculine class)
ravîtan — to go (past: ruvîtan, future: revîtan)
setári — star (Virgin class: sacred)
šeib — holy/pure
tuševû — enemy (Masculine class: transgression)
vâ — and
vâra — female partner, wife (Mother class)
vîla — child (plural: vîvîla)
yarêkhâkh — moon (Crone class: cosmic)
yâš — or
zana — woman (Mother class: family)
zarevû — evil (Masculine class: transgression)