Semantic Analysis

Several Cantonese terms in this Language Package carry a narrower, broader, or practice-loaded semantic range compared to their English source word, which affects how consistently they can be used across contexts.

Practice-loaded terms requiring active disambiguation

• 義 (righteousness): covers both the biblical sense (right standing before God, received by faith) and a loyalty-and-honor sense reinforced by Cantonese popular media (義氣, the code of loyalty among friends/associates, a recurring theme in Hong Kong film). Context and explicit teaching, not word choice alone, must carry the disambiguation.
• 平安 (peace): the everyday greeting/blessing word, additionally reinforced by protective-charm (平安符) and lucky-almanac culture in Hong Kong, so its default association leans toward general safety/good fortune rather than the specific relational peace-with-God sense of Romans 5:1.

Narrower-than-English terms

• 聖徒 (saints): must be used for all believers corporately (Romans 1:7), never implying the elevated, rare status of a Daoist immortal (神仙) or an accomplished spiritual master (得道高人).

Broader-than-English terms

• 神 (God): also the ordinary common noun for “a god/deity/spirit” generally, used across Hong Kong’s active folk-temple pantheon (Wong Tai Sin, Tin Hau, and others). This is broader than the English “God,” and doctrinal contexts must make the monotheistic reference explicit.
• 信心 (faith): covers both intellectual belief and personal trust — an advantage here, since Romans uses “faith” to mean active personal trust in Christ, not mere assent.

Implication

Where a Cantonese term’s semantic range overlaps with an actively practiced folk-religious behavior rather than just an inherited philosophical concept, the glossary’s notes field exists specifically to flag the mismatch, since the risk here is often behavioral association (what a reader has personally done or seen done) rather than purely conceptual confusion.