Linguistic Gap Analysis
3 John — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)
0. Purpose and Scope
This document performs PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the full text of 3 John (1:1-14, its only chapter). It (a) tabulates a doctrine-by-doctrine vocabulary matrix identifying which Hmong terms are available, reused-from-baseline, or newly surfaced, and what weaknesses each carries; (b) separates missing-vocabulary gaps (no native lexical item exists) from crowded-semantic-neighborhood gaps (a native lexical item exists but is already claimed by a competing referent, requiring fencing); (c) resolves transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions, especially for the letter’s three proper names (Gaius, Diotrephes, Demetrius) and its epistolary-technical vocabulary; and (d) produces a ranked list of the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities for translator and reviewer attention.
3 John is short (only 15 verses) but doctrinally dense per verse. Unlike Romans, its risks cluster not around abstract soteriological vocabulary but around concrete social-relational and church-discipline vocabulary — hospitality, kinship terms, primacy-seeking, and expulsion — set against Hmong clan-and-guest culture. This produces a distinctive risk profile: fewer Critical-tier doctrinal-abstraction collisions than Romans, but a comparably dense cluster of High-tier social-collision risks concentrated in vv.5-10.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
1.1 Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (vv.5-8)
| Available Hmong Term(s) | Source ID | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
cov qhua txawv teb chaws / cov neeg tsis paub (stranger/guest, xenos) | N11 / registry #12 | Hmong kev tos qhua (guest-hospitality) is a real, strong custom but is structurally clan-bounded; an unrelated traveling stranger sits outside the instinctive obligation-circle. | Mandatory teaching note: gospel-hospitality is owed precisely to those with no clan claim on the host — the opposite direction of the customary obligation-logic. Do not let the rendering imply the missionaries were quasi-adopted kin; they remain genuine outsiders who are nonetheless owed full hospitality. |
cov kwvtij (brothers, adelphoi) | N10 / registry #13 | kwvtij is structurally blood/clan-kinship vocabulary. Applying it to strangers (v.5) creates an internal tension with the xenos term directly above. | Fence explicitly: teach that gospel kwvtij-hood is a new, chosen kinship that transcends clan boundaries, distinct from qhua txawv teb chaws status but not erasing the latter’s “outsider” force in v.5’s argument. The two terms must be taught together, not smoothed into one. |
xa kev / pab kev mus (send on one’s way, propempō) | N14 / registry #14 | Comprehension gap: ancient travel-provisioning (funding + physical escort partway) is unfamiliar as a single concept, though a loose analogue exists in Hmong guest-departure customs. | Illustrative cultural note required distinguishing this from a mere polite farewell — it denotes material sponsorship of gospel work. |
raws li tsim nyog rau Vajtswv (worthily of God) | N18 / registry #15 | Low lexical risk, but doctrinally load-bearing: must not collapse into ordinary Hmong hospitality-reciprocity motivation (host expects future social credit/return-hosting). | Explicit note: the standard is God’s honor, not clan reputation or future reciprocity. |
cov tsis ntseeg Vajtswv (Gentiles/outsiders, narrow sense, ethnikos) | N16 / registry #16 | MUST NOT be confused with the baseline’s neutral lwm Haiv Neeg (Romans ethnē). | Keep the two senses lexically separated at every occurrence; a footnote cross-referencing the Romans baseline entry is recommended for curricula that teach both books. |
yuav tsum / tsim nyog (ought/obligation, opheilō) | N12 / registry #17 | Low risk; distinct from but rooted in the same family as baseline tus tshuav nqi (debtor noun). | Comprehension-level note only. |
txhawb nqa / pab nyiaj txiag rau (receive/support materially, hypolambanō) | N19 / registry #18 | Must stay lexically distinct from tos txais (epidechomai, below) so the letter’s two hospitality-verbs (personal welcome vs. material support) are not flattened into one. | Enforce as a fixed pair with tos txais; never substitute one for the other. |
koom tes ua haujlwm rau qhov tseeb (fellow worker, synergos) | N15 / registry #19 | None — koom tes is doctrinally sound here; the only risk is a procedural one (see §2.2 below on erroneously extending the Romans koom tes prohibition). | No fencing needed against traditional religion; only a cross-reference note is needed to prevent future TM-revision confusion with the unrelated Romans prohibition. |
ua ib yam uas ncaj thiab tso siab tau (faithful deed, pistos) | N9 / registry #20 | Shares a root with baseline kev ntseeg/ntseeg (saving faith) but describes a trustworthy action, not saving belief. | Keep doctrinally distinct from Romans Doctrine 1 (Justification by Faith, Critical); a cross-teaching footnote is required whenever both books are taught in the same curriculum track. |
Overall doctrine risk: High. This doctrine carries the single densest concentration of Medium/High-risk terms in the letter (5 of 8 terms above carry a documented weakness), all converging on the same underlying cultural fact: Hmong hospitality obligation is clan-bounded, while the doctrine requires it to be extended beyond clan.
1.2 Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes) (vv.9-10)
| Available Hmong Term(s) | Source ID | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
tus kev txwj laus (elder, presbyteros) | N1 / registry #5 | Positive bridge to Hmong clan-elder honor (txwj laus) risks defaulting to mere age-based seniority, missing the term’s apostolic pastoral-teaching authority — the very authority Diotrephes illegitimately usurps. | Teaching note distinguishing apostolic/pastoral eldership from ordinary seniority-by-age. |
pawg ntseeg (church, ekklēsia) | N13 / registry #6 | None — stable, low risk. | No fencing needed. |
nyiam ua thawj coj tshaj lwm tus (love to be first, philoprōteuō) | N21 / registry #7 | GROUNDED HIGH RISK. Hmong clan culture assigns strongly positive value to attaining recognized headman/first-rank (thawj coj) status. Ordinary leadership vocabulary risks framing Diotrephes’ sin as merely being an assertive, successful leader. | Mandatory pejorative-framing teaching note: contrast godly, service-oriented leadership with self-seeking primacy that displaces legitimate apostolic authority. Never present thawj coj-seeking as inherently commendable in this context. |
tos txais (welcome/receive, epidechomai) | N20 / registry #8 | The letter’s pivot hospitality-reception verb; must retain full customary welcome-force so its refusal by Diotrephes reads as a real violation, while staying distinct from txhawb nqa (material support). | Fixed-pair enforcement with material-support term (see §1.1 above). |
hais lus phem tawm tsam (speak against/slander, katalaleō) | N22 / registry #10 | None — low risk. | No fencing needed. |
thaiv / txwv tsis pub (hinder/prevent, kōlyō) | N23 / registry #11 | None — low risk. | No fencing needed. |
tsis pub nyob hauv pawg ntseeg (cast out/expel, ekballō) | N24 / registry #9 | GROUNDED CRITICAL RISK. See §4 ranked list, item #1. | Mandatory human theologian review; periphrasis strategy fences against shamanic exorcism vocabulary (ntiab dab). See full treatment below. |
Overall doctrine risk: Critical. This is the only doctrine in the 3 John curriculum carrying a Critical-tier lexical item (N24/#9), and it additionally carries the letter’s other single highest-grounded collision (N21/#7).
1.3 Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11)
| Available Hmong Term(s) | Source ID | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
ua raws li qauv / xyaum ua raws (imitate, mimeomai) | N25 / registry #35 | None — culturally familiar intergenerational-example concept. | No fencing needed. |
kev phem / ua phem (evil, kakon/kakopoieō) | N26 / registry #36 | None — distinct from baseline sin/unrighteousness vocabulary. | No fencing needed. |
kev zoo / ua zoo (good, agathon/agathopoieō) | N27 / registry #37 | Surface-string collision, not a traditional-religion collision: identical to the Romans baseline’s permanently forbidden justification-context substitution ("ua zoo" rejected for justify_reckon_as_righteous, 4:5). | Mandatory cross-context footnote wherever this verse is taught alongside Romans: “this is imitation/sanctification-ethics language, not justification language.” The Hmong string itself is correct here and must not be altered — only the teaching context must fence it. |
tsis tau paub Vajtswv tiag tiag (has not seen God, relational-knowing sense of horaō) | N28 / registry #38 | GROUNDED HIGH RISK. Shamanic (txiv neeb) trance-vision claims of literally “seeing” spirits could be evoked by a literal seeing-verb (pom/tsom). | Render with a knowing-verb (paub), never a seeing-verb; explicit teaching note distinguishing relational-moral knowledge from visionary/trance claims. |
Overall doctrine risk: Medium-High. No traditional-religion collision beyond N28; the dominant risk is the N27 cross-book surface collision, which is a curriculum-sequencing risk rather than a cultural one.
1.4 Commendation of Faithful Witness (Demetrius) (v.12)
| Available Hmong Term(s) | Source ID | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
tus timkhawv / ua timkhawv rau / tej lus timkhawv (witness/testify, martys family) | B6 / registry #33 | None — fully stable baseline term. | No fencing needed. |
qhov tseeb (truth) | B5 / registry #29 | None — fully stable baseline term. | No fencing needed. |
tej lus timkhawv ... yog qhov tseeb (true testimony, composite) | N29 / registry #34 | None lexically; doctrinal risk is one of flattening the triple-layered testimony structure (by all / by the truth itself / by the apostolic “we”) into a single generic compliment. | Teaching note preserving the three-fold layering; no lexical fix needed. |
Overall doctrine risk: Low. This is the only doctrine in the 3 John curriculum with no Medium-or-above lexical risk; it is fully covered by stable, already-fixed baseline nouns.
1.5 Truth and Christian Fellowship (vv.1-4, 6, 8, 11-14)
| Available Hmong Term(s) | Source ID | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
kev hlub (love) | B4 / registry #27 | None — stable baseline term. | No fencing needed. |
tus kuv hlub (beloved address) | N2 / registry #28 | None — built directly on fixed baseline noun. | No fencing needed. |
qhov tseeb (truth, dominant theme-word, 7x) | B5 / registry #29 | None lexically; risk is consistency, not collision — every one of the 7 occurrences must use the identical fixed string. | Structural enforcement item, not a teaching item. |
koj sab hauv ntsws (soul, psychē) | N5 / registry #22 | GROUNDED HIGH RISK. See §4 ranked list, item #3. | Distinct periphrasis from fixed ntsuj plig; mandatory human theologian + native speaker review. |
zoo siab (joy/rejoice) | N6 / registry #25 | None — stable everyday/liturgical term. | No fencing needed. |
ua neej raws li qhov tseeb (walk/conduct, peripateō) | N7 / registry #26 | Comprehension-level metaphor adaptation only; the “walking” metaphor for conduct is not native Hmong idiom in the same form. | No traditional-religion fencing needed; paraphrase already resolves the gap. |
kuv cov me tub me nyuam (spiritual children, tekna) | N8 / registry #24 | Comprehension gap only; must stay distinct from baseline adoption_as_sons (God’s adoption of believers, not a human minister’s disciples). | Cross-reference note distinguishing the two “children” concepts. |
cov kwvtij (brothers) | N10 / registry #13 | See §1.1 above — same clan-kinship weakness recurs here for the general fellowship sense. | Same fencing strategy as §1.1. |
ntsib tim ntsej muag (face to face idiom, stoma pros stoma) | N31 / registry #31 | A literal calque (ncauj tim ncauj) risks unintended kissing/intimacy connotation. | Standard Hmong face-to-face idiom substituted; paraphrase already resolves the risk. |
cov phooj ywg (friend, philos) | N32 / registry #30 | Crowded-neighborhood risk relative to cov kwvtij — see §2.2 below. | Teaching note: adelphoi and philoi describe the same believing community from two valid angles (covenant-family, affectionate-friendship), not two social tiers. |
Overall doctrine risk: High. Driven almost entirely by N5 (psychē); the remainder of the doctrine’s vocabulary is comprehension-level only.
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
A key analytic distinction for this letter: some risks arise because no Hmong term exists at all for a biblical concept (a true missing-vocabulary gap, resolved by paraphrase or loanword); others arise because a perfectly good Hmong term exists but is already occupied by a competing referent from traditional religion or from clan-kinship structure, and must be fenced (disambiguated with qualifiers/teaching notes) rather than replaced.
2.1 True Missing-Vocabulary Gaps (paraphrase required; no direct lexical equivalent)
| Concept | Greek | Gap Description | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journey-provisioning as material gospel-sponsorship (propempō) | προπέμπω | No single Hmong verb captures “escort + fund a traveler’s onward journey” as a unified ministry-support concept. | Paraphrase xa kev / pab kev mus + illustrative cultural note (N14). |
| Ancient writing-implement pair as a metonym for “a written letter” (melan kai kalamos) | μέλαν καὶ κάλαμος | No Hmong cultural referent for reed-pen/carbon-ink writing technology. | Literal descriptive paraphrase rau xim thiab xyoob sau ntawv + brief footnote (N30/#40); comprehension gap only, no doctrinal weight. |
| Compound “love-to-be-first” as a single lexical unit (philoprōteuō) | φιλοπρωτεύω | Greek’s rare compound verb has no single-word Hmong equivalent; must be built as a descriptive phrase. | nyiam ua thawj coj tshaj lwm tus — phrase-level paraphrase, requiring the mandatory pejorative-framing note documented in §1.2 (N21). |
| Church-disciplinary expulsion as distinct from ritual/spiritual exorcism (ekballō, ecclesial sense) | ἐκβάλλω | Hmong lacks a dedicated non-religious verb for “formally excluding someone from a religious assembly” that is not also the shamanic exorcism verb-family. | Periphrasis tsis pub nyob hauv pawg ntseeg deliberately avoids the ntiab-family verb entirely (N24/#9); see §4 ranked risk #1 for full treatment. |
| ”Worthily of God” as a manner-standard distinct from social reciprocity (axiōs tou theou) | ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ | No single Hmong idiom isolates “God’s honor” as a hospitality-standard separate from customary social-credit motivations. | Paraphrase raws li tsim nyog rau Vajtswv + explicit note excluding reciprocity-motivation (N18). |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing term occupied by a competing referent; fencing required)
| Hmong Term | Primary Occupant | Competing Referent(s) in This Letter | Fencing Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
ntsuj plig | Baseline: anthropological human spirit (Romans, High risk) / Vaj Ntsuj Plig: Holy Spirit (Critical) | 3 John v.2’s psychē (inner well-being) is a third, distinct sense that must NOT be assigned to this already-doubly-occupied term. | New periphrasis koj sab hauv ntsws (N5) kept structurally separate from both existing ntsuj plig senses; three-way disambiguation note required whenever Romans and 3 John are taught together. |
hu (call/summon) | Neutral verb “to call/address by name” (ordinary usage; N33/#41) | Ritual soul-calling/spirit-summoning (hu plig, hu dab) — already flagged as a forbidden-substitution risk in the Romans baseline for “calling on the name of the Lord” (10:9-13) | Ordinary use permitted for v.14’s “greet by name” (hu lawv lub npe), but strictly forbidden for v.7’s titular “the Name” (lub npe (ntawm Yexus Khetos), N17/#4); the two uses of hu across this one short letter must be taught as clearly separate cases. |
thawj coj (headman/first-rank leader) | Positive clan-headman social status | Diotrephes’ prideful self-exaltation (philoprōteuō) reuses the same positively-valued status-concept as its object of desire | Cannot be avoided lexically (the word for the status Diotrephes wrongly craves is the same word used for legitimate clan leadership); resolved entirely by teaching-note fencing, not lexical substitution — see N21 above. |
kwvtij (blood/clan kinship) | Literal clan-kin relationship | adelphoi (fellow believers, including strangers, vv.3,5,10) AND indirectly contrasted with philoi (v.14) | Two-layer fencing required: (a) note that gospel kwvtij-hood transcends literal clan boundaries (§1.1); (b) note that kwvtij (adelphoi) and phooj ywg (philoi) are not two social ranks but two valid descriptions of one community (§1.5, N32). |
ntiab (verb family: drive out/expel) | Shamanic exorcism of spirits (ntiab dab) | Diotrephes’ unjust ecclesial expulsion of believers (ekballō, v.10) | Avoided entirely — no fencing is attempted because the collision risk is judged too severe for a qualifier-based fix; a wholly separate periphrasis (tsis pub nyob hauv pawg ntseeg) is used instead. This is the letter’s one case where avoidance, not fencing, is the correct strategy. |
vam meej / koob hmoov-adjacent prosperity vocabulary | Ordinary secular success language | v.2’s epistolary greeting-wish euodousthai (“prosper”) borders the Critical-tier koob hmoov (fate/fortune) collision already forbidden in the Romans baseline for grace | vam meej / lam lig zoo chosen specifically to avoid any hmoov-root vocabulary; mandatory teaching note framing this as a personal greeting-wish only, never a doctrinal material-prosperity promise (N3/#21; cf. 12_ai_translation_requirements.md §3.1, §5, §9 prosperity-gospel-drift prohibition). |
pom / tsom (literal seeing-verbs) | Ordinary physical vision | Shamanic (txiv neeb) trance-vision claims of “seeing” spirits as a marker of legitimate spiritual authority | v.11’s “has not seen God” rendered instead with the knowing-verb paub, avoiding the seeing-verb family entirely (N28). |
Pattern observed: Where the crowded neighborhood involves a doctrinally central, unavoidable verb (hu, thawj coj), the resolution strategy is teaching-note fencing with mandatory co-text. Where the crowded neighborhood involves a severely charged verb with a viable non-colliding alternative (ntiab → tsis pub nyob hauv...; pom → paub), the resolution strategy is lexical avoidance rather than fencing.
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
3.1 Proper Names (new to this curriculum; not present in the Romans baseline)
3 John introduces three proper names absent from the Romans Language Package baseline: Gaius (addressee), Diotrephes (antagonist), and Demetrius (commended witness), plus the author’s self-designation “the Elder” (traditionally identified with the Apostle John, though the letter itself does not name him).
| Name | Greek | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gaius | Γάϊος (Gaios) | Transliterate, following existing Hmong Bible tradition’s established pattern for proper names (cf. baseline Povlauj for Paul, Abba retained as loanword). Tentative form: Kaiu. | Consistency with register requirement (§5 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md): established transliteration conventions must be followed, never invented ad hoc. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm exact existing Hmong Bible (Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum/HWB) spelling for "Gaius" before treating as permanent.] |
| Diotrephes | Διοτρέφης (Diotrephēs) | Transliterate, not paraphrase-avoid despite the name’s negative narrative role. Tentative form: Ntiautefes (pending verification). | A proper name identifying a real historical individual must never be replaced with a descriptive pejorative label (“the proud one,” etc.); this would cross into paraphrase-as-editorializing, which is out of scope for a translation task. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm existing Hmong Bible spelling.] |
| Demetrius | Δημήτριος (Dēmētrios) | Transliterate. Tentative form: Nteme Trius (pending verification). | Same rationale as above. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm existing Hmong Bible spelling.] |
| ”The Elder” (self-designation, presbyteros) | ὁ πρεσβύτερος | Paraphrase, not transliterate — this is a title/office-word, not a proper name. Rendered Kuv, uas yog tus kev txwj laus (“I, who am the elder”) per N1/registry #5. | Titles follow the established glossary/paraphrase convention (cf. baseline tus Tub Txib for apostolos), while true proper names follow the transliteration convention above. |
General rule established for this Language Package: proper names → transliterate against the existing Hmong Bible tradition’s spelling (verify, do not invent); office-titles, epistolary formulas, and abstract theological vocabulary → paraphrase per the established glossary method. This mirrors the Romans baseline’s own practice (Yexus Khetos, Abba transliterated; tus Tub Txib, Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees paraphrased).
3.2 Epistolary-Technical Vocabulary
| Item | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| ”The Name” (absolute/titular onoma, v.7) | Paraphrase with mandatory parenthetical, lub npe (ntawm Yexus Khetos) | A bare transliteration or bare lub npe would be theologically opaque or would risk the hu-family ritual-invocation collision (§2.2); the qualifier makes the referent explicit at first occurrence, matching the Romans baseline’s mandatory-qualifier structural pattern (e.g., Txoj Kevcai (ntawm Vajtswv/Mauxes)). |
| Ink and pen (melan kai kalamos, v.13) | Paraphrase (descriptive), rau xim thiab xyoob sau ntawv | A transliterated loanword for “reed pen” would be doctrinally inert and comprehension-opaque; a short descriptive paraphrase communicates the ancient-writing-technology sense adequately with a footnote. |
| Face to face (stoma pros stoma, v.14) | Paraphrase (idiom substitution), ntsib tim ntsej muag, NOT a literal calque | A literal “mouth to mouth” calque risks an unintended kissing/intimacy connotation absent from the Hebraic idiom’s intent; substituting the standing Hmong face-to-face idiom preserves the intended sense of unmediated personal communication without the calque’s side-effect. |
| Abba-style loanword retention precedent | Not applicable in 3 John — no Aramaic/foreign liturgical term requiring loanword-retention occurs in this letter. | Noted for completeness; the Romans baseline’s Abba, Leej Txiv loanword-plus-gloss pattern (registry #51) has no parallel case here. |
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of (a) doctrinal load-bearing weight and (b) grounded specificity of the traditional-religion or cultural collision, consistent with the risk-tier definitions in the Romans baseline registry.
Rank 1 — CRITICAL: ekballō / “cast out” (v.10) — N24 / registry #9
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes).
Risk: The most natural Hmong verb-family for forceful expulsion, ntiab (as in ntiab dab, “drive out a spirit,” the core verb of shamanic exorcism performed by a txiv neeb), would frame Diotrephes’ unjust ejection of believers as either (a) a legitimate spiritual-cleansing act, or (b) a case of literal demonic affliction requiring exorcism — inverting the text’s condemnation of Diotrephes into an implied endorsement, or at minimum badly confusing church discipline with exorcism cosmology.
Resolution: Periphrasis tsis pub nyob hauv pawg ntseeg (“not allow to remain within the church”) sidesteps the ntiab root entirely. Mandatory human theologian review before any permanent TM entry. No qualifier-fencing strategy is adequate here; full lexical avoidance is required.
Rank 2 — HIGH: philoprōteuō / “love to be first” (v.9) — N21 / registry #7
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes).
Risk: Hmong clan culture assigns strong positive value to attaining recognized headman/first-rank (thawj coj) status. The word needed to describe what Diotrephes wrongly loves is the same word used for legitimate, honorable clan leadership — an unavoidable lexical overlap (unlike Rank 1, no alternate root exists to avoid it).
Resolution: Mandatory pejorative-framing teaching note contrasting godly, service-oriented leadership with self-seeking primacy that displaces legitimate apostolic authority; cannot be resolved by lexical substitution alone. Flagged for human theologian review.
Rank 3 — HIGH: psychē / “soul” (v.2) — N5 / registry #22
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship (general well-being framing).
Risk: If mapped onto the baseline’s fixed ntsuj plig (already reserved for anthropological pneuma), “your soul prospers” risks being heard through the Hmong multi-soul animistic framework, where a wandering soul (plig) may be lost or stolen by spirits and require ritual retrieval (hu plig) — producing a superstitious misreading entirely foreign to John’s intended sense of inner spiritual/moral well-being.
Resolution: Distinct periphrasis koj sab hauv ntsws, kept structurally separate from both existing ntsuj plig senses (anthropological spirit and Holy Spirit); mandatory first-occurrence teaching note; flagged for human theologian + native speaker review.
Rank 4 — HIGH: euodousthai / “prosper” (v.2) — N3 / registry #21
Doctrine: (general well-being greeting, adjacent to Grace/Salvation collision domain).
Risk: Borders the Critical-tier koob hmoov fate/fortune collision already forbidden in the Romans baseline for grace; also borders forbidden prosperity-gospel vocabulary drift per 12_ai_translation_requirements.md §5/§9.
Resolution: vam meej / lam lig zoo chosen to avoid all hmoov-root vocabulary; mandatory teaching note framing this strictly as a personal epistolary greeting-wish, never a doctrinal material-prosperity promise. Flagged for human theologian review.
Rank 5 — MEDIUM-HIGH: xenos / “stranger” (v.5) and epidechomai / “welcome” (vv.9-10) — N11/N20 / registry #12, #8
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers; Church Leadership and Pride. Risk: Taken together, these two terms carry the letter’s structural hospitality-vs-refusal argument, but Hmong hospitality custom is clan-bounded, meaning the positive command (welcome the outsider) and its violation (Diotrephes refuses to welcome) both risk being under-motivated for an audience whose instinctive obligation-circle does not naturally extend to unrelated strangers. Resolution: Explicit teaching note that gospel-hospitality extends beyond clan boundaries in both directions (command and violation); native-speaker review at minimum, escalate to theologian if doctrinal ambiguity about the scope of obligation persists.
Rank 6 — MEDIUM-HIGH: horaō / “has not seen God” (v.11) — N28 / registry #38
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil.
Risk: A literal seeing-verb risks evoking shamanic trance-vision claims of “seeing” spirits as a marker of spiritual legitimacy.
Resolution: Render with knowing-verb paub, not seeing-verb; teaching note distinguishing relational-moral knowledge from visionary/trance claims.
Rank 7 — MEDIUM: kwvtij (brothers) vs. phooj ywg (friends) vs. cov qhua txawv teb chaws (strangers) — N10/N32/N11 / registry #13, #30, #12
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship; Hospitality to Traveling Ministers. Risk: Three overlapping/competing relational-category terms occur within one very short letter, each carrying different structural implications in Hmong kinship-oriented society (clan-kin obligation vs. lesser affectionate bond vs. no-obligation outsider status). Risk is cumulative confusion about who owes what to whom, not a single sharp collision. Resolution: Single combined teaching note (recommended for lesson-level use) walking through all three terms together, clarifying they describe overlapping facets of one gospel community from different angles — not a hierarchy of social tiers. Native-speaker review recommended.
Rank 8 — MEDIUM: “ua zoo” cross-book surface collision (v.11) — N27 / registry #37
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil. Risk: Not a traditional-religion collision but a curriculum-sequencing risk: identical surface string to the Romans baseline’s permanently forbidden justification-context substitution. Resolution: Mandatory footnote wherever 3 John and Romans are taught in the same track; no lexical change needed, since the Hmong string is doctrinally correct in this context.
Rank 9 — MEDIUM: presbyteros / “the Elder” (v.1) — N1 / registry #5
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes, by contrast). Risk: Positive clan-elder bridge risks flattening apostolic pastoral authority into ordinary age-based seniority. Resolution: Teaching note distinguishing apostolic/pastoral office from secular eldership-by-age; native-speaker review sufficient at minimum.
Rank 10 — LOW-MEDIUM: Proper-name transliterations (Gaius, Diotrephes, Demetrius)
Doctrine: (cross-cutting; affects all doctrines by way of narrative reference).
Risk: Not a collision risk but a verification risk — tentative transliterated forms have not yet been checked against the existing Hmong Bible (HWB) tradition’s established spellings, and an inconsistent proper-name form would undermine the register requirement of consistency with existing Hmong Christian usage.
Resolution: [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm existing HWB spellings for Gaius, Diotrephes, Demetrius] before any permanent TM entry; native-speaker review sufficient (no doctrinal ambiguity is at stake, only orthographic consistency).
5. Summary Table — Escalation Routing for This Analysis
| Rank | Term | Risk Tier | Required Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ekballō (cast out) | Critical | Human theologian (mandatory, no bypass) |
| 2 | philoprōteuō (love to be first) | High | Human theologian |
| 3 | psychē (soul) | High | Human theologian + native speaker |
| 4 | euodousthai (prosper) | High | Human theologian |
| 5 | xenos / epidechomai (stranger / welcome) | Medium-High | Native speaker, escalate if ambiguity persists |
| 6 | horaō (has not seen God) | Medium-High | Native speaker, escalate if ambiguity persists |
| 7 | kwvtij / phooj ywg / xenos-cluster | Medium | Native speaker |
| 8 | ”ua zoo” cross-book collision | Medium (sequencing) | Native speaker; curriculum-editorial note |
| 9 | presbyteros (the Elder) | Medium | Native speaker |
| 10 | Proper-name transliterations | Low-Medium (verification) | Native speaker |
This ranking supersedes no prior document; it consolidates and prioritizes the risk items already identified individually in analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json (3 John) for downstream doctrine-analysis and Phase 2 generation planning.