Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Gospel of John (English → Azerbaijani)
0. Purpose and Method
This analysis identifies where standard Azerbaijani vocabulary is (a) missing — no existing lexical item carries the required theological content at all, (b) crowded — one or more existing terms carry the right general shape of meaning but also carry a competing devotional or doctrinal association from Shia Islam, Sufi-influenced folk religion, or Soviet-secular register that must be fenced off, or (c) adequate but under-loaded — a plain, low-risk word is available but needs an explicit teaching-note boost to carry the full theological weight of the source term.
This analysis was conducted across all 21 chapters of John, not only the core passage (John 3:1-21). The core passage anchors the doctrine set (New Birth, God’s Love, Judgment/Belief, Eternal Life) but every chapter was surveyed for load-bearing vocabulary; §5 documents this chapter-by-chapter. This document extends, and must remain fully consistent with, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. No baseline rendering is altered here; only new John-specific gaps are analyzed and resolved. Findings from this analysis feed directly into the semantic analysis (Step/File 07) and the core glossary (Step/File 08).
Risk tiers, review routing, and citation conventions follow the baseline exactly: Critical / High / Medium / Low, with Critical and High requiring human theologian review.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the nine curriculum doctrines, this matrix lists the Azerbaijani terms actually available in the language, the specific theological weakness of each candidate, and the recommended translation strategy. This is the analytical basis for the final choices later fixed in the core glossary and term registry.
1.1 The Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (the Word)
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Kəlimətullah (loanword, “Word of God,” used of Isa in Qur’an 3:45, 4:171) | Names a created divine utterance that brings Isa into being; explicitly excludes eternal co-existence and sonship (Qur’an 112:3). A false friend, not a synonym. | Reject as primary term; usable only as a bridge-then-fence teaching illustration. |
| Söz (plain word for “word/speech”) | Ordinary register; without capitalization/titling and teaching support, reads as mere speech rather than a personal, pre-existent divine agent. | Adopt, titled and capitalized, with mandatory first-use teaching note establishing personal pre-existence and full deity (John 1:1-3). |
| Allahın Oğlu (baseline) | Already established; carries deity claim but not specifically the pre-existence claim on its own. | Pair with Söz and with the absolute “Mən Varam” formula (8:58) to complete the pre-existence claim. |
Recommended strategy: Söz (new, Critical) for λόγος; reuse baseline Allahın Oğlu; reuse/extend baseline Bədən alma for the incarnation event; explicitly reject Kəlimətullah as a substitute rendering anywhere in doctrinal text.
1.2 The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| tövbə / təvbə (repentance/turning, the standard Islamic conversion term) | Names a willed human decision to turn from sin; John 3 describes a Spirit-caused re-origination that precedes and enables any human response, not an achievement of the will. | Reject as a substitute or even a loose synonym gloss. |
| yenidən doğulmaq (“to be born again”) | Plain, transparent, but risks a literal-reincarnation misreading — which is precisely Nicodemus’s own misunderstanding (3:4), making the risk textually attested rather than speculative. | Adopt as primary, with the misunderstanding itself used as a built-in teaching hook. |
| yuxarıdan doğulmaq (“born from above”) | Correctly foregrounds divine origin/agency but under-signals the “again/anew” sense also present in ἄνωθεν. | Adopt as secondary variant where “from above” is the load-bearing sense (3:31), flagged per ambiguity-handling protocol whenever both senses are simultaneously in play (3:3, 3:7). |
Recommended strategy: Dual-rendering strategy (yenidən doğulmaq / yuxarıdan doğulmaq) rather than forcing a single Azerbaijani word to carry both Greek senses; no missing-vocabulary problem here so much as an irreducible source-ambiguity that must be flagged, not silently resolved.
1.3 Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Cənnət (Paradise) | Names a spatial afterlife destination reached (in Islamic theology) through a final, deeds-weighed judgment; loses John’s present-tense “has eternal life now” claim entirely. | Reject as a substitute. |
| axirət (the hereafter, the age to come) | Names a deferred temporal state; risk of collapsing əbədi həyat into a future-only category, undermining John 5:24, 17:3. | Reject as primary rendering; may appear only in contrastive teaching notes. |
| əbədi həyat (“eternal life,” plain compound) | Doctrinally clean but ordinary register; needs explicit teaching support to carry John’s present-possession claim rather than reading as a synonym for axirət by default reader assumption. | Adopt, paired with mandatory teaching note anchored on John 17:3’s self-definition and 5:24’s present tense. |
1.4 God’s Love for the World
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| eşq (romantic/mystical love, common in Sufi-influenced devotional poetry, e.g. ilahi eşq) | Evokes mystical absorption/union imagery culturally associated with Sufi poets (Nizami, Füzuli); risks aestheticizing agapē into a poetic-devotional register disconnected from costly, willed self-giving toward a hostile world. | Reject as primary rendering. |
| məhəbbət (love, elevated register, also devotionally loaded — “ilahi məhəbbət”) | Carries the same mystical-absorption risk as eşq at a lower intensity; still elevated enough to invite that reading. | Avoid as the primary verb-context rendering; may appear as a noun in non-mystical contexts with care. |
| sevmək / sevgi (plain, everyday love vocabulary) | Affectively neutral/generic in ordinary usage; does not by itself convey agapē’s deliberate, costly, self-giving character. | Adopt — the plain register is actually the safer choice specifically because it lacks devotional loading; supply agapē’s costly character through explicit teaching notes rather than reaching for a more “elevated” but doctrinally crowded word. |
1.5 Judgment and Belief/Unbelief
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Qiyamət Günü / Axirət Günü (Day of Resurrection/Judgment) | Exclusively future-oriented in Islamic eschatology; John insists judgment is already, in part, a present-tense reality settled by belief/unbelief now (3:18-19). Using this term risks readers assuming all judgment language points only to a distant future event. | Reject as primary rendering; may be referenced only in explicit contrastive teaching notes. |
| hökm / məhkum etmək (verdict / to condemn, neutral legal register) | Doctrinally clean, courtroom register with no inherent eschatological loading either way. | Adopt, with teaching notes at each occurrence marking whether the present-tense or future-consummation sense (or both) is active. |
1.6 The Seven “I Am” Statements
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Mən [predicate]-am/-yam (ordinary Azerbaijani copula construction) | Grammatically indistinguishable from any mundane self-description (“Mən müəllimam” = “I am a teacher”); Azerbaijani’s ordinary predicate copula carries none of the emphatic, self-naming weight of the Greek ἐγώ εἰμι construction (which uses an explicit, otherwise-unnecessary personal pronoun). | Unavoidable structural gap — Azerbaijani has no equivalent marked construction. Mitigate, not solve, through consistent explicit “Mən” placement plus mandatory teaching notes at all seven occurrences tying back to the absolute self-existence claim of 8:58. |
1.7 The Holy Spirit as Counselor
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| şəfaətçi (intercessor) | Already forbidden in the baseline for Christ’s intercession due to Shia Imamate-intercession associations (Karbala, Twelfth Imam); the same collision applies here. | Reject entirely. |
| vəkil (modern-register “lawyer/legal representative”) | Contemporary Azerbaijani usage is overwhelmingly transactional/legalistic (hiring a vəkil for a court case); risks a mercenary, fee-for-service misreading of the Spirit’s ministry. | Reject as primary rendering. |
| Təsəlliverən (“comforter/consoler”) | Doctrinally clean but foregrounds only the comfort facet of παράκλητος, under-representing the advocacy/teaching/convicting facets (14:26; 15:26; 16:8). | Adopt as primary, supplemented by Köməkçi (“helper”) as a contextual variant, with a mandatory first-occurrence teaching note (14:16) establishing full, personal, divine Trinitarian status — never Cəbrail. |
1.8 Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| qurban (sacrifice, the term used for the Eid al-Adha commemorative substitute-animal ritual) | Names a repeated, commemorative ritual recalling Ibrahim’s substitute ram — a fundamentally different logic from a singular, once-for-all, sin-bearing atonement. Using it risks assimilating the cross into an annual ritual-repetition category. | Reject as the default rendering; usable only as a contrast point in teaching notes, never as the operative translation term. |
| göyə qaldırılma (“raised to heaven without dying”) | Already forbidden in the baseline (Qur’an 4:157 no-death-ascension reading). | Reject entirely, including for John’s resurrection material. |
| çarmıxa çəkmək (crucify) / Allahın Quzusu (Lamb of God) / Diriliş (baseline resurrection) | Doctrinally precise, but each requires OT background (Passover, Isaiah 53, Numbers 21) largely absent from readers’ existing frame. | Adopt all three, paired with mandatory OT-typology teaching notes rather than assumed qurban-category transfer. |
1.9 Unity of the Father and the Son
| Candidate | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| razılaşma / məqsəd birliyi (“agreement” / “unity of purpose”) | Doctrinally too weak — reduces 10:30 to mere cooperative alignment between two separate agents, losing the shared-essence claim. | Reject as a softening substitute. |
| eynilik (“numerical identity/sameness”) | Doctrinally too strong — the Greek grammar itself (two subjects, one plural verb ἐσμεν) rules out a claim of literal singular identity; this rendering would read as modalism. | Reject as an overcorrection. |
| Mən və Ata biriz (literal: “I and the Father, we are one”) | Preserves the grammatical tension (two Persons, one verb/reality) without resolving it in either a weak or overstrong direction. | Adopt, with mandatory theologian-authored teaching note at every occurrence (10:30; 17:11, 21-23) explaining shared divine essence between eternally distinct Persons. |
2. Missing Vocabulary (No Adequate Existing Term)
These concepts have no single existing Azerbaijani lexical item carrying the required content; a compound phrase, paraphrase, or teaching-note-supported plain term is structurally necessary, not merely preferred:
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| μονογενής (monogenēs) | No word conveys “unique, one-of-a-kind Sonship” without a head-term built on doğulmaq (“to be born/begotten”), which reinforces the very literal-offspring reading that must be avoided. | Compound: yeganə (“unique”) modifying Allahın Oğlu, avoiding a doğulmaq-headed construction. |
| ἀγαπάω vs. φιλέω (John 21:15-17) | Azerbaijani’s single verb sevmək collapses a deliberate two-verb Greek wordplay. | No lexical fix possible; resolved by translator footnote at 21:15-17, not by inventing an artificial two-word distinction unsupported elsewhere in the language. |
| ἐγώ εἰμι emphatic construction | No grammatical marker in Azerbaijani distinguishes emphatic self-naming from an ordinary predicate statement (see §1.6). | Resolved by consistent explicit “Mən” + mandatory teaching notes, not by lexical substitution. |
| ὑψόω (hypsoō) double meaning — physical lifting-up-on-the-cross and exaltation/glorification, held together in one word | yuxarı qaldırılmaq captures only the literal physical-elevation sense; Azerbaijani has no single term spanning execution-method and honor-elevation simultaneously. | Retain the literal rendering; supply explicit dual-sense teaching notes at each occurrence (3:14; 8:28; 12:32-34) rather than choosing one sense over the other. |
| παράκλητος’s full semantic range (advocate + comforter + helper + teacher) | No single Azerbaijani word spans all four facets simultaneously (see §1.7). | Primary/variant pairing (Təsəlliverən / Köməkçi) plus first-occurrence teaching note. |
| σάρξ μου, αἷμα μου (John 6:51-56) | No existing devotional-register phrase for “eating flesh / drinking blood” that reads as anything other than either literal cannibalism or a bare memorial symbol. | Plain, literal rendering (ətim, qanım) retained deliberately unsoftened, with heavy first-occurrence teaching support anticipating the Last Supper and the cross. |
3. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
These are cases where an attractive, high-register Azerbaijani word does exist and would seem like the natural choice, but carries a competing doctrinal or devotional payload from Shia Islam, Sufi-influenced folk religion, or fatalistic folk speech that must be explicitly fenced off in translator instructions.
| Available term | Competing association | What it must be fenced away from |
|---|---|---|
| nur (divine light) | Nur-i Məhəmmədi — the pre-existent light passed through Muhammad and the Twelve Imams in Shia devotional literature | Fenced away from φῶς (John’s light-of-the-world Christology, 8:12; 9:5; 1:4-9). Flagship risk of this package — see baseline “glory” entry and John’s own “light_phos” registry entry. işıq required instead. |
| şəfaətçi / təvəssül | Imamate intercession (Karbala, Twelfth Imam, saint-mediated access to God) | Fenced away from παράκλητος (Holy Spirit as Counselor) — already fenced in the baseline for Christ’s own intercession; the same fence extends to the Spirit’s Paraclete role. |
| qismət / alın yazısı / yazı | Impersonal fatalistic decree in Azerbaijani folk religious speech | Fenced away from ἑλκύω (“draw,” 6:44) and from providence/election language throughout — must retain the Father’s personal, relational initiative, not mechanical predetermination. |
| kəramət | A saint’s or Imam’s personal miraculous endowment in Shia/Sufi devotional tradition | Fenced away from σημεῖον (sign) — John’s signs reveal Jesus’s own identity/mission, not a venerated holy man’s special grace; also already fenced in the baseline for “spiritual gifts.” |
| övliyalar | Venerated holy figures linked to shrine pilgrimage (pir, ocaq, ziyarat) | Fenced away from saints/müqəddəslər wherever John’s language of believers as God’s set-apart people is in view (cross-reference to baseline). |
| qurban | Eid al-Adha commemorative substitute-animal ritual | Fenced away from ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (Lamb of God) and the whole Substitutionary Death doctrine — see §1.8. |
| tövbə / təvbə | Willed human turning as the operative Islamic conversion category | Fenced away from γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (new birth) — see §1.2. |
| Qiyamət Günü / axirət / Cənnət | Exclusively future, deeds-and-intercession-contingent afterlife framework | Fenced away from ζωὴ αἰώνιος (eternal life) and κρίσις (judgment) — see §1.3, §1.5. |
| eşq / (devotional) məhəbbət | Sufi mystical-union love poetry register | Fenced away from ἀγαπάω applied to God’s love for the world (3:16) — see §1.4. |
| Haqq (Truth/Reality as a mystical goal of Sufi seeking) | Mystical absorption into an impersonal ultimate Reality | Fenced away from ἀλήθεια as John uses it — truth is personal (Christ himself, 14:6), not an abstract goal of ascetic/mystical striving. |
| vəkil | Modern transactional legal representation | Fenced away from παράκλητος — see §1.7. |
A distinct case — deliberate confrontation, not fencing: προσκυνέω (worship offered to Jesus, 9:38; 20:28) is the inverse situation: rather than fencing Azerbaijani vocabulary away from an Islamic association, the text itself deliberately claims for Jesus the total-devotion category (ibadət) that tawhid al-‘ibadah reserves exclusively for Allah. Per the baseline’s doctrinal-preservation rule, this collision must be sharpened, not softened, in translation; it is flagged separately in the ranked ambiguity list below rather than treated as a neighborhood requiring avoidance.
4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Item | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Abba (8:15, cf. Romans) | Transliterate (Abba) | Already fixed in baseline; preserves Aramaic intimacy formal “Ata” alone would flatten. |
| Amin, Halleluya | Transliterate (Amin, Halleluya) | Established IBT convention, carried from baseline. |
| Λόγος (Logos) | Paraphrase, not transliterate (reject “Loqos”) | An untransliterated loanword would be theologically opaque to the target reader; Söz is intelligible and can be titled/capitalized to carry doctrinal weight. |
| Παράκλητος (Paraclete) | Paraphrase (Təsəlliverən), not transliterate (reject “Paraklit”) | An unfamiliar Greek loanword would carry no pre-existing meaning for readers; a native compound is more teachable. |
| ἐγώ εἰμι (absolute) | Paraphrase as idiom (Mən Varam) | Not a transliterable form; must render the self-existence force idiomatically. |
| Ῥαββί (Rabbi) | Transliterate + gloss (Rabbi / Müəllim) | Established honorific-title category; gloss needed so readers do not mistake this as Jesus’s full identity (irony flag, see registry). |
| Ὠσαννά (Hosanna, 12:13) | Transliterate (Osanna) | Established liturgical transliteration class, parallel to Amin/Halleluya. |
| Γολγοθᾶ (Golgotha, 19:17) | Transliterate (Qolqota) | Proper place-name; established Bible-translation convention. |
| Proper names (Lazarus, Nicodemus, Caiaphas, Pilate, Barabbas, Martha, Mary, Samaritan) | Transliterate to established Azerbaijani Bible forms (Lazar, Nikodim, Qayafa, Pilat, Barabba, Marta, Mariam, samariyalı) | Consistency with existing IBT Müqəddəs Kitab naming conventions; no doctrinal content at stake, only orthographic consistency. |
| Φαρισαῖος (Pharisee) | Transliterate + first-use gloss (Fərisey) | No Azerbaijani equivalent religious-party category exists; gloss needed on first occurrence (3:1). |
| μονογενής (monogenēs) | Paraphrase, not transliterate | See §1.1, §2 — a compound built on yeganə, deliberately avoiding a doğulmaq-headed construction. |
5. Full-Book Coverage Confirmation (Chapter-by-Chapter)
Every chapter of John was reviewed for load-bearing linguistic-gap material. No chapter is doctrine-empty; where a chapter’s terminology is already fully covered by baseline Romans terms with no new gap, this is noted explicitly rather than omitted.
| Ch. | Primary linguistic-gap contribution |
|---|---|
| 1 | Söz, μονογενής/yeganə, incarnation (reused), grace/glory (reused), Lamb of God, children of God/born of God — dense founding chapter |
| 2 | Sign (əlamət) vs. kəramət fencing; temple-as-body metaphor (foreshadows Resurrection) |
| 3 | Core passage — new birth ambiguity, water/Spirit vs. ritual ablution, God’s love, judgment present-tense, lifted-up double meaning, wrath vs. fatalism |
| 4 | Living water vs. shrine-water veneration fencing; Savior of the world; worship “in spirit and truth” |
| 5 | Equal-with-God deity claim; judgment/krisis; honor owed to the Son; life-giving prerogative |
| 6 | I Am (bread of life); “draw” vs. qismət fencing; flesh-and-blood literalism risk |
| 7 | Glorify/doxazo introduced; living water resumed; Law (reused, şəriət fenced) |
| 8 | I Am (light of world) — flagship nur/işıq risk; absolute “I Am”; before-Abraham pre-existence claim; slavery-to-sin vs. devotional “qul” disambiguation |
| 9 | Light restated; sign; present-tense judgment; worship of Jesus (deliberate confrontation) |
| 10 | I Am (door, good shepherd); Unity of Father and Son (10:30) — single highest-risk verse in the book; assurance/“snatch away” |
| 11 | I Am (resurrection and life) — must retain baseline Diriliş unparaphrased; glory; children of God |
| 12 | Glorify; grain-of-wheat necessity-of-death metaphor; lifted-up resumed; Hosanna transliteration; gentiles/nations (reused) |
| 13 | Son of Man; glorify; new commandment; betrayal vocabulary; divine “hour” motif |
| 14 | I Am (way/truth/life) with exclusivity clause; Paraclete introduced; Spirit of Truth; peace (reused, distinct nuance) |
| 15 | I Am (true vine); “abide” under-signaling risk; Spirit of Truth resumed; hate/world hostility |
| 16 | Paraclete resumed; convicting ministry (ἐλέγχω) fencing; present-tense judgment resumed; sorrow-to-joy |
| 17 | Glorify culmination; sanctify (hagiazo, reused Təqdisetmə with new nuance); Father-Son/believers’ unity; eternal-life self-definition (17:3) |
| 18 | Kingship — non-political-kingdom fencing (ties to baseline Allahın Padşahlığı caution); truth before Pilate |
| 19 | Crucify — direct Qur’an 4:157 confrontation; “It is finished”; blood-and-water evidentiary detail |
| 20 | Resurrection culmination; Thomas’s deity confession; enacted Spirit-reception; delegated forgiveness of sins; believing/eternal-life thesis (20:30-31) |
| 21 | Agape/phileo untranslatable distinction (footnote-only resolution); pastoral recommissioning vocabulary; Lord (reused) |
No chapter required exclusion from this analysis; every chapter contributes at least one item requiring either a new gap-resolution decision or an explicit confirmation that existing baseline terms already cover its content without new risk.
6. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities for This Curriculum
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of misreading given Azerbaijani’s existing religious-linguistic landscape):
- φῶς vs. nur (8:12; 9:5; 1:4-9; 3:19-21) — Critical. The single highest-risk lexical decision in the entire John package: choosing işıq over the far more devotionally “natural”-sounding nur to avoid assimilating Christ into the Nur-i Məhəmmədi lineage doctrine. Affects five of the seven “I Am” statements’ surrounding material.
- ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν (10:30) — Critical. The sharpest single-verse tawhid collision in the Gospel; any drift toward “agreement in purpose” (too weak) or “numerical identity” (too strong, modalist) corrupts the doctrine in opposite directions.
- μονογενής (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18) — Critical. Structural risk that any doğulmaq-headed rendering reinforces the exact literal-offspring reading Qur’an 112:3 forbids; requires disciplined avoidance across four key verses.
- γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (3:3, 7, 31) — Critical. Genuine source-text ambiguity (again/from above) compounded by zero Islamic doctrinal parallel and a built-in misunderstanding-within-the-text (Nicodemus) that both helps and risks compounding reader confusion.
- προσκυνέω directed at Jesus (9:38; 20:28) — Critical. Unlike most entries on this list, the risk here is not accidental syncretism but insufficient boldness — the temptation to soften a total-devotion claim that must instead be sharpened per doctrinal-preservation rules.
- παράκλητος (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) — Critical. Crowded neighborhood with two live forbidden substitutions (şəfaətçi, vəkil) and no single Azerbaijani word spanning the term’s full semantic range; first-occurrence teaching note is doing structural work the lexicon cannot.
- ἐγώ εἰμι absolute vs. predicated “I Am” sayings (8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5-8, vs. the seven predicated sayings) — Critical. Azerbaijani’s ordinary copula grammar cannot itself signal the emphatic self-naming echo; entirely dependent on translator discipline and teaching-note reinforcement rather than any lexical solution.
- ὕδωρ ζῶν (4:10-14; 7:38-39) — High. Azerbaijan’s living pir/ocaq shrine-water veneration culture creates a folk-religious “bridge” that, left unaddressed, could relocate the Spirit’s life-giving work onto a physical-water tradition Jesus’s own words explicitly transcend.
- κρίσις / judgment present-tense structure (3:18-19; 5:22-30; 9:39; 12:31; 16:8, 11) — High. Persistent risk of default assimilation into the exclusively future Qiyamət-Günü framework, silently erasing John’s distinctive “already condemned” present-tense claim.
- ἀγαπάω vs. φιλέω (21:15-17) — Medium (translation-mechanics, not doctrinal collision). Included here because it is the clearest case in the whole book of an irreducible structural gap rather than a competing-association risk; resolved only by footnote, never by an invented artificial distinction.
- ὑψόω double meaning (3:14; 8:28; 12:32-34) — High. The cross-as-shame/cross-as-glory paradox has no single Azerbaijani word spanning both senses; rendering only one side collapses the very paradox John is asserting.
- σάρξ μου, αἷμα μου (6:51-56) — Critical. High risk of either a literal-cannibalism misreading or an overcorrected flattening into bare memorial symbolism that loses the atonement-appropriation force Jesus intends.
This analysis must be read alongside analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, analysis/08_core_glossary.md, and the baseline translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json. All strategy decisions recorded here are binding inputs to those downstream artifacts and to the eventual Phase 2 AI translation instruction set for the John curriculum.