Mešvi 2.2 Conlang Update Notes

Mešvi 2.2 formalizes three mechanics revealed by stress-testing: (1) Geminates—when compounding creates identical consonants at morpheme boundaries, both are retained and pronounced as lengthened consonants (bîn + nêf → bînnêf, “BEEN-nayf”); (2) Four-morpheme limit—standalone compounds max out at four lexical roots (class markers don’t count), beyond which possessive phrases are used; (3) Expanded class-shifting—âšemân (sky) and darêkh (path) now shift between practical Mother class and cosmic/prophetic Crone class based on register.

The update also adds vocabulary for space navigation (vacuum, star systems, nullspace), formalizes theological distinctions (qi/Darêkhâkh/šeib’qi), introduces five-tier religious law gradations, and documents poetic compounding methodology that uses source etymology to find culturally resonant metaphors.

No grammar changes—just clearer rules and richer vocabulary for the Dark Dominion setting.

When I introduced Mešvi 2.1, the core grammar was solid: no pronouns, four semantic noun classes, evidentials marking knowledge sources, a life-stage naming system. But stress-testing a language reveals gaps the way building a house in a hurricane reveals which joints you should have reinforced. Converting the Mešvi 1.0 text of Immortal to 2.1 worked beautifully for scripture and sample sentences, but kept hitting edge cases that needed formalization.

Three specific problems: What happens when morpheme boundaries create identical consonants? How do I prevent compounds from becoming unwieldy ten-morpheme nightmares? And how do I encode the difference between “the sky you navigate by” and “the cosmic Firmament itself” without just making two unrelated words?

Mešvi 2.2 solves all three. Geminates, a four-morpheme limit, and expanded class-shifting.

Geminates: When Consonants Collide

Mešvi 2.1 banned word-initial geminates (kk-, ss-) but had no explicit rule for what happens when compounding creates identical consonants at a morpheme boundary. The implicit assumption was simplification—bîn (see) + nêf (person) would yield ~bînêf~ (seer).

But that created ambiguity. Is this bî-nêf or bîn-êf? And it throws away phonological richness for no good reason.

Natural languages handle this gracefully. Italian retains geminates: notte (night), bello (beautiful). Japanese does the same: kitte (stamp), gakkō (school). English keeps them in compounds like “bookkeeper” where you actually pronounce both k’s if you’re paying attention, and “penknife” where the n lengthens before k.

Mešvi 2.2 formalizes it: when compounding creates identical consonants at a morpheme boundary, both are retained and pronounced as a lengthened consonant.

bîn (see) + nêf (soul/person) → bînnêf (BEEN-nayf) = seer

vâr (partner) + ravâr (walker) → vârravâr (VAHR-rah-VAHR)

šêm (name) + meš (mother/chief) → šêmmeš (SHAYM-mesh)

âšemân (sky) + mâtar (convent) → âšemânmâtar

The rule extends to digraphs (kh, š, ž, č). If compounding creates kh + kh, you write khkh and pronounce it as lengthened /x:/. Current vocabulary rarely produces digraph geminates, but the rule exists for consistency.

When different consonants meet at a boundary, the cluster is retained without epenthesis: setárôrekh (starlight) + dârêkh (path) → setárôrekhdârêkhâkh (Starlight-Path). No vowel insertion, no simplification. Mešvi embraces heavy clusters—it’s part of what makes the language sound so rich.

This small change makes compounds more distinctive, more pronounceable, and eliminates ambiguity about morpheme boundaries.

The Four-Morpheme Limit

I love compound words, and I wanted Mešvi to use more of them. German gives us Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (Danube steamship company captain). Turkish and Finnish stack morphemes like Jenga blocks. Agglutinative languages can create magnificent compounds.

But there’s a limit where efficiency becomes cognitive puzzle-solving.

Mešvi 2.2 enforces a four-morpheme maximum for standalone compounds. Beyond that, you use possessive phrases with glottal stops for several reasons.

First: stress patterns become unclear with five or more morphemes. Mešvi stress falls on the first long vowel or the penultimate syllable. With too many morphemes, identifying the stress domain becomes ambiguous.

Second: parsing difficulty. Even with clear morpheme boundaries, long compounds force listeners to hold too much in working memory before they can decode meaning.

Third: aesthetic balance. Four morphemes gives you enough complexity for institutional titles and technical terms without sacrificing elegance or clarity.

Setárôrekhdârêkhîb (Starlight-Path Navigator) sits at the limit: setár (star) + ôrekh (light) + dârêkh (path) + îb (master of) = four morphemes. It works—barely. The stress pattern is clear (se-TAR-oh-rekh-DAR-ekh-eeb), the morphemes are transparent, and you can parse it on first hearing.

lêkhšamaknêfû (heart-stiller): lêkh (heart) + šamak (still) + nêf (person) = three morphemes. Technical but manageable.

Go beyond four and you get cognitive overload. So for concepts requiring more complexity, use possessive constructions: Mešnavîmâkh’setárôrekhdârêkh (Supreme-Prophetess of-the-Starlight-Path). Base compound Mešnavîmâkh has three morphemes, possessive ‘setárôrekhdârêkh has three more—total conceptual complexity of six morphemes, but parsed as two distinct units with a breath between them.

This keeps Mešvi compounds (relatively) manageable while preserving the ability to express complex hierarchical relationships.

There is one important clarification: class markers (-û, -i, -a, -âkh) don’t count toward the morpheme limit. They’re obligatory grammatical markers, not semantic content. lêkhšamaknêfû counts as three morphemes plus class marker—still three.

Class Markers in Compounds

Mešvi 2.1 introduced gendered noun classes, and had an implicit rule that only the final element in a compound carries a class marker, but I never explicitly documented it. This created confusion about whether setár + ôrekh should yield setárôrekhi or ~setáriôrekhi~.

Mešvi 2.2 makes it explicit: only the final (head) element carries a class marker. Internal elements appear as bare roots.

The head determines the class. In setárôrekhi (starlight), the compound is Virgin class because ôrekhi (light) is Virgin class. The fact that setári (star) is also Virgin class is redundant information. Marking it twice serves no purpose and creates problems—specifically, vowel sequences requiring resolution. ~setáriôrekhi~ has i + ô, forcing either merger or glottal stop insertion, both of which obscure the morpheme boundary.

Compounds are single lexical units. Marking internal morpheme boundaries with class suffixes would suggest separable words when they’re not.

setár + ôrekh = setárôrekhi (starlight, Virgin class)

lêkh + vâra = lêkhvâra (heart-companion, Mother class)

bez + mâyîn + sarfal = bezmâyînsarfala (waterless-vessel, Mother class)

Expanded Class-Shifting

Mešvi 2.1 also introduced a few class-shifting nouns—words whose class changes based on semantic context. Tâyezel (shadow) can be tâyezela (benevolent, Mother class) or tâyezelû (combative, Masculine class). Ovakol (voice) has four forms across all four classes.

Mešvi 2.2 adds two more: âšemân (sky/space) and darêkh (path).

âšemâna (Mother class): Local space, the sky you navigate by, airspace—practical, everyday, the medium you travel through. Used for flight, weather, daily navigation.

âšemânâkh (Crone class): The Firmament, the cosmos, the dome of heaven. Used for astronomical and cosmological contexts, divine realms, the eternal sky.

The Mešvi are nomadic star-navigators. “The sky” in everyday speech means the space containing weather and birds. “The Firmament” is the sacred dome containing the stars, the realm of prophecy and cosmic order. These aren’t synonyms—they’re different conceptual spaces that happen to occupy the same physical location.

šemâna tara ravîtan = Travel through the sky (Mother class: practical navigation)

Sesetári âšemânâkh tara huva = The stars are in the Firmament (Crone class: cosmic domain)

Same root, different register, different worldview.

darêkha (Mother class): A trade route, a practical path, a road. Physical, pragmatic, everyday—the dirt road between convents, the caravan trail through mountains, a nullspace route.

Darêkhâkh (Crone class): The Path, the Way, a spiritual or philosophical journey. Metaphysical guidance, the route to enlightenment. Capitalized in English translations because it’s a sacred concept.

Darêkha kusin tara revîtan = We will go to the city on the path (Mother class: literal road)

Darêkhâkh mešdâstemet âšemân’vâlana huva = The Path is the truest in the firmament above (Crone class: spiritual metaphor)

This expansion gives Mešvi more precision in encoding register and worldview through grammar rather than just vocabulary choice.

Beyond the Mechanics: New Semantic Domains

Mešvi 2.2 also expands vocabulary in several key areas, reflecting the Dark Dominion setting’s needs:

Space and navigation: With the Mešvi as star-faring nomads, 2.2 adds vocabulary for vacuum (bezhakhlû, “the Breathless”—Masculine class because it’s dangerous, what kills you when the hull breaches), star systems (vâkhîla, oasis—a star and its habitable worlds), interstellar space (vênkhâvîlbârûša in practical register, Vênkhâvîlbârûšâkh in poetic/cosmic register—”the Emptiness Between Lives”), and nullspace (zâvîla for pilots and merchants, Zâvûnâkh “the Deep” in theological/ominous contexts).

The class-shifting between practical and cosmic registers matters. A navigator calculating routes says vênkhâvîlbârûša (Mother class: practical navigation). A prophetess describing the spiritual weight of traveling between stars says Vênkhâvîlbârûšâkh (Crone class: cosmic wisdom). Same concept, different worldview.

Theological distinctions: Mešvi 2.1 mentioned qi (the Way) and the Darêkhâkh (Divine Law), but 2.2 formalizes the relationships. Qi (Virgin class) is the ineffable cosmic principle underlying existence—like the Tao, it cannot be fully articulated. Darêkhâkh (Crone class) is qi made legible: Kušma’s commandments as revealed through prophets, codified in sacred scripture. Šeib’qi (Virgin class) is the practice of living righteously—neither the principle nor the law, but the active discipline of pursuing alignment.

Religious law now has five gradations: varsîv (obligatory), bâšûnd (recommended), bânudîn (permitted), nagûl (discouraged), âšûl (forbidden). These adjectives let Mešvi speakers express fine-grained moral and legal distinctions that reflect the complexity of Darêkhâkh interpretation.

Poetic compounding methodology: The vocabulary creation guide now includes explicit guidance on using source etymology to find culturally resonant metaphors rather than just literal translations. Persian and Hebrew words often contain buried poetry—research what they originally meant reveals whether that metaphor fits Mešvi culture or whether the nomadic, matriarchal, prophetic worldview suggests a different framing.

For instance: Persian خلاء (khalâ, “void/empty”) would give a neutral term for vacuum. But the Mešvi don’t experience vacuum as neutral emptiness—they experience it as the thing that steals your breath when the hull breaches. Hence bezhakhlû (“the Breathless”), capturing what vacuum does rather than what it abstractly is.

New Vocabulary

lêkhšamaknêfû (heart-stiller): One of the rarest powers in the Dark Dominion—cardiokinesis, the ability to stop hearts remotely. lêkh (heart) + šamak (to still/quiet) + nêf (person). Masculine class because this power is transgressive, dangerous, outside the life-giving cycle. Plural: lêlêkhšamaknêfû.

With the expansion of âšemân and darêkh as class-shifters, I needed vocabulary for navigation: Setárôrekhdârêkhâkh (Starlight-Path), a named navigation route in Crone class because named routes are cosmic, not merely practical. Setárôrekhdârêkhîb (Starlight-Path Navigator/Master), sitting at the four-morpheme limit. âšemânmâtara (sky-convent)—still working out what this institution actually does, but the word exists now.

The extension of -îb (master of institution/domain) to named routes follows natural logic: if you can be a mâtarîb (abbess, master of a convent), you can be a Setárôrekhdârêkhîb (master of the Starlight-Path).

One correction from 2.1: lêkhkû was listed as “heart-killer” without context, which made it sound like a cardiokinetic. Mešvi 2.2 clarifies: lêkhkû = heart-killer; betrayer—someone who breaks trust, who “kills” the heart metaphorically. A lêkhkû destroys bonds and relationships. A lêkhšamaknêfû stops the physical organ. Different concepts, different words.

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Constructed languages are never finished. They’re living systems that reveal their gaps under stress. Updating Immortal from Mešvi 1.0 to 2.x means regenerating dialogue, titles, place names, and technical vocabulary at scale—dozens of words and phrases in context, not just sample sentences. Mešvi 2.1 worked beautifully for scripture and pedagogical examples, but it needed formalization for compound phonology, compound complexity limits, and register precision through class-shifting.

Mešvi 2.2 addresses all three without changing the core grammar. If your learning Mešvi 2.1, you already know Mešvi 2.2—you just have clearer rules for edge cases and more vocabulary to work with.

The four-morpheme limit keeps the language elegant. Geminates make it phonologically richer. Expanded class-shifting gives it more semantic precision. And new vocabulary reflects the world of the Dark Dominion: star navigation, betrayal, and the rare, dangerous power to still a heart from across a room.

Bihîzani, Gayera vâ Kokhîâkh hadîjâkh bâš.