What is darya?

Darya is a chatbot you can talk to in either Persian or English, built in the style of ELIZA, a famous 1966 program that simulated a therapist by reflecting your own words back at you. Like the original ELIZA, Darya is not an actual therapist and does not use a large language model. It works entirely through pattern matching and rule based scripts, recognizing keywords and common small talk questions rather than genuinely understanding what you say. What makes Darya more capable than the original ELIZA is that it keeps a short working memory during your conversation, so it can refer back to things you said earlier. It also pays attention to the emotional tone of the conversation and may occasionally suggest a grounding exercise if things seem tense. To keep the conversation feeling less repetitive, it varies how it phrases its responses instead of always saying things the same way. Before you start chatting, you choose whether to speak Persian or English, and that choice stays fixed for the rest of the conversation. The two languages are treated as separate, fully built out language packs that share the same underlying engine, rather than one language being a rough translation of the other. Some techniques are used only in English, such as the classic ELIZA trick of swapping pronouns in your sentences back at you, because Persian grammar already encodes who is speaking through its verbs, so that same trick would not work reliably there. Darya also offers two visual themes, ocean and beach, and it remembers which one you picked the next time you visit. The README is upfront about Darya's limits: it does not diagnose anything, it is not a substitute for real therapy, and it has no memory beyond a single browser tab's conversation. Once you close the tab, the conversation is gone. This project is aimed at anyone curious about early chatbot techniques or looking for a lighthearted, reflective conversation partner rather than professional mental health support.