Core Glossary

translation_memory.json is the enforced glossary for every Phase 2 translation in this curriculum. This document summarizes its shape and the principles behind it; see the Glossary Risk Groups for the full per-term entries.

Composition

The glossary currently holds 47 terms spanning all four risk tiers, drawn from the doctrines identified in Doctrine Analysis and grounded in the cultural risks identified in Culture Analysis. Every term entry records:

• The approved Bengali translation and transliteration
• The doctrine risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low)
• Explicitly rejected alternatives, with reasons — including, where relevant, alternatives drawn from Hindu-devotional vocabulary and from Islamic-idiom vocabulary
• Notes explaining any non-obvious translation choice

Governing principles

1. Established mainstream Christian usage over invention or over Muslim-idiom contextualization — where mainstream Bengali Bible translation already has a settled rendering (ঈশ্বর, যীশু, প্রভু, খ্রীষ্ট), this glossary follows it rather than proposing an alternative or adopting a Muslim-idiom equivalent, even where the latter might be more familiar to a Muslim-background reader.
2. Explicit rejection, not silent avoidance — every Critical-risk term records why both a Hindu-tradition word and, where relevant, an Islamic-idiom word are wrong, so a translator or reviewer understands the reasoning on both fronts rather than just following a rule.
3. Willingness to break from prior Bengali Bible precedent where that precedent was itself a risk — the সাধুগণ-for-saints case shows that “established usage” is not automatically the safest usage; this glossary corrects that historical choice.
4. Version-controlled and append-only in Phase 2 — if a new term is discovered during document translation, it is added to translation memory and the version number incremented, never silently improvised per-document.

Relationship to the Doctrine Risk Registry

Every glossary term’s doctrine field links back to an entry in doctrine_risk_registry.json, so a term’s risk tier is always traceable to the specific doctrine it protects — the glossary enforces vocabulary, the doctrine registry explains why that vocabulary matters.