Semantic Analysis

Several Gujarati terms in this Language Package carry a narrower or broader semantic range than their English source word, which affects how consistently they can be used across contexts.

Narrower-than-English terms

• પવિત્ર જનો (saints): English “saints” can informally mean “especially holy people,” but પવિત્ર જનો must be used for all believers corporately (Romans 1:7), never for an ascetic elite — that narrower, elevated sense belongs to સંતો and Jain મુનિ, both explicitly rejected for this use.
• તેડાયેલા / તેડું (called/calling): the same English word “called” covers at least three distinct senses in Romans (called to apostleship in 1:1, called to be saints in 1:7, and effectual calling to salvation in 8:28–30). The Gujarati rendering is context-sensitive and must be checked against which sense is active in each verse, not applied uniformly.

Broader-than-English terms

• સામર્થ્ય (power): used consistently for “power of God” (Romans 1:16) specifically to avoid શક્તિ, which has a much broader field in Gujarati tied to the Shakti/mother-goddess devotional tradition (e.g. the Ambaji pilgrimage tradition). સામર્થ્ય is semantically narrower and safer, even though it is slightly less common in casual speech.
• વિશ્વાસ (faith): covers both “belief” and “trust” in Gujarati, which is actually an advantage here — Romans uses “faith” to mean active, personal trust in Christ, not mere intellectual assent, and વિશ્વાસ’s broader range captures both without needing two separate words.

A term whose Jain sense actively works against the biblical sense

• કૃપા (grace): in devotional Hindu usage કૃપા already names an undeserved favor granted by a chosen deity or guru, which is close to the biblical sense. But nothing in the Jain vocabulary maps onto it at all — the closest Jain technical term, નિર્જરા, describes a self-generated result, not a gift. Translators must not assume કૃપા “already means grace” for every reader; for a Jain-background reader it may need to be introduced as a wholly new category.

Implication

Where a Gujarati term’s semantic range differs from its English source — or, distinctively in this Language Package, differs between its Hindu-tradition and Jain-tradition prior meanings — the glossary’s notes field (see translation_memory.json) exists specifically to flag the mismatch for translators, so a term isn’t applied mechanically in a context its actual meaning doesn’t support for every reader.