Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Mark 1–16 (English → Dogri)
Purpose and Method
This analysis extends the Romans-baseline Language Package to the full book of Mark. It does three things the 08_core_glossary.md inventory does not fully do on its own:
- Organizes vocabulary by doctrine rather than by verse-locus, so gaps in coverage for any of the eight curriculum doctrines are visible at a glance.
- Distinguishes true missing vocabulary (concepts Mark introduces that Romans never needed, and that the existing glossary has not yet named) from crowded semantic neighborhoods (concepts where Dogri already has too many candidate words, several of them theologically dangerous, and the risk is picking the wrong one or letting boundaries blur across occurrences).
- Ranks the resulting ambiguities so Phase 2 review effort is allocated correctly.
Every chapter of Mark (1–16) has been reviewed for this analysis, including the longer ending (16:9-20). Chapters that introduce no new gap beyond what 08_core_glossary.md already documents are marked “Reviewed — no new gap” below, not omitted.
The core passage, Mark 10:35-45, sits at the intersection of five of the eight curriculum doctrines (Suffering Servant/Son of Man, Necessity of the Cross, Servanthood vs. Greatness, Messianic Secret’s climax, Ransom for Many) and is therefore treated as the theological anchor throughout, not as the boundary of scope.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| Doctrine | Available Dogri Terms (from glossary/registry) | Weaknesses | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesus as Suffering Servant and Son of God | परमेश्वर दा पुत्तर (Son of God, Critical); मनुक्खे दा पुत्तर (Son of Man, Critical); दुख झलणा जरूरी ऐ (must suffer, Critical); रूप बदलना (Transfiguration, Critical) | Dogri has no single native term holding “fully divine” and “genuinely suffering” together the way Son of Man does in Greek; risk of readers collapsing the two titles into one, losing either full deity or full suffering-humanity. | Always teach Son of God and Son of Man as two deliberately distinct but united titles, never synonyms; use the Transfiguration (9:2-8) and the cry of dereliction (15:34) as the paired texts anchoring divine glory and genuine suffering respectively. |
| The Kingdom of God Breaking In | परमेश्वर दा राज्य (Kingdom of God, High); नेड़े आ गेआ ऐ (“has come near,” High); यहूदियां दा राजा (King of the Jews, High) | Dogri राज/राज्य vocabulary is saturated with the region’s own recently-ended Dogra princely-state history; “kingdom” risks being heard as nostalgic political restoration rather than present spiritual in-breaking. | Consistently pair राज्य with नेड़े आ गेआ ऐ to stress present in-breaking; teach the “King of the Jews” mocking inscription (15:26) as Mark’s ironic climax of this doctrine, not resolve the irony in translation. |
| Faith and Discipleship amid Fear | भरोसा (faith, High); डर (fear, Medium); जागदे रौह् (keep watch, Medium); मुकरना (deny, High) | डर and भरोसा are lexically unrelated in Dogri (unlike Greek’s implicit contrast), so the “faith vs. fear” rhetorical pairing (4:40) does not arise automatically from the words themselves and must be built through sentence structure and teaching notes. | Explicitly pair डर and भरोसा as competing responses in every teaching unit on 4:35-41, 5:36, 6:50, and 16:8, rather than relying on the words alone to carry the contrast. |
| The Necessity of the Cross | दुख झलणा जरूरी ऐ (must suffer, Critical); क्रूस (cross, Critical); क्रूस उप्पर चढ़ाना (crucify, Critical); मेरा खून, जड़ा नियम दा ऐ (covenant blood, Critical) | The single highest-salience local collision in the entire curriculum: the Aghar Jitto shrine’s Baba Jitto folk-martyr tradition (self-sacrifice in protest against an exploitative landlord, commemorated at Jitto Da Mela) is structurally similar enough in surface form (a man’s voluntary death) to be reached for as an illustrative analogy — and doctrinally wrong to use as one. | Mandatory translator/teacher note at every occurrence (8:34; 10:21, 33-34; 15:15-32) stating explicitly that Christ’s cross is a unique, sin-atoning, substitutionary death for others’ guilt, not a protest death or moral-witness self-sacrifice; never use Baba Jitto even as a “bridge illustration.” |
| Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness | सेवक (servant, High); दास (slave, High); बड्डा (great, High); पहला (first, High); दबाइयै हुकम चलाना (lord it over, Critical) | सेवक/सेवा vocabulary is heavily used across both regional Hindu devotional practice (temple/shrine seva performed for merit or divine favor) and Sikh/Punjabi-influenced usage (seva as communal service, e.g. langar), given Dogri’s linguistic proximity to Punjabi. This is a genuinely double-loaded neighborhood, not a single collision. | Teach सेवक explicitly as service rendered to other people, modeled on Christ’s self-giving (10:45), never service rendered upward to a deity/guru for merit or communal religious credit; keep दबाइयै हुकम चलाना strictly separated from any प्रभु-root form. |
| The Messianic Secret | मसीह (Messiah/Christ, Critical); भेद (mystery, High) | Dogri has no single word for “a truth that is deliberately, progressively disclosed rather than immediately announced”; भेद alone can read as mere “secret” in the sense of a withheld fact, losing the pedagogical, revelatory-timing sense central to Mark’s narrative structure. | Teach भेद together with the pattern of silencing commands (1:34, 44; 3:12; 5:43; 8:30; 9:9) as a single unit — “the truth is real and will be told, but at God’s appointed time” — rather than translating भेद in isolation verse by verse. |
| Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature | अधिकार (authority, High); चंगा करना (heal, Critical); पापां दी माफी देना (forgive sins, High); अशुद्ध आत्मा (unclean spirit, High) | अधिकार vs सामर्थ (baseline power_of_God) is a fine distinction Dogri speakers may not maintain spontaneously; चंगा करना vs उद्धार (baseline salvation) is the single most frequently recurring collapse-risk in the whole book, given how often healing narratives occur. | Reinforce अधिकार/सामर्थ distinction once per healing-authority cluster (chs. 1-2, 5, 9); flag every σῴζω occurrence (5:34; 10:52) individually for translator review rather than trusting a general rule to be applied consistently. |
| The Ransom for Many | छुटकारे दी कीमत (ransom, Critical); दी जगह (in place of, Critical); मते लोक (many, High); जिंद (soul/life, High) | No native Dogri idiom for “a price paid to release a captive” exists outside of loanword/compound construction; the descriptive compound is doctrinally necessary but linguistically unfamiliar, and it sits directly beside the Baba Jitto collision risk (see Necessity of the Cross above). | Treat 10:45 as requiring its own dedicated teaching unit rather than incidental verse-by-verse translation; the “ransom,” “in place of,” and “many” terms must always be taught together as one integrated exchange-logic, not three separate glosses. |
2. Full Chapter Coverage Ledger
| Ch. | Doctrines Active | Key Terms Already Covered (glossary #) | New Gaps Identified in This Analysis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kingdom Breaking In; Authority; Suffering Servant/Son of God | Gospel(1); Son of God(2); Repentance(4); Baptism(5); Kingdom(6); “has come near”(7); Authority(8); Unclean spirit(9); Leprosy/cleanse(10); Holy Spirit(77) | Synagogue (1:21,39) — no prior entry; general Prayer (1:35) — no prior entry | Gap terms added §3 |
| 2 | Authority over Sin; Sabbath Lordship | Forgive sins(11); Sin(12); Lord(13); Sabbath(14) | Fasting (2:18-20) — no prior entry | Gap term added §3 |
| 3 | Authority; Messianic Secret (implicit); Discipleship | Apostle(15); Blasphemy(16); Satan(17); Will of God/family(18) | Beelzebul (3:22) as distinct proper name from Satan | Gap term added §3 |
| 4 | Kingdom Breaking In; Messianic Secret; Faith Amid Fear | Parable(19); Mystery(20); Fear(21); Faith(22) | Reviewed — no additional new gap beyond mystery/fear pairing already noted in §1 | Reviewed |
| 5 | Authority over Sickness/Nature; Faith Amid Fear | Save/heal(23); Talitha cum(24) | Legion (5:9) proper name of demon — colonial/political resonance note | Gap term added §3 |
| 6 | Authority; Servanthood (implicit); Discipleship | Compassion(25); “It is I”(26) | General Prayer recurs (6:46) — same gap as ch.1 | Covered under §3 Prayer entry |
| 7 | Authority over Sin; Discipleship | Tradition of elders(27); Defilement/heart(28); Ephphatha(29) | Corban (7:11) — CRITICAL new gap, direct mannat/vow-economy collision | Gap term added §3 — flagged high priority |
| 8 | Messianic Secret; Necessity of the Cross; Discipleship | Messiah(30); Must suffer(31); Cross(32); Deny oneself(33) | Reviewed — no additional new gap | Reviewed |
| 9 | Son of God; Authority; Servanthood | Transfiguration(34); Servant(35); Cause to stumble(36); Gehenna(37) | Rabbi (9:5) — new gap, guru-devotion collision; Fasting recurs (9:29) with prayer | Gap terms added §3 |
| 10 | Core passage doctrines: all five anchor doctrines converge here | Eternal life(38); Son of David(39); Have mercy(40); Glory(41); Seats of honor(42); Cup(43); Lord it over(44); Exercise authority(45); Great(46); First(47); Slave(48); Soul/life(49); Ransom(50); In place of(51); Many(52) | Rabbi recurs (10:51) | Covered under §3 Rabbi entry |
| 11 | Kingdom Breaking In; Authority | Hosanna(53); Temple(54); Den of robbers(55) | Synagogue-adjacent: general Prayer as house-of-prayer theme (11:17, 11:24-25) | Covered under §3 Prayer entry |
| 12 | Necessity of the Cross (typologically); Discipleship | Cornerstone(56); Love(57) | High priest/priest vocabulary anticipated (12:12 chief priests); Treasury offering (12:41-44) — minor gap, noted | Gap terms added §3 |
| 13 | Faith Amid Fear; Kingdom Breaking In | Keep watch(58); Tribulation(59) | Reviewed — no additional new gap | Reviewed |
| 14 | Necessity of the Cross; Ransom; Discipleship amid Fear | Covenant(60); Covenant blood(61); Body(62); Will of God(63); Abba(64); Betray/hand over(65) | Passover (14:1,12,14,16) — new gap, mela-collision; Rabbi recurs (14:45); High priest now load-bearing (14:53-65) | Gap terms added §3 — flagged high priority |
| 15 | Necessity of the Cross; Son of God (centurion’s confession) | King of the Jews(67); Crucify(68); Cry of dereliction(69) | High priest recurs (15:1,3,10,11); Praetorium/Roman-authority vocabulary noted but low doctrinal risk | Covered under §3 Priest entry |
| 16 | Necessity of the Cross (vindicated); Kingdom Breaking In (mission) | Resurrection(70); Taken up(71); Signs(72); Mission(73) | Reviewed — no additional new gap | Reviewed |
3. Missing Vocabulary — New Gap Terms Proposed
These concepts occur in Mark, carry doctrinal weight, and have no prior entry in either the Romans baseline or the Mark core glossary (08_core_glossary.md). Proposed renderings follow the baseline’s descriptive-compound methodology and are pending Bible Society of India confirmation, exactly as required for all “New” entries.
| Term | Original | Proposed Dogri | Transliteration | Risk | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synagogue | συναγωγή | सभा-घर (यहूदी सभा-घर) | sabha-ghar (yahudi sabha-ghar) | Medium | A third category distinct from both कलीसिया (church, baseline) and मंदर (temple, contextually allowed for the Jerusalem Temple). A descriptive compound, parallel to how “church” avoided मंदर, prevents synagogue from being folded into either existing category. |
| General Prayer | προσευχή / προσεύχομαι | प्रार्थना | prarthana | Medium | Distinct from बिचाल्ले होइयै बिनती (intercession, baseline) which is prayer for others; this is direct address to God generally (1:35; 6:46; 9:29; 11:17, 24-25; 14:32-39). Must be taught as direct, unmediated address to परमेश्वर through Christ, not petition requiring a pandit/priest intermediary or shrine-based ritual approach. |
| Fasting | νηστεία / νηστεύω | उपवास | upvaas | High | CRITICAL FENCING REQUIRED: avoid व्रत/बरत, the standard regional term for a votive fast undertaken to obtain a boon or fulfill a vow (directly parallel to the mannat economy the baseline already flags for “grace”). उपवास is the safer choice but still requires an explicit teaching note that Christian fasting (2:18-20; 9:29) is disciplined seeking of God, not a transactional practice securing a wish. |
| Corban | κορβᶰν | कुरबान (परमेश्वर आस्तै अर्पित कीता होया) | kurbaan (Parmeshwar aaste arpit keeta hoya) | High | Mark 7:11 describes a vow-declaration that a gift is “Corban” — devoted to God — used to evade caring for one’s parents. This is a direct, specific instance of the same vow/mannat transactional logic the baseline Critically flags for “grace” (Vaishno Devi mannat economy), now shown by Jesus himself to be a corrupted use of vow-language. Must be taught as Jesus’ own critique of manipulating vow-piety to escape moral obligation — reinforcing, not contradicting, the baseline’s grace caution. |
| Rabbi | ῥαββί | रब्बी | rabbi | High | Occurs at 9:5; 10:51; 11:21; 14:45. Must be transliterated, NOT rendered गुरू. Guru-veneration (touching feet, seeking a living guru’s darshan and blessing as a path toward spiritual attainment) is a widespread and prestigious devotional pattern across North Indian and Sikh-influenced Duggar culture; rendering “Rabbi” as गुरू would import this entire devotional framework onto Jesus in a way the text does not intend at those specific loci (contrast with the fuller Christological titles Lord/Messiah/Son of God, which the text reserves for weightier confessions). |
| Beelzebul | Βεελζεβούλ | बेलजबूल | Beljaboul | Medium | Proper name at 3:22, used interchangeably with शैतान in the same passage. Must be taught as the same personal adversary under a different name, not a second distinct evil figure, to avoid an unintended polytheistic reading of the spiritual-conflict passages. |
| Legion | Λεγιών | लीजन | Lijan | Low–Medium | Proper name of the demon-possessed man’s affliction (5:9), echoing a Roman military unit. Cultural note only: this carries an occupying-power resonance that may (helpfully) suggest systemic oppressive power, but should not be over-read as a political-liberation allegory distracting from the healing-authority doctrine point. |
| Passover | πάσχα | फसह | Fasah | High | Occurs at 14:1, 12, 14, 16. CRITICAL FENCING: never paraphrase using any मुक्ति-root construction (e.g. “liberation feast”), since मुक्ति is already baseline-forbidden for salvation/resurrection due to its reincarnation associations. Must also be distinguished from मेला (the region’s own major devotional fairs, esp. Jitto Da Mela) — Passover is a specific covenant-memorial feast rooted in the Exodus (Exodus 12), not a folk pilgrimage-fair occasion. |
| High Priest / Priest (Jewish office) | ἀρχιερεύς / ἱερεύς | महायाजक (high priest) / याजक (priest) | mahayajak / yajak | High | CRITICAL FENCING: never use पुजारी, the standard regional term for a Hindu temple officiant (directly salient given the prominence of Raghunath Mandir and Bahu Fort pujaris in Duggar religious life). महायाजक/याजक are established, less devotionally loaded Sanskritic compounds already used in regional Hindi Bible tradition; adopt the same pattern here with an explicit note that this is a specific historical Israelite covenant office, not a functional equivalent to a temple pujari. |
| Scribes (Jewish legal scholars) | γραμματεῖς | शास्त्री-लोक (व्यवस्था दे जाणकार) | shastri-lok (vyavastha de janankar) | Medium | CAUTION: शास्त्री alone risks evoking a Hindu scriptural-teacher/pandit honorific title (also a common Dogra-region surname/title). A descriptive qualifier (“expert in the Law/vyavastha”) should accompany शास्त्री at first use per document to anchor it to the specific Jewish legal-scholar office. |
| Treasury / offering box | γαζοφυλάκιον | भेंट-पात्र | bhent-paatr | Low | Minor gap at 12:41-44 (widow’s mite). Low doctrinal risk but should avoid चढ़ावा-पात्र, the term more specifically associated with shrine donation boxes for votive offerings (chadhava) at sites like Vaishno Devi, to prevent an implied equivalence between temple-treasury giving and shrine-offering practice. |
4. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
Unlike the missing-vocabulary gaps above, these are places where Dogri has too many candidate words, several already carrying strong non-Christian religious freight in the Duggar region. Each requires an explicit, repeatable fencing note wherever it recurs, not a one-time footnote.
| Neighborhood | Competing Words in Play | Collision Risk | Fencing Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ritual purity vs. moral holiness | शुद्ध (leprosy/cleanse, contextually correct) / पवित्तर (holy, baseline) / भिट्ट (ritual impurity, baseline-rejected) / अशुद्ध (defilement, ch.7) | शुद्ध is correctly used for the OT Levitical leprosy category (1:40-45) but risks bleeding into the general holiness doctrine or into Hindu ritual-purity-before-darshan practice if not anchored each time. | Every occurrence of शुद्ध must carry (or reference) the standing translator note that this denotes a specific, historical Israelite legal-purity category Jesus fulfills and transcends — never a general spiritual-purity prerequisite for approaching God. |
| Service/devotion vocabulary | सेवक/सेवा (servant, ch.9-10) | Double-loaded: (a) Hindu temple/shrine seva performed for merit or divine favor; (b) Sikh/Punjabi-influenced seva as communal service — both live, prestigious concepts given Dogri’s proximity to Punjabi. | Anchor सेवक explicitly to serving other people, modeled on Christ (10:45), each time it recurs in a doctrinal (not merely narrative) context; never let it stand alone as a self-evidently Christian term. |
| Mercy/grace/compassion cluster | दया (have mercy, ch.10) / बिना कमाई दित्ती दया (grace, baseline Critical) / दिल च तरस आना (compassion, ch.6) | All three share the दया root or semantic field; risk of readers assuming Bartimaeus’s cry (10:47-48) earns pity through persistence, collapsing mercy back into a merit-based transaction the baseline’s grace entry was built specifically to exclude. | Teach दया करो (10:47-48) explicitly as a cry of faith trusting God’s character, cross-referenced to the baseline grace entry’s mannat-economy caution, every time it is taught. |
| Kingdom/rule/royalty cluster | परमेश्वर दा राज्य (Kingdom of God) / यहूदियां दा राजा (King of the Jews) / महाराजा (forbidden, baseline) / नेड़े आ गेआ ऐ | Dogra dynastic “raj” history (ended mid-20th century, within living memory for elders) makes all राज-root vocabulary politically resonant in a way it would not be in a language without a comparable recent princely-state past. | Never let राज्य stand without either नेड़े आ गेआ ऐ (present in-breaking) or explicit contrast with worldly/political rule (as Mark 15’s ironic title does); महाराजा remains absolutely forbidden per baseline. |
| Spirit/soul field | पवित्तर आत्मा (Holy Spirit, Critical) / अशुद्ध आत्मा (unclean spirit, ch.1) / परमात्मा (forbidden, baseline) / जिंद (soul/life, ch.10) | Four related-sounding terms sharing the आत्मा/soul semantic field but denoting entirely different theological realities (third Person of Trinity; personal hostile being; impersonal universal Self; whole embodied self given in ransom). | Maintain a standing four-way distinction chart for teachers; never allow जिंद (10:45) to be glossed with आत्मा-family vocabulary, since it denotes the whole embodied self, not a detachable soul. |
| Teacher/guru/rabbi field | रब्बी (new, §3) / गुरू (rejected) / शास्त्री (Jewish scribes, caution) | North Indian guru-bhakti devotion (living human guru as spiritual guide/liberator, venerated with feet-touching and darshan) is prestigious and widespread; both रब्बी and शास्त्री sit dangerously close to this field if unglossed. | रब्बी always transliterated, never rendered गुरू; शास्त्री always paired with a Law-scholar qualifier at first occurrence per document. |
| Priesthood field | महायाजक/याजक (new, §3) / पुजारी (forbidden) | पुजारी is the single most locally salient religious-office word in the Duggar region (Raghunath Mandir, Bahu Fort); using it for the Jewish high priest would implicitly validate a false equivalence between the two priesthoods. | महायाजक/याजक only; explicit note at first occurrence (ch.14) that this is a specific historical Israelite covenant office, distinct from and not fulfilled-by-analogy through any living regional priestly office. |
| Offering/gift field | भेंट-पात्र (new, §3) / चढ़ावा (shrine offering, rejected here) / देह/खून (body/blood, Last Supper, Critical) | The Last Supper’s covenant body/blood language sits near enough to regional votive-offering and even (historically) animal-sacrifice practice at sites such as Bahu Fort’s Kali shrine that careless vocabulary choice could suggest Christ’s death is one more propitiatory offering among many, repeatable and transactional. | Maintain the baseline’s existing Critical-tier caution on covenant blood; extend the same discipline to the widow’s-offering pericope (12:41-44) by using भेंट-पात्र rather than चढ़ावा-adjacent vocabulary. |
| Fasting/vow field | उपवास (new, §3) / व्रत/बरत (rejected) / कुरबान (Corban, new, §3) | Three related “religious self-denial or dedication” concepts, all abuttable to the mannat/vow economy the baseline already treats as the single highest-salience transactional-religion risk in the Duggar region. | Teach fasting (2:18-20; 9:29) and Corban (7:11) together as one unit whenever both appear in a lesson, explicitly cross-referencing the baseline grace entry’s mannat caution rather than treating them as unrelated vocabulary items. |
| Name-invocation field | ”मेरे नां च” (in my name, various loci: 9:38-41; 11:9-10 Hosanna; 13:6; 16:17) / नाम-जप (mantra-repetition for merit, not a biblical term but a live regional devotional practice) | Repetition of a divine name (japa) — e.g. “Ram-naam,” or mantra recitation associated with Vaishno Devi/Kali devotion — is a widespread North Indian devotional technique believed to generate spiritual power or merit through repetition itself. | Teach “in my/his name” as an appeal to Christ’s own authority and person (a relational, once-invoked claim), never as a repeatable formula whose power increases with repetition; flag any lesson using this phrase for a brief clarifying note. |
5. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Talitha cum, Ephphatha, Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani, Abba | Transliterate, preserved untranslated with gloss | Established baseline/glossary pattern (Abba); Mark’s own text preserves these Aramaic phrases untranslated, and the historical immediacy is doctrinally significant, especially for the cry of dereliction (15:34). |
| Hosanna | Transliterate + gloss (“save now”) | Preserves rootedness in messianic-deliverance plea; a full paraphrase would lose the acclamation’s liturgical texture. |
| Rabbi | Transliterate (रब्बी), never paraphrase as गुरू | Paraphrase here is the greater risk, not the lesser; a “natural-sounding” Dogri word imports an entire competing devotional framework (see §4). |
| Corban | Transliterate + short descriptive gloss | The term is itself a technical vow-declaration in the source text (Mark preserves the Aramaic/Hebrew loanword and explains it); Dogri should follow the same pattern — transliterate, then gloss, rather than fully paraphrasing away the term’s technical vow-character. |
| Beelzebul, Legion | Transliterate (proper names) | Standard proper-name handling; no paraphrase possible or needed. |
| Passover | Transliterate (फसह), NOT paraphrase | Any descriptive paraphrase risks reaching for मुक्ति-root vocabulary (forbidden) or मेला-adjacent phrasing (collision with regional festival culture); the transliteration plus a short Exodus-background note is safer than any paraphrase attempted. |
| High priest / priest / scribes | Paraphrase via existing Sanskritic compounds (महायाजक/याजक; शास्त्री + qualifier), NOT transliteration, NOT पुजारी/गुरू-adjacent native terms | These offices need to sound like specific historical Israelite institutions, not either a transliterated loanword (which would sound foreign and unanchored) or a native term that imports the wrong local religious office. A “third path” compound, already attested in regional Hindi Bible usage, threads this correctly. |
| Synagogue | Paraphrase (सभा-घर / यहूदी सभा-घर), not transliteration | Following the baseline’s own precedent for “church” (कलीसिया is itself a transliteration, but it was chosen specifically to avoid मंदर); here a plain descriptive compound is more transparent to first-time readers than an unfamiliar loanword, and carries no false-equivalence risk in itself. |
| Fasting, Prayer, Offering box | Paraphrase via existing neutral Sanskritic/Dogri vocabulary (उपवास; प्रार्थना; भेंट-पात्र) | These concepts already have serviceable native words; the task here is not inventing new vocabulary but fencing the existing words away from their votive/transactional neighbors (व्रत, नाम-जप, चढ़ावा), as detailed in §4. |
| Cross, Ransom, Crucify, Resurrection, Son of Man, etc. | No change — retain established baseline/glossary compounds | Already correctly decided in 08_core_glossary.md and the Romans baseline; this analysis found no reason to revisit them. |
6. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal consequence and local cultural-collision salience. Items 1–9 carry over and sharpen risks already identified in the glossary/registry; items 10–15 are net-new findings from this analysis.
- Ransom + “in place of” (10:45, core passage) — Critical. Substitutionary atonement collapses into generalized self-sacrifice admiration if the Baba Jitto folk-martyr frame is allowed to color it, even by loose analogy. Single highest-stakes ambiguity in the curriculum.
- Cross / Crucify (8:34; 15:15-32) — Critical. Same Baba Jitto collision, recurring across the whole second half of the book; risk compounds with repetition if the mandatory note is only applied once.
- Must suffer / divine necessity (8:31; 9:31; 10:33) — Critical. Easily reheard as fatalistic किस्मत rather than purposive divine plan if translators default to natural-sounding inevitability language.
- σῴζω save/heal collapse (5:34; 10:52) — Critical. The single most frequent collapse-risk in the book; every healing narrative is a fresh occasion to accidentally use उद्धार instead of चंगा करना, or vice versa to under-translate a genuine salvation nuance.
- Lord it over / κατακυριεύω (10:42) — Critical. A single careless use of a प्रभु-derived form here would directly contradict the baseline’s Critical-tier reservation of प्रभु for Christ’s Lordship alone.
- Servant/slave/greatness cluster (10:42-44, core passage) — High. The entire rhetorical force of the passage depends on the izzat-collision landing at full strength; any softening (e.g., translating दास as a generic “helper”) defeats the passage’s purpose.
- Son of Man vs. Son of God (throughout) — Critical. Structural to the whole book’s Christology; conflating the two titles anywhere undermines both the Suffering Servant doctrine and the Deity of Christ doctrine simultaneously.
- Transfiguration (9:2-8) — Critical. The single closest formal resemblance to avatar-transformation narrative in the entire curriculum; requires the same forbidden-term discipline as the baseline’s incarnation entry.
- Covenant blood/body (14:22-24) — Critical. Proximity to regional sacrificial-offering practice (Bahu Fort) makes this a live risk every time the Last Supper is taught, not just at first introduction.
- Corban (7:11) — High (newly identified). Easily under-weighted because it is a single verse, but it is Jesus’ own direct engagement with exactly the vow-transaction logic the baseline treats as its single most dangerous local collision (grace/mannat). Should receive review priority disproportionate to its verse-count.
- Rabbi (9:5; 10:51; 11:21; 14:45) — High (newly identified). A frequently recurring honorific with a strong, ready-made wrong-word candidate (गुरू) that a translator working quickly could easily reach for as the “obvious” natural Dogri equivalent.
- High priest / priest vocabulary (chs. 12, 14-15) — High (newly identified). The पुजारी collision is not hypothetical — it is the single most locally salient religious-office word in the region; this cluster requires the same discipline as मंदर/कलीसिया in the baseline.
- Passover vs. Mela (14:1, 12, 14, 16) — High (newly identified). Risk compounds because both the wrong-word candidates (मुक्ति-paraphrase; मेला-equivalence) are independently dangerous for different reasons.
- “In my/his name” invocation (9:38-41; 11:9-10; 13:6; 16:17) — High (newly identified). The mantra-japa collision is subtle because the phrase sounds harmless in isolation; risk is under-recognition by reviewers not primed to look for it.
- Fasting vs. Vrat (2:18-20; 9:29) — Medium-High (newly identified). Lower narrative weight than items above but shares the exact transactional-religion risk profile the baseline treats as Critical elsewhere (grace); should not be treated as a minor vocabulary item.
7. Recommendations for Phase 2
- Add all ten new gap terms from §3 to
translation_memory.jsonandbible_term_registry.jsonbefore Phase 2 segment translation begins on any chapter containing them (esp. chs. 7, 9, 10, 12, 14). - Route all fifteen ranked ambiguities in §6 to human theologian review regardless of their nominal risk tier elsewhere, given the compounding effect documented above.
- Build the four-way “spirit/soul field” distinction chart (§4) as a standing reference artifact for translators, not a one-time footnote, since पवित्तर आत्मा, अशुद्ध आत्मा, परमात्मा, and जिंद recur throughout the book in close proximity to one another.
- Cross-reference every Corban (7:11) and Fasting (2:18-20; 9:29) occurrence explicitly back to the Romans baseline’s grace/mannat caution in translator notes, since these are the same doctrinal guard-rail applied to new textual material.
- Confirm रब्बी, महायाजक/याजक, and सभा-घर against the Bible Society of India’s Dogri Bible before wide deployment, following the same confirmation discipline the baseline recommends for its own New entries.
This document extends but does not contradict the Romans baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json. All Baseline Reuse terms remain governed exclusively by the Romans package; any revision to a Baseline Reuse term must be made there first and propagated here, never the reverse.