Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — 1 John | English → Assamese
Purpose and Scope
This analysis identifies where Assamese vocabulary is missing (no ready equivalent exists and a compound or descriptive phrase must be engineered), where it is crowded (a term exists but sits inside a semantic neighborhood already occupied by Assamese Hindu, Vaishnavite/Ekasarana Dharma, or folk-religious concepts and therefore needs deliberate “fencing”), and where transliteration is the safer strategy than translation. It builds directly on analysis/08_core_glossary.md and must not contradict any rendering already fixed in the baseline translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json (Romans) or the 1 John-specific registry entries already produced for this curriculum.
Full-book coverage confirmation: All five chapters of 1 John (1:1–5:21) were reviewed for this analysis. The core passage (4:7–21) is the theological anchor of the curriculum’s central doctrine (“God is Light and God is Love”) but is not the boundary of this analysis — every chapter is represented below either through load-bearing new vocabulary or an explicit “reviewed, no new gap” note.
| Chapter | Coverage status |
|---|---|
| 1 John 1 | Load-bearing: word of life, fellowship, God is light, darkness, walk, confess (sin), cleanse, forgive, faithful and just. Anchors the anti-docetic incarnation testimony and the light/darkness doctrine. |
| 1 John 2 | Load-bearing: advocate, propitiation, commandment, world (opposing system), desire/lust, antichrist, anointing, abide, coming of Christ, born of God (2:29), liar, know relationally. |
| 1 John 3 | Load-bearing: children of God, devil, seed of God, righteousness (practicing), brother, love/agape (as command), heart, confidence, lawlessness, ought. |
| 1 John 4 | Core passage (4:7–21). Load-bearing: love/agape (repeated predicate use), God is love, propitiation, only Son, Savior, sent, manifested, perfected/perfect love, fear, punishment, spirits (plural), test the spirits, false prophet, Holy Spirit vs. spirits distinction, world (mission-field sense), confidence, day of judgment. |
| 1 John 5 | Load-bearing: faith/overcome, born of God (repeated), eternal life, testimony, threefold witness (water/blood/Spirit), sin unto death, evil one, idols (closing verse 5:21). |
No chapter of 1 John was found to be free of load-bearing theological vocabulary; the letter is unusually dense per-verse compared to Romans’ narrative-argument passages, so every chapter above contributes to the gap analysis.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the eight curriculum doctrines: the Assamese terms currently available (reused from baseline or newly proposed in 08_core_glossary.md), the specific weaknesses/collision risks in Assamese, and the recommended handling strategy.
| Doctrine | Available Assamese terms | Weaknesses / gap | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| God is Light and God is Love | ঈশ্বৰ পোহৰ (God is light); পোহৰ (light); আন্ধাৰ (darkness); প্ৰেম / প্ৰেম কৰা (love); পৰিপূৰ্ণ (perfected) | (1) পোহৰ risks being read through Puranic tejas/prabha (a deity’s own physical radiance) rather than ethical purity. (2) প্ৰেম sits inside the crowded Vaishnavite prema-bhakti semantic field (Radha-Krishna romantic devotional love, central to Sankardev/Madhavdev Borgeet and Ankiya Naat literature) — this is the single most crowded neighborhood in the whole letter because 4:7–21 (the core passage) repeats “love” as both noun and verb over two dozen times. (3) পৰিপূৰ্ণ must not slide toward সিদ্ধ (self-attained yogic perfection). | Preserve the predicate-identity grammar (“ঈশ্বৰ পোহৰ”, “ঈশ্বৰ প্ৰেম”) exactly as fixed statements, never adjectival paraphrase. Mandatory translator note at first occurrence of প্ৰেম distinguishing self-giving, cross-demonstrated agape from prema-bhakti’s romantic/viraha register. Never সিদ্ধ for পৰিপূৰ্ণ. |
| Fellowship with God and One Another | সহভাগিতা (fellowship, reused Low-risk baseline term); স্থিৰে থাকা (abide); জানা/চিনি পোৱা (know relationally) | সহভাগিতা alone is doctrinally thin for 1 John’s tight pairing of fellowship with abiding (μένω); স্থিৰে থাকা risks being heard as meditative absorption/merger (samadhi, Brahman-dissolution) rather than ongoing relational communion between two distinct persons. | Elevate সহভাগিতা’s doctrine-risk tier to High for this curriculum (already flagged in the registry) specifically because of its structural pairing with স্থিৰে থাকা. Require a note at first use of স্থিৰে থাকা affirming continued distinct personhood of both parties — this is communion, not dissolution. |
| Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | স্বীকাৰ কৰা (confess); শুচি কৰা (cleanse); ক্ষমা কৰা (forgive); অধাৰ্মিকতা (unrighteousness); বিধান লঙ্ঘন (lawlessness); প্ৰায়শ্চিত্তৰ বলিদান (propitiation); সহায়ক (advocate); বিশ্বাসী আৰু ন্যায়ী (faithful and just) | শুচি কৰা risks collapsing into ritual purification (snan, shuddhikaran) that removes external impurity rather than total moral/forensic cleansing. প্ৰায়শ্চিত্ত (the natural root) alone implies self-performed penance working off karmic guilt — exactly backward from 1 John’s theology that God himself sends and provides the sacrifice. সহায়ক could be misheard as a generic helper/agent rather than Christ’s unique heavenly intercessory office. | Always use the full compound প্ৰায়শ্চিত্তৰ বলিদান, never bare প্ৰায়শ্চিত্ত, with a mandatory reversal-of-merit note at every occurrence (2:2; 4:10). Pair শুচি কৰা with “Christ’s blood” language in-context to anchor it away from ritual bathing/purification. Reserve সহায়ক exclusively for Christ’s intercessory role; never apply it to a human mediator. |
| Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | প্ৰেম (love); ভাই (brother); ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা (born of God); ঈশ্বৰৰ সন্তান (children of God); বীজ (seed of God); মিছলিয়া (liar); …কৰিব লাগে (ought) | ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা sits beside two crowded neighbors: পুনৰ্জন্ম (reincarnation/rebirth into the সংসাৰ cycle) and দ্বিজ (the “twice-born” caste-status/guru-dīkṣā initiation identity). বীজ risks being read as an inherent ātman-spark already present in every soul by nature, rather than a life-principle implanted at a specific moment of regeneration. | Never পুনৰ্জন্ম, never দ্বিজ, for “born of God” — enforce the full descriptive phrase every time, with a mandatory note that this is a permanent, once-for-all regeneration, not a repeatable rebirth or a ritual second-birth conferring caste/initiatory status. Frame বীজ explicitly as “implanted at new birth,” not innate. |
| The Incarnation and Antichrist | দেহধাৰণ (incarnation); জীৱনৰ বাক্য (word of life); মাংস (flesh); একমাত্ৰ পুত্ৰ (only Son); খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি (antichrist); শয়তান (devil); প্ৰকাশিত হ’ল (manifested); আগমন (coming of Christ) | This is the letter’s single highest-stakes doctrine linguistically. দেহধাৰণ sits directly against অৱতাৰ, the term naming Krishna’s periodic avatar-descent in Sankardev’s own Ekasarana Dharma theology — the tradition’s founding narrative is literally built on the very pattern 1 John’s antichrist test rejects (denying a real, permanent, once-for-all coming in flesh). খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি is a newly coined compound with no prior currency in Assamese religious vocabulary and needs first-occurrence glossing. শয়তান risks conflation with mythological asura/rakshasa adversary-figures (Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Mahishasura) requiring repeated avatar-intervention to defeat, rather than a being already decisively defeated once in Christ’s finished work. | Mandatory distinguishing note at every first use of দেহধাৰণ and মাংস in a document (per baseline rule, inherited and reinforced here). Gloss খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি on first occurrence as “one who denies/opposes that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh,” not a generic mythic villain. Note that শয়তান’s defeat in Christ (3:8) is already accomplished, not part of an ongoing cyclical cosmic battle. |
| Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | অনন্ত জীৱন (eternal life); পৰিত্ৰাণ (salvation, reused); ত্ৰাণকৰ্তা (Savior); সাক্ষ্য (testimony); পানী, তেজ, আৰু আত্মা (threefold witness); সাহস/নিশ্চয়তা (confidence); বিচাৰৰ দিন (day of judgment) | অনন্ত জীৱন is highly vulnerable to being heard as মুক্তি/মোক্ষ — liberation of the ātman from সংসাৰ and dissolution into an undifferentiated Brahman — the precise opposite of eternal life’s continuing, personal, relational sense. The threefold witness (পানী, তেজ, আৰু আত্মা) is doctrinally dense and could tempt a translator toward symbolic substitution rather than literal rendering. | Never মুক্তি/মোক্ষ for অনন্ত জীৱন (already Critical/forbidden per baseline pattern); mandatory note affirming personal identity is retained and deepened, not dissolved. Render the threefold witness (5:6-8) literally — পানী, তেজ, আৰু আত্মা — never substituting symbolic paraphrase for any of the three elements. |
| Overcoming the World | জগত (world); জয় কৰা (overcome); কামনা/অভিলাষ (desire/lust); শয়তান (devil); সেই মন্দ জন (the evil one) | জগত risks collapse into মায়া (the illusory, ultimately unreal phenomenal world of Vedantic metaphysics that is escaped through self-realization, not “overcome” through faith-loyalty while remaining real). জয় কৰা risks being read through the lens of ascetic self-effort (tapasya, vairāgya/renunciate detachment) rather than victory granted through the new birth and faith in Christ’s finished work. | Frame জগত consistently as real, morally corrupted, and to be overcome, not escaped through metaphysical insight. Frame জয় কৰা as a granted, not self-achieved, victory — anchor to faith/new birth (5:4-5) at first use. |
| Testing the Spirits | আত্মাসমূহ (spirits, plural); পৰীক্ষা কৰা (test/examine); ভূৱা ভাববাদী (false prophet); অভিষেক (anointing); পবিত্ৰ আত্মা (Holy Spirit, reused) | The single most delicate lexical-fencing problem in the letter: আত্মা is the base word for both the one personal পবিত্ৰ আত্মা and the plural, testable আত্মাসমূহ of 4:1, and also risks bleeding into Assamese animist/Shakta folk categories of spirit-possession and oracle-trance (e.g., deodhwa trance-possession practices still present in rural Assamese religious life). অভিষেক (anointing) risks being heard as ritual consecration of a deity’s image (murti abhisheka) rather than the Spirit’s teaching presence given to every believer. | Absolutely never use পবিত্ৰ আত্মা for the plural competing “spirits” of 4:1 and never use আত্মাসমূহ for the one Holy Spirit — this distinction must be enforced at the term level in every segment of 4:1-6. Note that আত্মাসমূহ here names doctrinal/prophetic influences behind human teachers, not folk spirit-possession phenomena. Gloss অভিষেক on first use as the Spirit’s teaching presence in every believer, not a ritual act performed on an image or king. |
2. Missing Vocabulary (No Ready Assamese Equivalent)
These concepts have no single existing Assamese word and require an engineered compound or descriptive phrase, following the pattern already set by the baseline’s justification (ধাৰ্মিক বুলি গণ্য কৰা) and adoption (পোহাপুত্ৰ স্বৰূপে গ্ৰহণ) entries:
| Concept | Gap | Engineered Assamese phrase | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Propitiation (ἱλασμός) | No single Assamese noun conveys “God-provided atoning sacrifice” without the connotation of self-performed penance | প্ৰায়শ্চিত্তৰ বলিদান | Genitive compound “sacrifice of atonement,” structurally forces the reader off the bare penance-root প্ৰায়শ্চিত্ত |
| Advocate (παράκλητος) | সহায়ক alone is a generic “helper/supporter” word, not a specific legal-intercessory office term | সহায়ক (reserved exclusively, contextually anchored to “before the Father,” 2:1) | No compound fully solves this; contextual anchoring plus a translator note substitutes for a missing dedicated legal-intercessor term |
| Born of God (γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) | No single Assamese verb form exists for a permanent, non-repeatable divine regeneration distinct from either physical birth or reincarnation | ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা | Full descriptive clause required; single-word alternatives (পুনৰ্জন্ম, দ্বিজ) are doctrinally forbidden |
| Threefold witness (ὕδωρ, αἷμα, πνεῦμα) | No existing Assamese theological shorthand for this triadic testimonial structure | পানী, তেজ, আৰু আত্মা (literal enumeration, no collapsing shorthand) | Any attempt at a summarizing single term would lose the text’s deliberate three-part legal-testimonial structure |
| Sin unto death (ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον) | No existing Assamese category distinguishes this from ordinary sin without invoking a karmic ledger | মৃত্যুজনক পাপ | Compound needed; must carry a note that this remains within God’s own governance, not a mechanical karma-rebirth causation |
| Only Son / only-begotten (μονογενής) | ঈশ্বৰৰ পুত্ৰ (baseline “Son of God”) does not by itself carry the exclusivity nuance | একমাত্ৰ পুত্ৰ | Extends, does not replace, the baseline term; needed specifically for 4:9’s emphasis on uniqueness of the sending |
| God is X predicate-identity construction (ὁ θεὸς Χ ἐστιν, used for both “light” 1:5 and “love” 4:8) | Assamese naturally prefers adjectival predication (“ঈশ্বৰ উজ্জ্বল/প্ৰেমময়”) over a bare noun-identity statement | ঈশ্বৰ পোহৰ / ঈশ্বৰ প্ৰেম (noun-noun identity retained, not adjectival) | Both 1:5 and 4:8 must use structurally identical noun-predicate grammar in Assamese so the reader recognizes them as parallel theological claims across the letter |
3. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
These are cases where an Assamese word does exist and is otherwise the correct choice, but it lives inside a semantic field already densely populated by Assamese Hindu, Vaishnavite/Ekasarana Dharma, or folk-religious concepts. Each requires an explicit “fence” — a mandatory translator note, a structural constraint, or a reserved usage rule — to prevent the reader from importing the neighboring concept.
| Assamese term | Crowded neighbor(s) | Collision risk | Fencing device |
|---|---|---|---|
| প্ৰেম (love) | Vaishnavite prema-bhakti; Radha-Krishna romantic/viraha devotional love (Borgeet, Ankiya Naat) | The core passage (4:7-21) repeats this word as the letter’s theological center; without fencing, readers may default to the devotional-romantic register they already know from Sankardev/Madhavdev literature | Mandatory distinguishing note at first occurrence in every document: agape is self-giving, cross-demonstrated, ethically active love commanded toward the brethren, not romantic longing directed at a chosen deity |
| দেহধাৰণ (incarnation) | অৱতাৰ (Krishna’s avatar-descent, the founding theological pattern of Ekasarana Dharma) | Highest collision risk in the entire letter; 1 John’s antichrist test is precisely about denying the unique, permanent nature of this event — অৱতাৰ describes the opposite (repeatable, cyclical) pattern | Never অৱতাৰ under any circumstance; mandatory note at every first use affirming permanence and singularity |
| জন্ম হৱা (born, “born of God”) | পুনৰ্জন্ম (reincarnation within সংসাৰ); দ্বিজ (twice-born caste/initiation status) | New birth could be read as either a rebirth-cycle event or a caste-status marker, both of which invert the doctrine of a permanent, grace-given new nature | Always use the full phrase ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা, never a bare জন্ম form alone; note on first use |
| মূৰ্তি (idols, 5:21) | The central object of daily Hindu/Shakta devotional worship in Assam (e.g., Kamakhya); also the specific practice Sankardev’s own aniconic Ekasarana tradition historically reformed against | Highest cultural-collision term in the closing verse of the letter — could either offend unnecessarily by seeming to attack all Hindu image-worship broadly, or be read as merely restating an intra-Hindu iconic/aniconic debate Sankardev already settled | Mandatory note keeping the command focused narrowly on exclusive, undivided devotion to the God and Christ named throughout this letter, not as an entry point into the iconic/aniconic worship debate |
| আত্মা / আত্মাসমূহ (spirit/spirits) | Personal Holy Spirit (পবিত্ৰ আত্মা); folk spirit-possession and oracle-trance practices (e.g., deodhwa) | 4:1-6 requires three distinct senses to stay separated in the same short passage: the one Holy Spirit, the plural testable spirits behind human teachers, and (by proximity risk) folk possession-spirits | Enforce lexical separation: পবিত্ৰ আত্মা reserved exclusively for the Holy Spirit; আত্মাসমূহ reserved exclusively for the plural doctrinal-testing sense; explicit note that this is not folk trance-possession phenomena |
| অভিষেক (anointing) | Ritual consecration of a deity’s image (murti abhisheka); royal coronation rite | 2:20, 2:27 name the Spirit’s teaching presence in every believer; without fencing this reads as a ritual performed on/for a worship object or a monarch | Note at first use: this names the Spirit’s ongoing teaching presence in the believer, not a ritual act performed on an image or a coronation |
| স্থিৰে থাকা (abide) | Meditative absorption/union (samādhi); dissolution of personal identity into an impersonal Brahman | 1 John’s abiding is repeatedly mutual and relational (God in believer, believer in God) while both remain distinct persons — risk of being read as identity-merger | Note affirming continued distinct personhood of both parties; this is communion, not dissolution |
| পোহৰ / আন্ধাৰ (light/darkness) | Divine luster/tejas-prabha imagery (a deity’s own physical radiant body); Vedantic avidyā (ignorance/illusion dispelled by self-realization) | 1:5-7 and 2:9-11 use light/darkness as moral-relational categories, which could be misread as either physical-mystical radiance or metaphysical ignorance dispelled by insight rather than by confession and cleansing | Note anchoring light/darkness to ethical-relational holiness and moral corruption respectively, resolved by confession and Christ’s blood, not physical luster or philosophical insight |
| শয়তান (devil) | Mythological asura/rakshasa adversary figures (Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Mahishasura) requiring repeated avatar-defeat | 3:8 and 5:18-19 present a personal being already decisively defeated once in Christ, contrasted with a cyclical mythic-adversary pattern requiring fresh divine intervention each age | Note affirming decisive, already-accomplished defeat in Christ’s finished work, not an ongoing cosmic battle awaiting a future avatar-victory |
| খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি (antichrist) | No prior Assamese religious-vocabulary currency; risk of being misheard as a generic mythic villain-title | Newly coined compound (খ্ৰীষ্ট + আৰি, “enemy/opponent of Christ”) with no existing semantic neighbor, but also no existing recognition — the opposite problem: under-population rather than crowding | Gloss on first occurrence in every document: “one who denies that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh,” anchored to 2:22 and 4:2-3 |
| কামনা/অভিলাষ (desire/lust) | কাম as a legitimate puruṣārtha (recognized life-goal) within some Hindu ethical frameworks | 2:16-17’s “desire of the flesh/eyes” could be softened toward a neutral or even virtuous category of desire if read through the puruṣārtha lens | Note distinguishing disordered, passing craving opposed to God’s will from any neutral/legitimate-desire framework |
4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| English/Greek term | Decision | Rendering | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antichrist (ἀντίχριστος) | Calque-compound (not paraphrase, not pure transliteration) | খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি | A literal transliteration (আন্টিখ্ৰিষ্টস) would be opaque to readers; a full paraphrase (“one who opposes Christ”) would be unwieldy as a repeated noun across 2:18, 2:22, 4:3. The calque preserves recognizability against খ্ৰীষ্ট while functioning as a single noun. |
| Christ (Χριστός) | Transliteration (retain established baseline form) | খ্ৰীষ্ট | Already fixed in the AI requirements as the standard transliteration; must not be re-translated as “Anointed One” in running text, though মচীহ (Messiah) remains the correct term where the OT-fulfillment concept itself is in view. |
| Amen, Hallelujah (liturgical) | Transliteration (per baseline convention, though not frequent in 1 John) | আমেন, হাল্লিলূয়া | Established Assamese Christian liturgical forms; no paraphrase attempted. |
| Abba (if appearing in cross-referenced Romans 8 material within 1 John study notes) | Transliteration (retain, per baseline) | আব্বা | Preserves the Aramaic filial-intimacy register; not applicable within 1 John’s own text but relevant for cross-referencing study material. |
| Word of Life (ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς) | Paraphrase/compound | জীৱনৰ বাক্য | No transliteration option exists for a Greek theological phrase; compound noun phrase is the only viable strategy and matches Assamese Bible Society convention for “word of God” type phrases. |
| Propitiation (ἱλασμός) | Paraphrase/compound | প্ৰায়শ্চিত্তৰ বলিদান | Transliteration is impossible for a Greek abstract noun with no prior Assamese Christian loanword; compounding two existing Assamese roots (with mandatory reversal note) is the only path. |
| Only Son (μονογενής) | Paraphrase/compound extending an existing baseline term | একমাত্ৰ পুত্ৰ | Builds on ঈশ্বৰৰ পুত্ৰ (already established) rather than transliterating a Greek adjective that has no independent currency in Assamese. |
| Anointing (χρῖσμα) | Native-term reuse with fencing note, not transliteration | অভিষেক | A Sanskrit-derived Assamese word already exists and is intelligible; transliterating the Greek (khrisma) would be needlessly opaque. Risk is managed through fencing (Section 3), not through avoiding the native term. |
| Idols (εἴδωλα) | Native-term reuse with mandatory fencing note, not transliteration or invented compound | মূৰ্তি | The only natural Assamese word for a worship-image; inventing an artificial compound to avoid it would sacrifice intelligibility for a marginal reduction in collision risk. Fencing via translator note is the correct tool here, not lexical avoidance. |
| Born of God (γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) | Paraphrase/compound, explicitly rejecting the shorter native option | ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা | A shorter rendering using bare জন্ম (birth) risks bleeding into পুনৰ্জন্ম; the fuller phrase is retained specifically to avoid triggering transliteration-adjacent shortcuts toward the rebirth vocabulary. |
| Devil (διάβολος) | Native-term reuse (established baseline), not transliteration | শয়তান | Already a loanword with wide currency and established Christian usage across Assamese Bible translation history; fencing (Section 3) handles the mythological-adversary collision risk. |
| Confidence (παρρησία) | Native-term pairing, not transliteration | সাহস / নিশ্চয়তা | Two native Assamese words used contextually rather than one fixed transliteration; no single Assamese word captures both the boldness-in-prayer and assurance-at-judgment senses equally well across 3:21, 4:17, 5:14. |
General principle applied: transliteration is reserved for (a) established proper names and liturgical exclamations already fixed by ABS tradition, and (b) genuinely opaque Greek abstract nouns for which no native Assamese root exists at all and a calque-compound is safer than importing a foreign loanword with zero prior currency. Native Assamese/Sanskrit-derived vocabulary is retained wherever it exists and intelligible, with collision risk managed through mandatory translator notes rather than through artificial neologisms that would sacrifice reader comprehension.
5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in 1 John
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal consequence and likelihood of misreading in an Assamese Hindu/Ekasarana Dharma-background readership, with primary passage references:
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দেহধাৰণ vs. অৱতাৰ (Incarnation vs. avatar-descent) — 1:1-3; 4:2-3. The letter’s own antichrist test is built on denying exactly the doctrine that Ekasarana Dharma’s founding theology affirms in a different, cyclical form. Highest doctrinal stakes in the entire book; mandatory note at every occurrence, no exceptions.
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প্ৰেম vs. prema-bhakti (agape love vs. Vaishnavite devotional-romantic love) — 4:7-21 (the core passage), also 2:7-11, 3:1, 3:11-18, 3:23, 5:1-3. Because this word is the structural center of the curriculum’s anchor passage, a single unfenced occurrence risks recoloring the entire core lesson through the wrong devotional register.
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মূৰ্তি (idols) — 5:21, the letter’s final verse. Highest cultural-collision term in the book precisely because it is the closing note the reader is left with; mishandling risks either needless offense or reduction to an intra-Hindu iconic/aniconic debate rather than the letter’s actual concern (exclusive devotion to the God/Christ of this letter).
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ঈশ্বৰৰ পৰা জন্ম হৱা vs. পুনৰ্জন্ম/দ্বিজ (born of God vs. reincarnation/caste rebirth) — 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18. Recurs across three chapters as the letter’s primary evidentiary marker of authentic faith; a single lapse into bare জন্ম vocabulary anywhere in this chain risks a cascading misunderstanding across the whole book’s argument.
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পবিত্ৰ আত্মা vs. আত্মাসমূহ (Holy Spirit vs. plural testable spirits) — 4:1-6, compounded by 3:24 and 5:6-8. A single lexical slip within six verses could either depersonalize the Holy Spirit into one of several “spirits” or, conversely, elevate a false spirit to Holy-Spirit status — either error is doctrinally severe and narrowly localized, making careful segment-level enforcement essential.
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খ্ৰীষ্টাৰি (antichrist) — comprehension risk from under-population, not crowding — 2:18-22; 4:3. Unlike the other items on this list, the risk here is that the coined term is not recognized at all rather than misread through a competing concept; first-occurrence glossing is mandatory in every document, not merely recommended.
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প্ৰায়শ্চিত্তৰ বলিদান vs. bare প্ৰায়শ্চিত্ত (propitiation vs. self-performed penance) — 2:2; 4:10. Doctrinally inverts the passage’s entire argument (God provides the sacrifice) if the shorter, more natural-sounding root is ever substituted under editorial pressure for concision.
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স্থিৰে থাকা vs. samādhi-style absorption (abide vs. meditative merger) — 2:24-28; 3:24; 4:12-16. Recurs as the letter’s central relational-theology term for mutual indwelling; risk is subtle because the mistranslation would not look wrong on the surface, only theologically hollow underneath.
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অনন্ত জীৱন vs. মুক্তি/মোক্ষ (eternal life vs. rebirth-cycle liberation) — 5:11-13, 20. Lower likelihood of accidental substitution than items above (the baseline already forbids মুক্তি/মোক্ষ categorically for this concept-family) but severe consequence if a translator, unfamiliar with the 1 John-specific reinforcement, treats “eternal life” as a looser or more negotiable case than “salvation.”
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অভিষেক vs. murti abhisheka/royal coronation (anointing) — 2:20, 27. Lowest severity on this list because the doctrinal content at stake (the Spirit’s universal teaching presence in believers) is important but not Christologically load-bearing in the same way as items 1–5; still requires a fencing note to prevent a devotional-ritual misreading.
This analysis must be read alongside analysis/08_core_glossary.md (term-level detail), the baseline translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json (enforced Romans terms, which govern by inheritance wherever 1 John reuses the same concept), and any subsequent Phase 1 step that formally proposes these new terms for inclusion in an updated translation memory prior to Phase 2 processing.