Matthew — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

0. Purpose and Method

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the Matthew Hmong Language Package. It does three things the prior artifacts (08_core_glossary.md, Matthew bible_term_registry.json) do not yet do in a consolidated way:

1. Builds a doctrine-by-doctrine vocabulary matrix showing what Hmong vocabulary is actually available for each of the nine assigned Matthew doctrines, where that vocabulary is weak or absent, and what strategy Phase 2 generation must follow.
2. Separates missing vocabulary (genuine lexical gaps requiring paraphrase/coinage) from crowded semantic neighborhoods (existing Hmong words that are doctrinally dangerous because they are already occupied by a competing traditional-religious referent) and specifies fencing strategy for each crowded neighborhood.
3. Produces a ranked list of the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities, prioritized for theologian review sequencing in Phase 2.

Nothing in this document proposes an alternate rendering for any term already fixed as Critical/High in the baseline Romans TM. Where Matthew reuses a baseline term (e.g., hwjchim, Vaj Ntsuj Plig, Txoj Kevcai, pehawm, kev xaiv, txiaj ntsim), this analysis treats the baseline rendering as closed and analyzes only the new collocations/contexts Matthew introduces around it.

The core passage, Matthew 5:1-12 (the Beatitudes), sits inside the single highest-density risk cluster in this entire Language Package (Kingdom of Heaven + Blessed + ethical Righteousness + human-spirit/soul), and is treated as the anchor case throughout, per the mandate that the core passage is the theological anchor rather than the scope boundary.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each doctrine: available destination-language terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended Phase 2 strategy. Risk levels shown are doctrine-level (per doctrine_risk_registry.json conventions), not necessarily equal to any single term’s lexical risk.

1.1 The Kingdom of Heaven — Critical

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
lub Nceeg Vaj Saum Ntuj Ceeb Tsheej (kingdom of heaven, B1)	Strong pull toward a purely locative afterlife-destination reading (“the good place you go when you die”), since Ceeb Tsheej/saum ntuj already carries afterlife connotations in general Hmong Christian usage. Risks losing the present-tense, in-breaking-reign sense central to Matthew (4:17, 12:28, 13’s parables).	Every first occurrence in a lesson must pair the phrase with an explicit “already/not yet” teaching note; never allow the phrase to stand alone as a synonym for “heaven [the afterlife place]” without the reign/rule sense stated.
lub Nceeg Vaj ntawm Vajtswv (kingdom of God, A17, baseline-inherited)	None new; low risk in isolation, but co-occurs in the same curriculum as the above.	Mandatory equivalence-teaching note wherever both forms occur in the same lesson (6:33 kingdom of God vs. 5:3 kingdom of heaven) so learners do not infer two different kingdoms.
tau koob hmoov ntawm Vajtswv (blessed, B2/#18)	Critical fate-vocabulary collision (koob hmoov root) — see §2.1 below.	Qualifier ntawm Vajtswv structurally mandatory at every occurrence, no exceptions, including in quiz answer options and section headers.
Vajtswv lub siab nyiam (will of God, A45, baseline)	Reused; risk is under-weight (heard as mere preference) not collision.	Reinforce sovereign-purpose sense alongside Kingdom material, per baseline note.

Gap identified: There is no existing Hmong Christian idiom that cleanly conveys “a reign that is present now but not yet complete” without explanatory prose — this is a genuine missing-vocabulary gap, not a crowded neighborhood, and must be handled by paraphrase/teaching note in every lesson unit, not solved by any single lexical choice.

1.2 Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David — High

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
tus Tub ntawm Daviv Vajntxwv (Son of David, B5/#9)	Positive resonance with Hmong dynastic/clan-lineage honor, but risk of being heard as ordinary genealogical pride rather than a specific covenant-messianic claim (2 Sam 7).	Teaching note anchoring the title to God’s specific covenant promise at every first occurrence per lesson unit (esp. 1:1, 21:9).
tus Khetos (Christ as title, B6/#10)	Under-recognition as a debated title distinct from the fused proper name Yexus Khetos.	Introduce title-only usage (16:16, 26:63) with explicit “this is the title being asked about, not just his name” note.
tus Tub ntawm Tib Neeg (Son of Man, B21/#8)	Comprehension collapse into “merely a human being,” entirely missing the Daniel 7 apocalyptic-authority sense.	Mandatory teaching note at first occurrence (8:20) and re-flagged at each major eschatological recurrence (24:30, 25:31, 26:64).
Imanuyees (Vajtswv nrog peb nyob) (Immanuel, B37/#11)	Transliteration comprehension gap only.	Loanword + gloss, per Abba convention; first-use footnote.
kuv ntag, tsis txhob ntshai (“It is I,” B48)	Divine self-disclosure echo (Exod 3:14 LXX) invisible at the lexical level.	Must be carried entirely by teaching note in ch.14; no lexical fix exists.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary per se; the risk cluster here is entirely a comprehension gap (titles heard as names, apocalyptic titles heard as plain description) rather than a competing-referent collision. Strategy is uniformly teaching-note reinforcement, not lexical substitution.

1.3 Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy — Medium-High

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kom tiav raws li Vaj Lug Kub uas hais cia lawm (fulfillment formula, B7/#65)	Must convey sovereign follow-through, not coincidental prediction-matching.	Stable descriptive phrase; comprehension-level reinforcement across all ~12 occurrences.
tus cev Vajtswv lus (prophet, B8/#66)	High collision risk with shamanic diviners (txiv neeb, txiv xaiv) who also claim to relay spirit-messages.	Explicit contrast-teaching required at first occurrence (2:5 or 1:22) distinguishing “speaks God’s own revealed word” from “channels/negotiates with spirits.”
cov cev lus dag (false prophets, B9/#67)	Inherits above risk, sharpened.	Must not imply the entire category of prophetic speech is inherently suspect — pair with the true-prophet contrast.
cim ntawm Yaunas (sign of Jonah, B49/#68)	Typological reference opaque without narrative retelling.	Mandatory narrative gloss of the Jonah account at 12:38-41.
cov txawj ntse saib hnub qub (Magi, B36/#39)	Risk of collapse into txiv neeb (shaman) framing if mistranslated.	txiv neeb vocabulary permanently forbidden for this term (parallel to baseline’s leitourgos guidance); retain descriptive astrologer-sage phrase.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary; this doctrine’s risk is concentrated entirely in the tus cev Vajtswv lus (prophet) / txiv neeb (shaman) crowded neighborhood — see §2.3.

1.4 The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching — Critical

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
hwjchim qualified as Yexus Khetos li hwjchim (uas nws muaj ntawm nws tus kheej) (Jesus’ own authority, B11/#61)	Same lexeme as shamanic ritual power; the “inherent, not delegated” qualifier is the entire disambiguation mechanism and has no independent lexical support.	Mandatory qualifier structurally enforced at every occurrence, same discipline as baseline Vajtswv hwjchim; escalate to theologian review before TM lock (already flagged).
nej tau hnov hais tias... tiamsis kuv hais rau nej tias (antithesis formula, B13/#45)	Risks being heard as Jesus overturning/abolishing the Law rather than fulfilling/intensifying it (contradicts 5:17).	Mandatory fulfillment-not-abolition teaching note attached to every occurrence in ch.5.
kuv hais tseeb rau nej (“Amen, I say to you,” B10/#62)	Low-Medium; solemn-pronouncement marker, comprehension-level only.	Consistent, unvaried rendering at every occurrence throughout the Gospel.
khi thiab daws (bind and loose, B30/#64)	No native Hmong equivalent for the rabbinic legal idiom.	Dedicated teaching note at both occurrences (16:19, 18:18); ties to Church Discipline doctrine also.
cov muaj hwjchim kav teb chaws (governing authority, A38, baseline)	Reused; must stay clearly distinguished from Jesus’ own authority above.	Explicit contrast note wherever ch.13/ch.22 authority material and Jesus’-own-authority material appear in the same lesson unit.

Gap identified: The entire doctrine pivots on a single reused-but-recontextualized term (hwjchim) needing a second, more specific qualifier layer beyond the baseline’s Vajtswv hwjchim rule. This is the doctrine’s central linguistic problem and is ranked #1 below.

1.5 Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees — Critical

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kev ncaj ncees uas dhau li cov Falixais tus (ethical righteousness, B12/#43)	Reuses the Critical ncaj ncees root; Hmong customary morality treats ncaj ncees as an achieved personal quality earned by right conduct — risking either (a) reduction of Beatitude/Sermon ethics to merit-earning, or (b) conflation with the baseline’s forensic-imputation sense (A11/A12).	Every occurrence must be explicitly distinguished in the same teaching unit from Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees / raug suav tias ncaj ncees (forensic sense); frame as fruit-of-righteousness, not ground-of-righteousness.
tus ncauj dawb siab dub (hypocrite, B24/#28)	Idiom transfers well; comprehension-level only.	Reinforce as specifically religious pretense, not general social insincerity.
cov Falixais / cov Xadukais / cov Xibhwb Qhia Vaj Lug Kub (B25-27)	Low risk; established transliterations/descriptive titles.	No action needed beyond consistency.
cov sau se (tax collectors, B41/#38)	Comprehension gap (no exact social analogue) but no collision.	Brief social-status gloss sufficient.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary; the doctrine’s entire risk is the crowded neighborhood around ncaj ncees, which must now serve two distinct senses (forensic-imputed vs. ethical-practiced righteousness) simultaneously across Matthew and Romans material in the same curriculum family — see §2.2.

1.6 The Church and Church Discipline — High

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
pawg ntseeg (church/assembly, B17/#82)	Lexically stable, no animistic collision, but doctrinally load-bearing (16:18’s foundational “on this rock” saying) — Medium lexical risk elevated to High doctrinal risk.	Route to theologian review at the doctrine level regardless of the term’s own lexical simplicity; never treat 16:18 as “just vocabulary, low risk.”
muab nws tshem tawm hauv pawg ntseeg (excommunication, B31/#83)	Bridges well to real Hmong clan-expulsion custom (positive comprehension bridge) but risks collapsing into a purely punitive clan-justice framework.	Mandatory restoration-aimed teaching note (18:15, “if he listens, you have gained your brother”) attached at every occurrence.
khi thiab daws (bind and loose, B30/#64)	See §1.4; also load-bearing here (18:18).	Shared teaching note with Authority doctrine.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary. The risk here is positive-bridge overcorrection — the Hmong clan-expulsion analogue is too good a fit and could smuggle in a purely punitive, non-restorative connotation the biblical text does not intend. This is a distinct failure mode from the animism-collision pattern seen elsewhere and is flagged separately in §4.

1.7 The Great Commission — High

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
cob qhia kom ua thwjtim (make disciples, B42/#23)	Comprehension-level compound; central imperative of 28:19.	Stable; no collision.
txhua haiv neeg (all nations, inclusive, B43/#37)	Must be kept distinguishable from lwm Haiv Neeg (contrastive Gentile/Jew sense, A27/#36) — risk that the Commission’s universal scope is heard as excluding Israel, or conversely that ordinary Gentile-contrast passages are heard as already-universal.	Context-anchoring note required at every occurrence of either phrase within two chapters of the other.
kev cai raus dej (baptism, A18, baseline)	Reused for the Trinitarian formula (28:19); mandatory teaching that this is identification with the Triune name, not a repeatable purification rite.	Explicit at 28:19; reinforce baseline caution.
Vaj Ntsuj Plig (Holy Spirit, A5, baseline)	“Vaj” prefix absolutely mandatory inside the Trinitarian formula itself (28:19) — a single dropped prefix here would corrupt the church’s foundational baptismal confession.	Zero-tolerance enforcement; flag any drafted content omitting it as a publication-blocking error, not a stylistic note.
thaum kawg ntawm ntiajteb no (end of the age, B44/#70)	Comprehension-level; anchors 28:20’s closing promise.	Stable.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary; the primary risk is the A27/B43 (lwm Haiv Neeg vs. txhua haiv neeg) neighboring pair, which is a fencing problem (§2.4), not a collision problem.

1.8 Judgment and the End of the Age — Critical

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kev raug txim mus ib txhis (eternal punishment, B15/#69)	Risk of softening into temporary/disciplinary punishment, breaking the mandatory grammatical parallelism with txoj sia nyob mus ib txhis (eternal life) at 25:46.	Any full-verse rendering of 25:46 must be checked word-for-word for parallel structure; flag any drift as publication-blocking.
Tus Tub ntawm Tib Neeg rov qab los (parousia, B45/#71)	Risk of conflation with generic ancestor-spirit “return” beliefs.	Comprehension-level teaching note distinguishing Christ’s singular, visible, cosmic return from ancestor-spirit return/reincarnation notions.
tej uas qias vuab tsuab uas ua rau qhov chaw dawb huv nyob do cuas (abomination of desolation, B46)	High doctrinal density, low direct collision, but heavy narrative/historical gloss required.	Substantial explanatory footnote mandatory; do not attempt to compress into a single clean phrase.
cov tsawg kawg nkaus (least of these, B47/#73)	Low-Medium; ties judgment to ethical practice.	Stable.
kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath of God, A14, baseline)	Reused (3:7, John the Baptist); same capricious-spirit-anger collision as baseline.	Reinforce baseline contrast-teaching (righteous/judicial vs. capricious/appeasable).

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary. The doctrine’s chief risk is a parallelism-integrity risk (eternal life / eternal punishment at 25:46) rather than a collision or comprehension gap — a distinct failure category worth flagging on its own.

1.9 Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus — High

Available Hmong terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
nyiam Leej Txiv thiab niam txiv ntau dua li nyiam Kuv (Yexus) (filial priority, B34/#80)	Direct, specific collision with Hmong filial-piety/ancestor-honor custom — one of the most sacred social duty-clusters in Hmong culture, including ancestor veneration and burial rites (cf. 8:21-22).	Same “distinguish command from denigration” pastoral framing used for the baseline’s qhev/bondservant entry; never allow the command to be read as devaluing family loyalty itself, only as reordering ultimate allegiance.
kwv nws tus ntoo khaub lig (take up his cross, B32/#78)	Comprehension gap (unfamiliar Roman execution custom); must distinguish disciple’s metaphorical cross-bearing from Christ’s unique atoning cross (already flagged at baseline’s fij/living-sacrifice entry, analogous risk pattern).	Explicit distinction note at every occurrence (10:38, 16:24, and narrative ch.27).
tso nws tus kheej tseg (deny himself, B33/#79)	Comprehension-level only.	Stable.
Mamoos (Mammon, B40/#81)	Transliteration; comprehension gap only.	Loanword + gloss (“wealth treated as a false god/master”).
qhev (bondservant, baseline A-inherited, applicable to total-surrender discipleship language)	Same residual chattel-slavery connotation flagged in Romans baseline.	Reuse baseline catechetical note without modification.
tus muaj kev ntseeg tsawg (little faith, B35/#31)	Low; extends kev ntseeg.	Stable.

Gap identified: No missing vocabulary. This doctrine’s central risk is the filial-priority collision (§4, ranked highly below), which is culturally sharper in Matthew than anything comparable in the Romans baseline because it directly names family relationships rather than an abstract social category like slavery.

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2. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

A “crowded neighborhood” is a Hmong lexical item (or root) that must simultaneously serve two or more theologically distinct referents within this curriculum family (Romans baseline + Matthew), creating risk of cross-bleed even where no traditional-religion collision exists. Fencing = an explicit, mandatory disambiguation device (qualifier phrase, teaching note, or lexical periphrasis) that keeps the senses apart in every occurrence.

2.1 The koob hmoov / hmoov fate-vocabulary neighborhood — CRITICAL FENCE

Occupants: grace (txiaj ntsim, baseline, permanently NOT koob hmoov); election/foreknowledge (baseline, permanently NOT hmoov-family); and now blessed/makarios in the Beatitudes (tau koob hmoov ntawm Vajtswv), which is the first term in this Language Package family to positively use the koob hmoov root rather than simply forbidding it.

Why this is the single most delicate fencing decision in the Matthew package: the baseline permanently forbids koob hmoov for grace and election precisely because it denotes fate/fortune assigned by ancestors/spirits according to ritual correctness. The Beatitudes’ makarios, however, is conventionally rendered with exactly this root in existing Hmong Bible usage, and no equally natural alternative exists that preserves the register and cadence of 5:3-11’s repeated formula (“Blessed are… for they shall…”). This is not a simple reuse of a forbidden term — it is a narrower, qualified permission to use the forbidden root only when locked to the mandatory qualifier ntawm Vajtswv.

Fencing strategy:

• The qualifier ntawm Vajtswv is non-negotiable at every one of the eight (5:3-10) plus two (5:11-12) occurrences — no exceptions for meter, repetition-economy, or “the context already makes it obvious.”
• A dedicated teaching note must state explicitly: unlike ordinary koob hmoov (fortune earned/lost through ritual correctness toward ancestors/spirits), the Beatitudes describe favor God assigns to those the world does NOT consider fortunate (the poor, the mourning, the persecuted) — an inversion of the merit-based fortune system, not an instance of it.
• This item is escalated to human theologian review before TM lock (already flagged in the glossary/registry as B2/#18) and is ranked #2 in the ranked risk list below.
• Recommendation: this qualified permission should NOT be extended to any other Beatitudes-adjacent or general blessing context without a fresh theologian review; it remains scoped to 5:3-11 only pending that review.

2.2 The ncaj ncees (righteous/righteousness) forensic-vs-ethical neighborhood — CRITICAL FENCE

Occupants: (a) forensic/imputed righteousness (Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees / raug suav tias ncaj ncees, baseline Critical, A11/A12); (b) Matthew’s ethical/practical righteousness of Kingdom conduct (kev ncaj ncees uas dhau li cov Falixais tus, 5:20, 6:33, and implicitly 5:6, 5:10).

Why this is crowded: both senses use the identical root ncaj ncees, and Hmong customary morality already treats the bare adjective as an achieved personal quality. Romans’ fix (always pair with suav tias/reckoning language) does not by itself solve Matthew’s problem, because Matthew’s ethical sense is not forensic and should not be forced into reckoning-language — but it also cannot be left to read as self-achieved moral perfection replacing grace.

Fencing strategy:

• Maintain two visibly distinct phrase-shapes: reckoning/forensic contexts always carry raug suav tias ncaj ncees; Kingdom-ethics contexts always carry the comparative periphrasis ...uas dhau li cov Falixais tus or equivalent explicit “exceeding” framing, never the bare adjective alone.
• Any lesson unit that touches both senses in proximity (e.g., a module connecting Romans’ justification material to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount) must contain an explicit cross-reference note stating these are two related but distinct senses: righteousness given (status) versus righteousness lived (fruit), and that the second never becomes the ground of the first.
• This fence protects doctrines #1 (Justification, Romans-inherited) and #5 (Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees, Matthew) simultaneously.

2.3 The tus cev Vajtswv lus (prophet) / txiv neeb (shaman) neighborhood — HIGH FENCE

Occupants: biblical prophets (B8/#66), false prophets (B9/#67), and the general Hmong category of ritual specialists who claim spirit-contact/message-relay (txiv neeb, shaman; txiv xaiv, diviner).

Why this is crowded: Hmong traditional religion already has a well-developed social role for a person who “speaks messages from the spirit world,” and without careful fencing, Matthew’s frequent prophet-references (12+ chapters) risk being assimilated into that existing role rather than being understood as a distinct category (one who speaks God’s own revealed, written-down, testable word).

Fencing strategy:

• txiv neeb / txiv xaiv vocabulary is permanently forbidden for prophētēs in any form, consistent with the baseline’s leitourgos/priestly-minister precedent.
• First occurrence (2:5-6 citation of Micah, or 1:22) must carry an explicit contrast note: a prophet speaks God’s word, publicly, in a way later verifiable against Scripture and fulfillment — not privately negotiated spirit-messages.
• The “false prophets” warning (7:15, 24:11,24) must be taught as a warning about illegitimate claimants to this specific category, not as grounds for suspecting the category of prophetic speech itself, to avoid an over-correction that would also destabilize confidence in the OT prophets Matthew constantly cites.

2.4 The lwm Haiv Neeg / txhua haiv neeg (Gentiles-contrastive / all-nations-inclusive) neighborhood — MEDIUM FENCE

Occupants: baseline contrastive Gentiles-vs-Jews term (A27/#36, reused from Romans) and Matthew’s new inclusive “all nations” phrase for the Great Commission (B43/#37).

Why this needs fencing (not a collision, but a false-equivalence risk): both phrases share the head noun haiv neeg (people-group/nation) and differ only by the preceding modifier (lwm = “other” vs. txhua = “every/all”). In rapid oral teaching or unglossed reading, the distinction could be lost, causing either (a) the Commission’s universal scope to be heard as excluding Israel, or (b) ordinary Jew/Gentile contrast passages to be misheard as already-universal.

Fencing strategy:

• Never abbreviate either phrase in ways that drop the modifier (lwm or txhua) even in space-constrained contexts (headers, quiz options), matching the baseline’s structural qualifier-enforcement principle.
• Add a brief comprehension note wherever both phrases occur within the same lesson unit or within two chapters of each other in sequential curriculum content.

2.5 The dawb huv (purity) neighborhood — HIGH FENCE (inherited, sharpened)

Occupants: baseline sanctification (kev raug ua kom dawb huv, A19); Matthew’s “pure in heart” Beatitude and ch.15 heart-vs-ritual-purity discourse (#48); and the newly surfaced virgin-birth term (B38/#41), which was deliberately built as a separate, non-dawb huv phrase specifically to avoid entering this neighborhood.

Why this is crowded: dawb huv already carries a folk-ritual-purity sense (cleanness from spirit-contamination) in Hmong traditional practice, and Matthew is the one book in this curriculum family that stages an explicit textual controversy (ch.15) between ritual purity and heart purity — meaning the crowded neighborhood is not incidental here but the very subject of the passage.

Fencing strategy:

• Ch.15’s defilement discourse must be taught with explicit signposting that Jesus is redefining purity away from ritual/ceremonial categories (handwashing, food) toward heart-motivation categories — the term itself is retained, but its content is being deliberately contested within the text, and the lesson must make this contest visible rather than assuming it is self-evident.
• The virgin-birth term (B38/#41) must continue to be kept entirely outside this root, per its existing translator-review flag — confirmed here as correct fencing strategy, not merely provisional caution.

2.6 The pe hawm / pehawm (worship/bow) neighborhood — HIGH FENCE (inherited, expanded)

Occupants: baseline latreuō (ongoing cultic service, A23/#75, ch.4 temptation narrative) and Matthew’s new, much more frequent proskyneō (physical bowing/homage, B23/#74, 8 chapter-occurrences including the climactic resurrection appearances).

Why this is crowded and why Matthew sharpens the risk beyond Romans: both Greek verbs land on cognate Hmong forms (pehawm/pe hawm), and the same verb-form is used for ancestral/spirit veneration (pe hawm dab) in ordinary Hmong religious life. Matthew’s frequency of use (Magi, disciples in the boat, women at the tomb, the Eleven on the mountain) means this fence must hold across many more occurrences than the baseline ever required.

Fencing strategy:

• Object never left bare at any of the 8+ Matthew occurrences — pe hawm Yexus Khetos stated explicitly every time, with zero tolerance for elliptical/implied-object phrasing even in narrative summary.
• The climactic post-resurrection occurrences (28:9, 17) require their own dedicated teaching note making the full-deity implication explicit (this is the only being besides God the Father who receives this worship in Matthew without correction or refusal), since this is doctrinally the strongest data point for Jesus’ deity in the whole book.

2.7 The dab (spirit/demon) neighborhood — CRITICAL FENCE (inherited, highest sensitivity)

Occupants: demons/unclean spirits (B18/#52, #53), Satan (dab ntxwg nyoog, B20/#13, lower risk due to existing settled compound), and the entire traditional Hmong category of ancestral, household, and nature spirits still actively venerated by many Hmong families.

This is already flagged as the single highest-sensitivity lexical decision in the prior glossary/registry outputs; this analysis confirms that assessment and adds one refinement: the fence must operate not only at the term level but at the narrative-function level. Every exorcism narrative (8:28-34, 9:32-34, 12:22-28, 15:22, 17:14-21) must be taught with explicit framing that Jesus’ authority over daimonia is not a claim that every traditionally-venerated ancestral spirit is identical in status to a Gospel demon — that identification question is a pastoral/theological judgment for the receiving church and its theologians to make, not a judgment smuggled in silently by translation choice. No lexical alternative to dab exists that would avoid this problem lexically; the fence is entirely a teaching-and-pastoral-process fence, not a wording fence.

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3. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Neighborhoods — Summary Table

Type	Item	Chapters	Resolution
Missing vocabulary	”Reign present-but-not-yet-complete” (Kingdom inaugurated/consummated tension)	3-25 (pervasive)	Paraphrase + mandatory teaching note; no single lexical fix exists.
Missing vocabulary	Rabbinic “bind and loose” idiom	16, 18	Dedicated teaching note; no native equivalent.
Missing vocabulary	Roman crucifixion custom underlying “take up his cross”	10, 16, 27	Comprehension gloss; distinguish metaphor from Christ’s literal unique cross.
Missing vocabulary	Daniel 7 apocalyptic “Son of Man” sense	8-26 (pervasive)	Teaching note at first and major recurring occurrences; term itself (tus Tub ntawm Tib Neeg) is adequate, the background sense is what’s missing.
Missing vocabulary	”Abomination of desolation” historical referent	24	Substantial narrative/historical footnote.
Crowded neighborhood	koob hmoov (fate/fortune) vs. makarios (Beatitude blessing)	5	Mandatory ntawm Vajtswv qualifier; theologian-locked scope restriction to 5:3-11.
Crowded neighborhood	ncaj ncees forensic vs. ethical senses	1, 3, 5, 6	Two distinct phrase-shapes maintained; cross-reference teaching note.
Crowded neighborhood	tus cev Vajtswv lus (prophet) vs. txiv neeb (shaman)	1, 2, 5, 7, 10-13, 21-24	Permanent forbidden-substitution rule; contrast note at first occurrence.
Crowded neighborhood	lwm Haiv Neeg vs. txhua haiv neeg	4, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28	Modifier never dropped; proximity comprehension notes.
Crowded neighborhood	dawb huv (ritual purity) vs. heart-purity/sanctification	5, 15	Explicit signposting of Jesus’ redefinition move in ch.15.
Crowded neighborhood	pe hawm (bow/worship) vs. pe hawm dab (spirit veneration)	2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 20, 28	Object never bare; deity-implication note at 28:9,17.
Crowded neighborhood	dab (demon) vs. dab (ancestral/household spirit)	8, 9, 12, 15, 17	Narrative-level pastoral-process fence; no wording fix available.
Crowded neighborhood	hwjchim (Jesus’ inherent authority) vs. hwjchim (shamanic power) vs. hwjchim (delegated civil authority) — a three-way crowd	6-10, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28	Three distinct qualifier phrases maintained without exception (see §1.4, §4 #1 below).

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4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Matthew introduces substantially more proper nouns and technical loanword candidates than Romans did. This section records the transliteration-vs-paraphrase decision and rationale for each, consistent with the baseline’s existing pattern (Abba, Leej Txiv; Yexus Khetos).

Term	Decision	Rationale
Immanuel	Transliterate + gloss: Imanuyees (Vajtswv nrog peb nyob)	Follows Abba precedent; the name itself is theologically load-bearing (it IS the content of the prophecy), so dropping the transliteration and using only the gloss would lose the naming-event force of 1:23.
Mammon	Transliterate + gloss: Mamoos (wealth treated as a false god/master)	Personified rival-deity sense would be lost if simply paraphrased as “wealth”; retaining the loanword preserves the personification Jesus intends (6:24, “cannot serve two masters”).
Beelzebul	Transliterate: Npe-exePub	Proper name of a specific demonic figure in the opponents’ accusation (12:24-27); paraphrase would erase the specificity of the accusation being made and answered.
Magi	Paraphrase, not transliterate: cov txawj ntse saib hnub qub (“wise ones who observe the stars”)	A transliterated loanword would be opaque to hearers and would forfeit the chance to explicitly exclude txiv neeb framing; the descriptive paraphrase does this disambiguating work directly.
Pharisees / Sadducees	Transliterate: cov Falixais / cov Xadukais	Proper sect names with no native analogue; already established in Hmong Bible tradition; paraphrase would be both inaccurate and unstable across texts.
Sabbath	Transliterate: Hnub Xanpataus	No native weekly-rest-day tradition to paraphrase against; transliteration is the existing, stable convention.
Scribes	Paraphrase: cov Xibhwb Qhia Vaj Lug Kub (“teachers who instruct in Scripture”)	Occupational/functional term, not a proper name; paraphrase correctly conveys the role and ties directly to the ch.7:29 authority-contrast.
Son of Man	Paraphrase, not transliterate: tus Tub ntawm Tib Neeg	This is a title carrying theological argument (Daniel 7), not a proper name; a transliteration (e.g., a loaned Aramaic/Greek form) would be doubly opaque, losing both the ordinary “human being” surface sense AND the apocalyptic depth sense that the paraphrase at least partially preserves.
”Amen, I say to you”	Paraphrase: kuv hais tseeb rau nej (not a transliterated “Amen” retained mid-clause)	Existing Hmong Christian usage of “Amen” is reserved for prayer-closing contexts; mid-teaching use as a solemnity marker is better served by the native truth-assertion phrase, preserving Jesus’ rhetorical force without introducing a confusing double-duty for the loanword “Amen.”
Yoke	Paraphrase: lub quab (the actual Hmong wooden ox-yoke term)	Concrete agrarian object with a real Hmong equivalent; no transliteration needed, and the native term carries the correct physical imagery for the metaphor.

General principle governing these decisions: transliteration is reserved for (a) proper names with no plausible native equivalent (persons, sects, place-related sacred-day names) and (b) theologically load-bearing names whose sound-form is part of the content being taught (Immanuel). Paraphrase is preferred wherever a native descriptive phrase can do disambiguating work a bare loanword cannot (Magi, Son of Man, scribes) or where a concrete native object/practice already exists (yoke).

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5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × frequency of occurrence), for theologian-review sequencing in Phase 2.

1. hwjchim three-way crowding: Jesus’ inherent authority vs. shamanic ritual power vs. delegated civil authority. This single lexeme must now carry three distinct qualifier-fenced senses across the Matthew package (B11/#61 Jesus’ own; baseline A16/#16 general divine power; A38/#63 civil authority), on top of the already-Critical baseline discipline. The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching doctrine collapses entirely if the “inherent, not delegated” qualifier is ever dropped or blurred with either of the other two senses, since 7:29’s entire rhetorical point (“not as their scribes”) depends on hearers recognizing Jesus’ authority as categorically different from all other authority-claims in the narrative, including both civil rulers and shamanic practitioners.

2. tau koob hmoov ntawm Vajtswv for the Beatitudes (makarios). This is the first and only place in the Language Package family where a previously permanently forbidden root (koob hmoov, forbidden for grace and election in the baseline) is reintroduced under a narrow qualified exception. The core passage of this entire curriculum (Matthew 5:1-12) depends on getting this exactly right; any drift toward reading the Beatitudes as “those who receive good fortune/luck from God” rather than “those upon whom God pronounces his favor, inverting the world’s fortune-logic” would invert the passage’s central rhetorical move (favor resting on the poor, mourning, and persecuted) and simultaneously reopen the very collision the baseline worked to permanently close for charis.

3. dab for demons vs. ancestral/household spirits. Already flagged as highest-sensitivity in the prior glossary/registry; ranked #3 rather than #1 here specifically because, unlike items #1 and #2, its risk is not primarily a translation-choice problem (no lexical alternative exists) but a pastoral-process problem requiring theologian and receiving-church-leadership judgment about ancestor veneration specifically — a judgment this Language Package can flag and stage but cannot resolve through wording alone.

4. ncaj ncees forensic-vs-ethical double duty (5:20, 6:33 vs. baseline justification material). Ranked below #1-3 because the fencing mechanism (two distinct phrase-shapes) is already well-specified and lexically workable; the residual risk is discipline-of-execution (ensuring every generation pass actually maintains the two shapes) rather than an unsolved linguistic problem.

5. Filial priority in discipleship (10:37, “loves father/mother more than me”) against Hmong ancestor-honor/filial-piety custom. Ranked here because, unlike the qhev/bondservant precedent it is modeled on, this collision touches family relationships directly rather than an abstracted social category, giving it higher potential for pastoral harm (perceived command to dishonor living parents or ancestors) if the “reorders allegiance, does not denigrate the relationship” framing is not consistently applied.

6. kev raug txim mus ib txhis / txoj sia nyob mus ib txhis parallelism integrity at 25:46. Ranked here as a narrower but still Critical-adjacent risk: unlike the above items, this is a single-verse structural-fidelity risk rather than a pervasive collision, but a failure here directly undermines the doctrinal weight of the entire Judgment and End of the Age unit’s culminating statement.

7. prophētēs vs. txiv neeb/txiv xaiv (shaman/diviner) neighborhood. High-frequency (12+ chapters) but well-understood fencing mechanism (permanent forbidden-substitution + first-occurrence contrast note); ranked below the top items because the disambiguation strategy is more straightforward to execute consistently than #1-5.

8. pe hawm (proskyneō) frequency expansion vs. pe hawm dab. Ranked here because, while the collision is real and the baseline mitigation (object never bare) transfers cleanly, Matthew’s much higher frequency (8+ occurrences vs. the baseline’s narrower latreuō footprint) increases the chance of an isolated slip in a long curriculum, making this primarily an execution-discipline risk rather than an unsolved design risk.

9. lwm Haiv Neeg vs. txhua haiv neeg false-equivalence risk. Ranked lowest among the Critical/High-adjacent items because it is a comprehension/fencing issue with no traditional-religion collision component at all — the risk is purely internal consistency within the curriculum, which is a lower-severity failure mode than any item above it.

10. Kingdom of Heaven’s “already/not yet” missing vocabulary. Ranked last among the top ten because, although it is pervasive (essentially every chapter), it is a genuine comprehension gap rather than a collision, and Matthew’s own narrative structure (parables of growth, present healings alongside future-judgment sayings) does much of the disambiguating work already, provided the accompanying teaching notes are not omitted.

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6. Governing Notes

1. This document does not alter, re-gloss, or weaken any Critical/High risk_level term fixed in the baseline Romans assets/translation_memory.json. Every fencing strategy proposed here operates around those fixed renderings, never against them.
2. Items #1, #2, and #3 in the ranked list (§5) must be treated as blocking issues for Phase 2 publication of any content touching Matthew 5 (core passage), Matthew 7-10/21/28 (authority), or Matthew 8-9/12/15/17 (demons) respectively, pending the theologian reviews already flagged in the prior glossary and registry outputs.
3. The qualified re-permission of the koob hmoov root for makarios (§2.1, ranked-list #2) is the single most consequential new decision surfaced by this analysis and must not be generalized beyond Matthew 5:3-11 without a fresh, dedicated TM-revision review.
4. Consistent with the full-book-coverage mandate, every chapter of Matthew has been considered in compiling this analysis; chapters contributing no new fencing or missing-vocabulary issues beyond those already logged in 08_core_glossary.md and the Matthew bible_term_registry.json (e.g., portions of ch. 2-3, 13-14, 17, 19-20 not separately itemized above) are recorded here as reviewed, no additional linguistic gap identified beyond prior artifacts, per the no-silent-omission rule.
5. All items in §2 and §5 are escalated for human theologian review before Phase 2 publication, consistent with the governing document’s routing rules for Critical/High doctrine-touching content; none may be resolved by automated review alone.