Linguistic Gap Analysis

Acts 1–28 | English → Fulfulde | Full-Book Coverage

Core passage anchor: Acts 2:1-41 (Pentecost) Curriculum doctrines: The Holy Spirit and Pentecost; The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles; Repentance and Baptism; The Church as Community; Apostolic Authority and Miracles; Persecution and Bold Witness; Conversion of Paul; Justification apart from the Law; The Great Commission Fulfilled

This analysis extends the Romans baseline’s linguistic-gap methodology to Acts. It does not repeat items already fully resolved in the Romans translation_memory.json unless Acts introduces new stress on the term (e.g., “holy” applied as a personal title to Jesus, 3:14). It assumes 08_core_glossary.md and the updated bible_term_registry.json as companion documents; the doctrine vocabulary matrix below is the analytical layer that justifies those registries’ entries.

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Part 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the available Fulfulde term(s), the specific weakness(es) in Fulfulde’s current vocabulary base, and the recommended strategy.

1. The Holy Spirit and Pentecost

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Ruuhu Ceniiɗo (TM-reuse)	Fully attested from Romans baseline as Critical risk; but Acts intensifies exposure — the Spirit is now a narrative actor (falls, fills, speaks, sends), not only a doctrinal abstraction as in Romans. Readers must not default to ruuhu (spirit/breath/soul, ambiguous) or confuse Spirit-filling with jinn-possession or Sufi trance (ḥāl/wajd), both live regional phenomena.	Enforce full form in every occurrence, no exceptions, even in narrative summary lines. Pair first Acts 2 occurrence with an explicit contrastive gloss distinguishing it from jinn/trance categories.
Pantekoosti (NEW, transliteration)	No crystallized Fulfulde term for the Jewish festival Shavuot/Pentecost exists in any dialect’s existing translation literature. A literal descriptive gloss (“fiftieth day,” balɗe cappanɗe joy) is available but obscures the proper-noun/feast-day status and would need re-explaining every time.	Transliterate as Pantekoosti, gloss on first use with a short explanatory clause (“ñalnde fooyre Yahuudiyaŋkooɓe, cappanɗe joy caggal Paska,” approximate), flag for theologian/native-speaker confirmation of dialect currency before deployment.
ɗemɗe kesje (tongues/languages, NEW)	Crowded neighborhood: Fulfulde’s word for “tongue” (ɗemngal, pl. ɗemɗe) covers both the physical organ and “language,” and the same lexical family covers the flame-shaped “tongues of fire” two verses earlier. High risk of readers conflating the fire-imagery with the speech-miracle, or conversely assuming ecstatic/unintelligible utterance akin to regional Sufi devotional practice.	Fence explicitly: distinguish ɗemɗe yiite (v.3, flame-shape) from ɗemɗe kesje (v.4, real spoken human languages), and state plainly, anchored to 2:6,8,11 (“everyone heard in his own language”), that these are genuine, understood human languages — never private ecstatic speech.
heewi Ruuhu Ceniiɗo (filled with the Holy Spirit, NEW)	No single crystallized verb exists for this recurring formula; “heewi” (to be full/filled) is a plain descriptive verb usable but not yet a fixed theological collocation across dialects.	Standardize this exact collocation across every occurrence (chs. 2, 4, 6, 9, 13) and treat deviation as a flag-worthy inconsistency.

Summary risk: This doctrine sits at the intersection of Fulfulde’s thinnest vocabulary layer (no settled Pentecost/tongues terminology) and the region’s richest competing phenomenological framework (jinn, Sufi trance, marabout-mediated spiritual power). Highest-priority doctrine for theologian pre-briefing.

2. The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
leƴƴi goo (Gentiles, TM-reuse)	Adequate and already vetted in Romans; Acts intensifies use-frequency across chs. 9-28 and adds live narrative stakes (Cornelius, ch.10; Jerusalem Council, ch.15) rather than Romans’ more abstract theological argument.	Reuse exactly; ensure narrative episodes (not just doctrinal statements) consistently use this same term rather than a more neutral ethnographic paraphrase.
haraamu / halaali (clean/unclean, NEW)	CRITICAL crowded-neighborhood problem: this is deliberately borrowed Islamic dietary-law vocabulary (halal/haram), meaning readers bring a fully developed competing legal-religious framework to the term before the passage’s real subject (Gentile inclusion) is introduced. Extremely high risk of the passage being read as a food-law abrogation debate rather than a people-inclusion revelation.	Fence hard: every occurrence (Acts 10, 11) must carry an explicit interpretive statement that the vision’s referent is people, not food regulations per se (“Alla wiɗtii… tawi ko yimɓe leƴƴi goo o feeñaali, wonaa ñaamde tan”). Never leave the metaphor to stand alone.
Alla suɓataa yimɓe ɓe geese maɓɓe (no partiality, NEW)	Descriptive compound; no single fixed idiom currently exists for divine impartiality in Fulfulde theological usage. Adjacent danger: over-literal translation could read as denying the legitimate distinctiveness of Pulaaku ethnic identity itself, a live sensitivity given Fulani-farmer inter-ethnic tension.	Retain descriptive compound; teach alongside (not replacing) Pulaaku identity affirmation — impartiality in salvation does not erase ethnic/cultural belonging.
sinaagog / kawtal / moosaale (three-way fence)	Not a weakness of vocabulary per se but a structural risk: three distinct assemblies now coexist in the text (synagogue, church, mosque) where before Acts only two terms (kawtal/moosaale) were in active theological contrast.	Explicitly triangulate all three terms early in the curriculum’s glossary section so learners do not default synagogue → mosque by regional-vocabulary habit.

Summary risk: The clean/unclean pairing is this doctrine’s single most dangerous crowded-neighborhood collision in the entire curriculum — arguably riskier than any Romans term because it uses the exact Arabic-Islamic legal pair rather than merely an adjacent concept.

3. Repentance and Baptism

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
tuubuubuyee / tuubde (repentance, NEW)	CRITICAL: shares its root directly with Islamic tawba, a fully developed devotional doctrine (turning from sin, seeking Allah’s mercy through contrition, restitution, and renewed piety) with no atonement framework. Readers will import tawba’s complete theological content by default.	Never let the bare verb stand alone in a doctrinal passage (2:38, 3:19, 17:30, 26:20); pair every occurrence with an explicit tie to faith in the named, crucified-and-risen Yeesu, distinguishing gospel repentance from self-directed moral reform.
Batisma / sappee (baptism, NEW)	No native single-word equivalent exists; the available native verb for washing/immersion (loot-, purification-adjacent) risks collapsing into laaɓal, the ritual-ablution term tied to wuduu/ghusl — repeatable, external, and unrelated to conversion.	Use the transliterated proper noun Batisma (noun) with the coined verb sappee (to be immersed) consistently; never use loot- or laaɓal roots. Gloss on first use as a once-for-all, public, Christ-directed act.
Batisma Yaayanna vs. Batisma e innde Joom Yeesu (John’s baptism contrast, NEW)	This distinction has no ready cultural parallel (the region has no comparable two-stage ritual-washing tradition to draw an analogy from) and is easy to collapse into a single generic “baptism,” losing Acts 19’s precise theological point about the Spirit’s gift.	Always render the contrast as a labeled pair, never as unqualified “baptism” alone, in Acts 19 material.
e innde Yeesu (name of Jesus, NEW)	Adjacent risk: regional dhikr/invocation practice (repeating a divine or saintly name for spiritual effect) could cause “in the name of Jesus” to be misread as an incantation formula rather than an appeal to a specific person’s authority.	State explicitly, at first occurrence, that this is authority-by-identification-with-a-person, not a verbal formula with independent power.

Summary risk: Repentance is the doctrine most vulnerable to silent theological substitution — a Fulfulde reader can process tuubde fluently, assume full comprehension, and never notice the concept has quietly shifted to tawba. This makes it more dangerous than baptism, where the transliterated proper noun at least signals “something distinct is happening here.”

4. The Church as Community

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kawtal (church, TM-reuse)	Adequate for the abstract “church” concept from Romans, but Acts requires it to carry much more concrete narrative weight: economic sharing (2:44-45), officer structures (elders/overseers/deacons), and internal ethnic tension (Hellenists/Hebrews, ch.6) — none of which Romans’ more theological usage exercises.	Reuse exactly, but supplement with the new office-vocabulary (below) so kawtal is not asked to silently carry structural distinctions it cannot lexically bear alone.
mawɓe kawtal / reeŋtoowo kawtal / gollotooɗo (elders/overseers/deacons, NEW)	Fulfulde has a strong existing lexicon for social seniority (mawɗo) but no equivalent for a specific appointed ecclesial office distinct from general age-based respect — a genuine vocabulary gap, since Pulaaku’s own leadership structures are age/lineage-based rather than appointed-office-based.	Use compound qualifiers (kawtal) throughout to mark these as specific offices, not generic honorifics; teach the elder/overseer identity explicitly (20:17,28) so learners do not infer two separate ranks.
ɓe waɗi kala jawɗe maɓɓe gootal (all things in common, NEW)	Genuine positive resonance with Fulani communal-herd and mutual-aid custom (a rare case where cultural vocabulary helps rather than hinders) — but this very resonance creates a risk of over-literalizing a Spirit-prompted, situational generosity into a permanent economic mandate, or of nationalist/collectivist re-readings.	Frame explicitly as description of a particular Spirit-filled moment, not prescription for a fixed communal-property system.
Kirisiyeenaaɗo / Kirisiyeenaaɓe (Christian, NEW)	New coinage; no existing attested form in current Fulfulde Christian literature. Acute homophony risk with the unrelated existing loanword Kirisimasi (“Christmas”), which shares surface phonology but no semantic connection.	Confirm with theologian and native speaker before deployment; explicitly flag the Kirisimasi-collision risk in training materials for any human translator/reviewer so it is never substituted by autocomplete-style error.
galle (household, NEW)	Strong Fulani kinship-compound resonance (a genuine asset) but risk of implying automatic household-wide salvation by kinship membership, which would blunt Acts 16:31’s personal-faith emphasis — a live pastoral-theological question, not fully resolved even in mainstream scholarship.	Flag as an open pastoral question rather than a settled doctrine; do not let the term’s warmth substitute for stating personal faith’s necessity.

Summary risk: Medium-High as a doctrine cluster; no single Critical flashpoint, but a dense concentration of newly coined or provisional terms (five NEW entries in this doctrine alone) that collectively demand disproportionate native-speaker confirmation time.

5. Apostolic Authority and Miracles

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
nulaaɗo (apostle, TM-reuse)	Fully vetted; deliberately avoids rasuulu. Acts intensifies stakes because the apostolic office itself (not just the title) is now narratively active — commissioning, discipline, council authority.	Reuse exactly; ensure derivative office-language (nulaagal) stays visibly distinct from Muhammad’s rasuulu-based authority model in any comparative teaching material.
maandeeji e kaawisaaji (signs and wonders, NEW)	No existing single fixed Fulfulde theological phrase; more critically, this doctrine sits in Fulfulde’s most crowded semantic neighborhood of the entire curriculum: barke (marabout blessing/spiritual power) and sihira (sorcery) are both live, named, socially real categories readers will reach for by default when describing any reported miracle.	Explicit, repeated fencing required at every occurrence (chs. 2-19): apostolic miracles authenticate gospel proclamation and operate through God’s direct power (doole Alla), never through person-mediated blessing objects, amulets, or technique-based sorcery.
doole Alla (power of God, TM-reuse)	Vetted in Romans as High risk; Acts adds concrete miracle-narrative stakes (healing, exorcism, judgment on Elymas/Ananias-Sapphira) that Romans’ more abstract “power for salvation” sense did not require.	Reuse exactly; reinforce the barke/sihira contrast at every narrative healing episode, not only in summary doctrinal statements.
sihira (sorcery, NEW)	Genuine common ground (Islam itself rejects sihira), but proximity to barke creates a subtle risk: readers may correctly reject sihira while still implicitly reading apostolic miracles through a barke-adjacent lens (i.e., “impressive but merely another spiritual specialist’s blessing”).	Use sihira’s shared rejection as a rhetorical asset (“even as your own tradition rejects sihira, so must you distinguish God’s power from barke”) while still explicitly fencing against barke separately.
koyɗol immorde ka Alla (vision, NEW)	The region has an active, socially respected marabout dream-interpretation tradition; a “vision” account risks being processed through that interpretive lens (requiring a human specialist to validate/interpret it) rather than as self-authenticating divine communication.	State explicitly that Acts’ visions (9, 10, 16, 18) are God-initiated and self-confirmed by subsequent, verifiable outcomes — not omens requiring a marabout’s interpretation.
malaaka (angel, NEW)	Shared vocabulary with well-established Islamic angelology (Jibiriila, Mikaa’iila) — an asset for basic recognition, but risk of assuming Acts’ angels perform identical roles/functions to their Quranic counterparts.	Note the shared term as common ground while flagging that specific angelic missions in Acts (prison deliverance, ch.12; directing Cornelius, ch.10) should not be assumed automatically parallel to Quranic angelic narratives.

Summary risk: This doctrine has the single densest concentration of “crowded neighborhood” collisions (barke, sihira, marabout dream-interpretation) of any doctrine in the curriculum, rivaling the Romans baseline’s grace/barke problem in both frequency and narrative visibility.

6. Persecution and Bold Witness

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
seedaŋdo / seedaŋgol (witness, NEW)	No existing crystallized single Fulfulde term spans the full semantic range Acts itself develops in-narrative — from “one who testifies” (ch.1) to “one who testifies at the cost of life” (ch.7, martyrdom sense). Vocabulary is thin here specifically because the concept’s dual sense is unusually text-internal (Acts coins the extended sense narratively, not lexically).	Use a single root (seedaŋ-) across both senses so the in-narrative semantic development is traceable in Fulfulde as it is in the Greek, rather than switching vocabulary mid-book.
tergal (boldness, NEW)	Risk of conflation with two adjacent but distinct local categories: (a) generic human bravado/courage, and (b) political defiance/agitation — the latter carrying real-world risk given regional sensitivities to religious-political confrontation.	Qualify explicitly as Spirit-given confidence in proclamation (not self-generated courage, not civil agitation) at first occurrence (ch.4) and reinforce at each subsequent recurrence.
tampere (tribulation/suffering, NEW)	Adequate general-purpose term; lower risk than most in this doctrine cluster, but Acts 14:22’s “through many tribulations enter the kingdom” pairs it tightly with laamu Alla, a pairing not previously established in the Romans baseline and therefore new to the curriculum’s theological vocabulary.	No fencing needed beyond confirming the collocation with laamu Alla reads naturally; native-speaker review sufficient.
cukkugol / ɗacce e tampinde gomɗimɓe (persecution, NEW)	Descriptive compound rather than a single fixed term; low ambiguity risk but stylistically heavier than the Greek’s single word, which may affect narrative pacing in oral delivery.	Accept the descriptive compound; flag for stylistic (not doctrinal) review only.

Summary risk: Medium-High as a cluster. The main danger is not doctrinal collision with Islamic theology (unlike the Holy Spirit or Gospel-to-Gentiles doctrines) but social/political risk — readers or teachers in some Fulfulde-speaking regions may need pastoral sensitivity around teaching costly public witness as a live expectation.

7. Conversion of Paul

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
koyɗol immorde ka Alla (vision) / manaango (glory/light)	See notes above under Apostolic Authority; Saul’s Damascus-road light (9:3) uses manaango, already vetted in Romans as distinct from teddungal (human honor).	Reuse manaango exactly; reinforce the vision-fencing notes above for the Damascus-road narrative specifically.
tiiɗnaare diine (zeal, NEW)	Genuine resonance risk: Paul’s self-described persecuting zeal (22:3-4) echoes regional reform-movement rhetoric (notably the historical memory of the Sokoto Caliphate’s reformist jihad tradition), which is a source of ethnic-religious pride for many Fulani communities, not merely a negative example.	Handle with care: teach that sincere, even historically consequential zeal can be theologically misdirected apart from Christ — an instructive parallel, not an implicit condemnation of the region’s own reform history, which should not be the curriculum’s rhetorical target.
jortaari (hope of the promise, NEW)	Adequate descriptive term; low collision risk, but must be explicitly paired with alkawal (covenant/promise) so Paul’s Acts 26:6-7 framing (gospel fulfills, not replaces, Israel’s ancestral hope) is not read as a supersessionist rupture.	Pair consistently with alkawal; reinforce linear-fulfillment framing already established for the “fulfillment of prophecy” doctrine in the Romans baseline.
Ɓiɗɗo Neɗɗo (Son of Man) — see Doctrine 5 fencing below	Cross-listed under Deity of Christ; directly relevant here since Stephen’s vision (ch.7) is narratively adjacent to and thematically preparatory for Paul’s own conversion account.	See dedicated entry below (Part 3, ranked ambiguity #2).

Summary risk: Medium. Paul’s conversion account is doctrinally clear (no missing vocabulary), but culturally delicate given the zeal/reform-tradition resonance.

8. Justification apart from the Law

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
waɗugol peewal / peewal / peewal jibinaangal (TM-reuse)	Fully vetted Critical-risk compounds from Romans; Acts anchors them narratively in the Jerusalem Council (ch.15) and Paul’s Antioch sermon (13:38-39) rather than Romans’ epistolary argument — a difference in genre, not vocabulary, but one that changes how explicitly the “apart from works” contrast must be restated in narrative summary (no extended argument to lean on as in Romans 4).	Reuse exactly; because Acts states the doctrine in compressed narrative summary rather than sustained argument, each occurrence needs its own brief explicit restatement of the grace/works contrast rather than relying on surrounding context to carry it, as an extended Romans passage can.
sariya (law, TM-reuse)	Adequate; Acts intensifies the stakes because the Jerusalem Council (ch.15) makes the law-vs-grace question a live, contested, in-narrative decision with real social consequences for a specific ethnic-religious practice (circumcision), not an abstract theological point.	Reuse exactly; reinforce the Romans baseline’s distinction between the Law’s redemptive-historical role and a Sharia-style comprehensive life-code, now with a concrete narrative case study to teach from.
taƴgol goɓɗi (circumcision, NEW)	CRITICAL and uniquely acute: circumcision is a nearly universal, deeply significant religious-and-ethnic-identity marker among Fulani communities (bound up with both Islamic practice and pre-Islamic Fulani custom). No softened euphemism should be used, but the direct term risks the ruling being heard as devaluing the practice itself rather than addressing only its soteriological basis.	Provisional rendering pending confirmation of an established regional term (if any already exists in local Injila translation work, prefer it). Every occurrence must state explicitly: the Council rules on whether circumcision is necessary for salvation (no), not on whether the practice itself is disallowed, shameful, or without cultural value.
kaɓirgel (yoke, NEW)	Concrete pastoralist implement — a genuine vocabulary asset, not a gap — but must be kept clearly in its metaphorical register (15:10) rather than triggering a literal farming-implement reading that misses Peter’s point about law-observance as a burden.	Confirm metaphorical framing explicitly on first use; low risk otherwise given the strength of the cultural image.
jina (sexual immorality, NEW)	Shared Arabic-Islamic vocabulary, genuine common ground (retained as one of the Gentile requirements, 15:20,29); low collision risk.	No special fencing required beyond standard consistency.
ñaawoore Alla (judgment to come, NEW)	Strong point of contact with the well-developed Islamic doctrine of Yawm al-Qiyāma (Day of Judgment), which — unlike most doctrines in this curriculum — is an asset rather than primarily a risk, since both traditions affirm a future divine reckoning. The specific risk is narrower: readers may assume the basis of acquittal is identical (deeds-weighing) rather than Christ’s credited righteousness.	Use the point of contact affirmatively as a bridge, then pivot explicitly to the specifically Christian basis of acquittal (peewal jibinaangal), per Acts 24:25.

Summary risk: Critical as a cluster, driven almost entirely by the circumcision term — arguably the single most socially delicate lexical item in the entire Acts curriculum, exceeding even the Holy-Spirit/tongues cluster in potential for community-level reception difficulty (not just doctrinal misunderstanding).

9. The Great Commission Fulfilled

Available term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
yamiroore Linjiila (mission, TM-reuse)	Adequate; Acts gives it a full narrative arc (1:8 mandate → 28:31 fulfillment) that Romans’ more occasional usage did not require the term to sustain across an entire book’s structure.	Reuse exactly; explicitly flag the bookending function (1:8/28:31) for consistency across all lesson materials referencing either passage.
keerol leydi (ends of the earth, NEW)	Descriptive compound; no existing single fixed idiom. Low ambiguity risk on its own, but its programmatic, structural role (bookending the whole narrative) means any inconsistency in rendering across lessons would undermine the curriculum’s own literary-structural teaching point.	Standardize this exact phrase in every lesson touching either 1:8 or 28:31; treat as a structural, not merely lexical, consistency requirement.
laamu Alla (kingdom of God, TM-reuse)	Adequate; Acts 1:6’s political-restoration question (about a restored Israelite state) and the historical memory of Fulani-led Islamic political states (the Sokoto Caliphate) create a doubled temptation to read “kingdom of God” through a political-restorationist lens the text itself explicitly corrects.	Reuse exactly; make the 1:6-8 correction (from political restoration to Spirit-empowered mission) an explicit teaching point rather than assuming it is self-evident.
hara alaa e haɗgo (without hindrance, NEW)	No existing fixed idiom; descriptive compound is serviceable and low-risk, but as the book’s final word (28:31) it carries disproportionate rhetorical weight the translator must not blunt through a flatter paraphrase.	Confirm the compound reads with appropriate rhetorical finality in oral performance/read-aloud testing; native-speaker stylistic review recommended, not merely doctrinal.

Summary risk: Medium. No crowded-neighborhood collisions; the primary risk is structural/literary consistency across a book-length narrative arc rather than any single term’s doctrinal danger.

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Part 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no attested Fulfulde term at any risk level; descriptive compound or transliteration required)

Concept	Gap type	Chosen strategy
Pentecost (proper feast-day name)	No lexical equivalent for the Jewish festival in any Fulfulde dialect’s existing translation literature	Transliteration (Pantekoosti) + gloss
Baptism (as a distinct rite from ablution)	Native vocabulary defaults to ablution-adjacent roots (laaɓal) that carry the wrong theological content	Transliteration + coined verb (Batisma / sappee)
“Christian” as a group self-designation	No existing coinage; nearest phonological neighbor (Kirisimasi) is a false friend	New coinage (Kirisiyeenaaɗo) requiring dual confirmation
Circumcision-as-salvation-basis question	The physical practice has vocabulary; the specific soteriological framing (necessary vs. not necessary for salvation) does not	Descriptive compound + mandatory explanatory framing at every occurrence
Vow (personal ritual pledge, distinct from covenant)	No existing term separate from alkawal (reserved for God’s covenant)	New coinage (artaare)
Elder/overseer as appointed ecclesial office (distinct from age-based social seniority)	Fulfulde’s leadership vocabulary is age/lineage-structured (mawɗo), with no category for an appointed, term-bound or task-bound office	Compound qualifiers (mawɓe kawtal, reeŋtoowo kawtal)
“Filled with the Holy Spirit” as a fixed collocation	No crystallized verb-phrase; available only as an ad hoc descriptive construction	Standardized descriptive collocation (heewi Ruuhu Ceniiɗo)
Ends of the earth / without hindrance (structural bookend idioms)	No fixed idiom; low doctrinal risk but structurally important	Descriptive compounds, standardized for consistency

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (vocabulary exists but is shared with, or adjacent to, a well-developed competing framework and must be fenced)

Fulfulde term/root	Competing framework it neighbors	Doctrine(s) affected	Fencing requirement
tuubde / tuubuubuyee (repentance)	Islamic tawba (contrition + renewed piety, no atonement)	Repentance and Baptism	Explicit tie to faith in the crucified-and-risen Jesus at every occurrence
haraamu / halaali (clean/unclean)	Islamic halal/haram dietary-legal system	Gospel to Jews and Gentiles	Explicit statement that the true referent is Gentile inclusion, not food law
barke (rejected; never used) vs. maandeeji e kaawisaaji, doole Alla	West African Islamic-Sufi marabout blessing/spiritual power	Apostolic Authority and Miracles; Holy Spirit and Pentecost	Categorical exclusion of barke; explicit apostolic-authentication framing at every miracle narrative
sihira (sorcery)	Also rejected by orthodox regional Islam — asset, but adjacent to barke risk	Apostolic Authority and Miracles	Use shared rejection rhetorically while still separately fencing against barke
koyɗol immorde ka Alla (vision)	Marabout dream-interpretation tradition	Apostolic Authority and Miracles; Conversion of Paul	State visions as self-confirming and God-initiated, not requiring human specialist interpretation
malaaka (angel)	Islamic angelology (Jibiriila, Mikaa’iila)	Apostolic Authority and Miracles	Affirm shared vocabulary as common ground; flag specific-mission content as not automatically parallel
jinna/jinnaaji (forbidden; never used) vs. Ruuhu Ceniiɗo	Jinn-possession belief	Holy Spirit and Pentecost	Absolute prohibition on any jinn-root vocabulary for the Holy Spirit
tiiɗnaare diine (zeal)	Regional Islamic reform-movement rhetoric (Sokoto Caliphate memory)	Conversion of Paul	Teach as instructive parallel, not implicit condemnation of regional reform history
ñaawoore Alla (judgment to come)	Yawm al-Qiyāma (Day of Judgment)	Justification apart from the Law	Use as an affirmative bridge, then pivot to the distinct Christian basis of acquittal
sifaaji / sujjugol sifaaji (idols/idolatry)	Regional anti-shirk sensibility (asset) but reciprocal risk of Christian Christ-devotion being read as shirk from a Tawhid standpoint	Gospel to Jews and Gentiles / Apologetics	Anticipate and name the reciprocal objection explicitly rather than leaving it for a reader to raise unaddressed
Ɓiɗɗo Alla (Son of God) vs. Ɓiɗɗo Neɗɗo (Son of Man)	Tawhid-based rejection of divine sonship (both titles provoke related but distinct objections)	Deity of Christ (cross-cutting); Conversion of Paul	Keep the two titles visibly, consistently distinct; never flatten into a single “Son” gloss
taƴgol goɓɗi (circumcision)	Near-universal regional religious-and-ethnic practice (both Islamic and pre-Islamic Fulani)	Justification apart from the Law	Frame every occurrence around the soteriological question only, never the cultural practice’s value
Laawol (the Way)	Islamic as-Sirat al-Mustaqim (the Straight Path); Sharia-as-comprehensive-life-code	Church as Community	Frame as personal allegiance to the risen Christ, not a legal-ethical code
e innde Yeesu (name of Jesus)	Regional dhikr/invocation practice	Apostolic Authority and Miracles	State plainly this is authority-by-identification, not incantation

Structural observation: Fulfulde’s linguistic-gap profile for Acts differs from Romans in a specific way: Romans’ highest risks were concentrated in abstract soteriological vocabulary (grace, righteousness, justification) colliding with Islamic theology. Acts adds an entirely new risk layer — narrative-experiential vocabulary (visions, tongues, Spirit-filling, miracles, dream-guidance) colliding with Islamic-folk and Sufi practice. This second layer is arguably harder to fence because it concerns lived religious experience rather than doctrinal proposition, and Fulani communities have well-developed practical categories (marabout consultation, amulets/gris-gris, dream interpretation, trance) ready to absorb Acts’ narrative content by default.

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Part 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Fulfulde’s thinner Bible-translation tradition (per the Romans baseline) forces this decision repeatedly in Acts, more so than in Romans, because Acts narrates concrete events, offices, and titles that Romans’ epistolary argumentation rarely required by name.

3.1 Decision Framework Applied

1. Transliterate when: (a) the referent is a specific historical proper noun/event with no native lexical equivalent, and (b) a descriptive paraphrase would either be too cumbersome for repeated narrative use or would obscure the referent’s proper-noun status.
2. Paraphrase (descriptive compound) when: (a) the concept is genuinely translatable through existing native roots without loss, even if no single word currently exists, and (b) a transliteration would import unwanted foreign-loanword connotations or simply be opaque to readers.
3. Reuse existing loanword with explicit fencing when: (a) an Arabic-derived or Islamic-associated term is already the best-attested option (as documented in the Romans baseline for terms like sariya, annabi, Almasiihu), and (b) the shared vocabulary is a genuine point of contact worth building on, provided the differing content is taught explicitly.

3.2 Transliteration Decisions

Term	Rationale
Pantekoosti (Pentecost)	Proper feast-day name; no native equivalent; paraphrase (“fiftieth day”) loses proper-noun recognizability across repeated references.
Batisma (baptism, noun)	Avoids collision with laaɓal (ablution); a transliterated proper term signals “this is a distinct, specifically Christian rite” more clearly than any native descriptive phrase could.
Sanedirin (Sanhedrin)	Specific historical Jewish institution; no functional equivalent in Fulani social/political structures exists to paraphrase against without introducing false equivalence.
sinaagog (synagogue)	Specific historical Jewish institution distinct from both kawtal and moosaale; transliteration prevents default substitution of either existing term.
Kirisiyeenaaɗo/Kirisiyeenaaɓe (Christian)	Built from the already-established transliteration Kiristu; a paraphrase (“follower of the Anointed One”) would be usable but the text itself treats “Christian” as a proper group-name coined at a specific narrative moment (11:26), which favors a proper-noun-style rendering.

3.3 Paraphrase (Descriptive Compound) Decisions

Term	Rationale
tuubuubuyee / tuubde (repentance)	Existing native root is usable and necessary for fluency; the risk is not lexical opacity but theological content-collapse into tawba, which fencing (not transliteration) must solve. Transliterating a Greek/English form here would not even be intelligible without the paraphrase content the concept needs to teach.
Ɓiɗɗo Neɗɗo (Son of Man)	Fully translatable compound from existing roots (Ɓiɗɗo = child/son, Neɗɗo = person/human); transliterating a Greek Christological title here would strip the phrase of its meaningful Danielic “human-and-exalted” content that the paraphrase itself carries.
ƴiiwgol Yeesu ka asamaan (ascension)	Concrete, describable event (“Jesus was lifted up into heaven”); paraphrase allows the immediate juxtaposition with the prior death/resurrection narrative that the doctrine’s fencing requires — a bare transliteration would not carry this narrative linkage.
taƴgol goɓɗi (circumcision)	The physical referent is entirely familiar and namable in existing vocabulary; the gap is entirely in the soteriological framing, which paraphrase-plus-explicit-statement handles better than any transliteration could.
maandeeji e kaawisaaji (signs and wonders)	Compound built from existing, well-understood roots for “sign” and “marvel”; no proper-noun element requiring transliteration, and the fencing need (vs. barke/sihira) is best served by plain, transparent native vocabulary rather than an opaque loanword.
Alla suɓataa yimɓe ɓe geese maɓɓe (no partiality)	An idea, not a named entity; full sentence-level paraphrase is the only workable option and matches the Romans baseline’s own approach to comparable relational-theological statements.

3.4 Borderline/Contested Cases Requiring Theologian Decision

• artaare (vow): new coinage rather than transliteration or descriptive compound; flagged because Fulfulde may already have an underdocumented native term for personal ritual pledges (distinct from alkawal) that this analysis has not been able to confirm from available sources — theologian/native-speaker consultation should check for a pre-existing term before accepting the coinage as final.
• hakkille Ruuhu Ceniiɗo (Spirit-given wisdom): paraphrase-with-qualifier chosen over a wholly new coined term, but the qualifier’s grammatical naturalness (does Ruuhu Ceniiɗo function idiomatically as an attributive modifier of hakkille in natural speech?) needs native-speaker confirmation rather than being assumed from written compound logic alone.
• jortaari (hope of the promise): paraphrase chosen, but note this term already exists as a general-purpose word for “hope/expectation” in Fulfulde outside religious contexts (e.g., agricultural/pastoral hope for rain or herd increase); confirm this everyday resonance is an asset (hope as confident expectation) rather than a register mismatch (too mundane for Paul’s covenantal argument in 26:6-7).

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Part 4 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of default misreading × social/community-reception stakes), drawing on both the doctrine vocabulary matrix (Part 1) and the crowded-neighborhood analysis (Part 2).

1. Clean/unclean → haraamu/halaali (Acts 10-11, Gospel to Jews and Gentiles). Highest risk in the entire curriculum: this is the one case where the curriculum deliberately deploys the exact vocabulary of a fully developed, named, currently-practiced Islamic legal system (halal/haram) for a passage whose real subject is people, not food. Default misreading (a food-law abrogation debate) is not merely plausible but likely without aggressive, repeated explicit fencing.

2. Circumcision as salvation-basis vs. cultural practice → taƴgol goɓɗi (Acts 15, Justification apart from the Law). Uniquely high social-reception stakes: unlike most doctrinal risks in this pipeline, mistranslation here risks not just theological confusion but a felt community-level insult (implying the abandonment or devaluation of a near-universal Fulani religious-and-ethnic identity marker), which could jeopardize the curriculum’s reception entirely if the necessity-vs-value distinction is not made with total clarity at every occurrence.

3. Repentance → tuubde/tuubuubuyee (Acts 2:38, 3:19, 17:30, 26:20, Repentance and Baptism). The most dangerous silent substitution risk: fluent, natural-sounding Fulfulde that a reader will process without any signal that something doctrinally different from Islamic tawba is intended, unless every occurrence carries explicit Christ-directed content.

4. Filled with the Holy Spirit / tongues → heewi Ruuhu Ceniiɗo, ɗemɗe kesje/ɗemɗe yiite (Acts 2:1-13, core passage). Directly in the curriculum’s theological anchor passage; collides with two separate live regional phenomenological categories (jinn-possession/Sufi trance for Spirit-filling; ecstatic devotional speech for tongues) simultaneously, within eight verses of text.

5. Signs and wonders / power of God vs. barke and sihira (Acts 2-19, Apostolic Authority and Miracles). Highest-frequency recurring collision in the book (9 chapters); danger compounds because barke is not merely a doctrinal abstraction to reject but an active, socially normal practice many readers or their family members currently participate in.

6. Son of Man vs. Son of God → Ɓiɗɗo Neɗɗo vs. Ɓiɗɗo Alla (Acts 7:56, Deity of Christ / Conversion of Paul). Lower frequency than items above but maximal doctrinal density: conflating these two titles would either flatten a meaningful theological distinction or, worse, cause one Tawhid-based objection to be answered while leaving the other completely unaddressed, since Fulani Islamic scholarly tradition has well-articulated objections to both claims independently.

7. Vision → koyɗol immorde ka Alla (Acts 9, 10, 16, 18, Apostolic Authority and Miracles / Conversion of Paul). Risk is subtler than items above (no forbidden-word collision) but pervasive: without explicit self-authenticating framing, every vision narrative in Acts risks being processed through the region’s marabout dream-interpretation lens by default, quietly reframing revelation as something requiring human specialist mediation.

8. “Christian” coinage vs. “Kirisimasi” false-friend collision → Kirisiyeenaaɗo/Kirisiyeenaaɓe (Acts 11:26, Church as Community). Lower doctrinal stakes than items above, but uniquely mechanical risk: an editorial or transcription slip (one letter/syllable difference) could produce an absurd and confusing substitution (“Christmas-people” for “Christians”) that no amount of doctrinal care prevents — this is a proofing/QA risk as much as a theological one, and should be flagged for automated string-matching checks in Phase 2, not only theologian review.

9. Ascension → ƴiiwgol Yeesu ka asamaan (Acts 1:9-11, Resurrection/Deity of Christ, cross-cutting). High doctrinal stakes (directly contradicts mainstream Quran 4:157-158 interpretation) but ranked below the items above because the required fencing (explicit sequencing after death-and-resurrection) is more straightforward to execute consistently than the multi-layered ambiguities above; risk is real but more containable.

10. Zeal → tiiɗnaare diine (Acts 22:3-4, Conversion of Paul). Lowest-ranked Critical/High-adjacent risk on this list: the danger is cultural-relational (unintended offense to regional reform-tradition pride) rather than doctrinal distortion per se, and is manageable through careful framing rather than requiring new vocabulary or structural fencing.

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Summary and Handoff

This gap analysis identifies 8 items requiring genuinely new vocabulary (no prior Fulfulde equivalent at any risk level) and 14 crowded-neighborhood terms requiring active fencing against a specific competing Islamic-theological, Islamic-folk, or Pulaaku cultural category. Combined with the Romans baseline’s already-established Critical/High terms (grace, salvation, resurrection, Son of God, incarnation, deity of Christ, sonship of Christ, lordship, providence, power of God, election), Acts substantially raises the curriculum’s total theologian-review burden — consistent with 08_core_glossary.md’s finding that 19 of 53 new Acts-specific terms are Critical or High risk.

Required next steps per the Phase 1 pipeline:

1. All terms in Part 2.1 (genuinely missing vocabulary) and Part 3.4 (borderline coinages) require confirmation from a Fulfulde-speaking theologian AND a native speaker before Phase 2 enforcement, per the escalation rules already established in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
2. The ranked ambiguities in Part 4 (items 1-5 especially) should receive priority scheduling in any human review queue, given their combined doctrinal-centrality and community-reception stakes.
3. bible_term_registry.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json must be updated to reflect this analysis’s findings before any Phase 2 segment translation of Acts begins.