Micah — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

0. Purpose and Method

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8. It does not re-derive terms already fixed by the Romans TM baseline or already logged in the Micah core glossary/term registry; instead it (a) organizes those terms into a doctrine vocabulary matrix evaluating fitness-for-purpose per assigned doctrine, (b) identifies crowded semantic neighborhoods — places where one Hmong lexeme is being asked to carry multiple distinct theological senses and therefore needs an explicit “fence” (disambiguating strategy) to prevent bleed-through, (c) identifies genuine missing-vocabulary gaps where no adequate Hmong resource exists at all, (d) resolves transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions for proper nouns and a handful of technical terms, and (e) produces a ranked list of highest-risk ambiguities for this book, ordered by combined doctrinal weight × collision probability.

Governing constraint (per the hard rules): every rendering already fixed in assets/translation_memory.json (Romans) MUST be reused exactly and MUST NOT be re-glossed here. This analysis only extends coverage to Micah-specific vocabulary and Micah-specific collision risk introduced by reusing those fixed renderings in new Old Testament, prophetic-lawsuit, and pre-incarnation contexts.

Citation note: pending formal Phase 2 citation-convention ratification (parallel to the Romans baseline’s “Loos” convention, §7 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md), this document provisionally cites the book as Mikha (e.g., Mikha 6:8), following the same transliteration logic already applied to Loos. This provisional citation form is logged for TM-revision review and must not be treated as permanent until ratified.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the five assigned doctrines: the destination-language terms currently available (TM-inherited or newly proposed in the Micah glossary/registry), their specific weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy for Phase 2 generation.

1.1 True Worship versus Empty Ritual

Available Hmong term(s)	Source	Weakness	Recommended strategy
khoom fij hlawv tag nrho (burnt offering)	[NEW] Micah registry #8	Reuses the fij sacrificial domain shared with Christ’s atonement (qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum) and with shamanic appeasement (fij dab)	Mandatory sense-tag at first occurrence per lesson: “khoom fij Levi tau txiav txim siab fij” (historical temple ritual) — never left to imply either Christ’s once-for-all atonement or repeatable spirit-appeasement
txo hau ntawm Vajtswv / khoom ntshis rau ntawm Vajtswv (bow)	[NEW] registry #7	Bowing posture is identical to ancestor-veneration prostration	Object of bowing (ntawm Vajtswv) structurally mandatory, mirroring the baseline’s pehawm Vajtswv anchoring rule
pehawm Vajtswv (worship, cultic)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans worship_serve_cultic	Already flagged High in baseline; Micah 6:6-8 is the paradigm case the baseline anticipated (contrast of ritual pehawm-forms vs. obedient life)	Reuse exactly; this is the textbook passage for the baseline’s own mandatory teaching note — Phase 2 content on Micah 6 should explicitly cross-reference Romans 12:1 (khoom fij uas muaj txoj sia nyob) to show canonical continuity of the ritual-vs-ethical-devotion contrast
tus tub hlob (rhetorical firstborn)	[NEW] registry #11	Highest risk in this doctrine cluster: could be misheard as God entertaining child sacrifice	MUST always be presented as a rejected rhetorical extreme, never a standalone clause; v.8’s answer must be textually adjacent in every generated unit
dab mlom (idol)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans idol	Stable; reused correctly	No change
kuv tus kheej / kuv txoj sia (soul/self, nephesh)	[NEW] registry #29	Must not be confused with ntsuj plig (anthropological soul, TM-fixed) because of multi-soul animism	Enforce as a structural substitution rule: nephesh in Micah 6:7 is NEVER rendered ntsuj plig

Doctrine-level assessment: This doctrine’s vocabulary is largely available but dangerously reusable — nearly every noun in Micah 6:6-7’s mock-liturgy sits inside a semantic neighborhood already flagged Critical/High in the Romans baseline (fij, pehawm, sacrificial vocabulary generally). The core passage is therefore simultaneously the book’s theological anchor and its highest lexical-collision density. See §2.1 below.

1.2 Justice, Mercy, and Humility

Available Hmong term(s)	Source	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kev txiav txim ncaj (mishpat, justice)	[NEW] registry #17	Shares the ncaj root with the Romans baseline’s forensic-imputation cluster (ncaj ncees, raug suav tias ncaj ncees)	Structural fence: mishpat NEVER receives the suav tias reckoning-clause; that clause is reserved exclusively for justification-by-faith. Teaching note must explicitly state the two are lexically cousins but doctrinally distinct (ethical social justice vs. forensic imputed status)
Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees (righteousness/righteous acts, tsedaqah)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans righteousness_of_god_righteous	Reused for a different referent here (historical covenant-faithfulness acts, 6:4-5) than in Romans (forensic imputed righteousness)	Teaching note mandatory distinguishing “God’s righteous historical acts” (Micah 6:4-5) from “the righteousness credited to the believer” (Romans 3-4); same string, two senses, both textually valid but must not be merged in exposition
kev hlub (love)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans love	None	Reuse exactly
txoj kev khuv leej (chesed, mercy/steadfast love)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans mercy, risk elevated High in Micah	The Greek eleos (Romans) captures compassion-toward-the-miserable; Hebrew chesed additionally carries covenant-loyalty/faithfulness the Hmong phrase does not natively encode	Do not re-gloss the fixed string; append a covenant-loyalty teaching note at every occurrence in Micah 6:8, 7:18-20 distinguishing “loyal love that keeps promises” from mere pity
taug kev ua neeg txo hwj chim nrog koj tus Vajtswv (walk humbly with your God)	[NEW] registry #21	hwj chim morpheme identical to the baseline’s flagged hwjchim (dynamis/shamanic power)	Structural anchor: never appears without nrog Vajtswv in the same clause, mirroring the baseline’s Vajtswv hwjchim rule — here the risk runs the opposite direction (self-lowering vs. wielding power), so the teaching note must clarify this is the antonym-use of the shared root, not the power-term itself
tus ncaj ncees thiab hlub ruaj khov rau Vajtswv (chasid, the godly one)	[NEW] registry #22	Compound periphrasis; risk of being heard as forensic justification language due to shared ncaj ncees substring	Cross-reference note to #17/#18 mandatory
koj, tus neeg (O man, generic ‘adam)	[NEW] registry #24	Risk of confusion with Romans’ proper-name Adas (federal-headship Adam)	Explicit prohibition: NEVER rendered Adas; must remain the generic address

Doctrine-level assessment: This is the core-passage doctrine and carries the highest density of shared-root collision risk in the book, because three of its five key terms (mishpat, tsedaqah, chasid) are built from the same ncaj(ncees) root already carrying Critical doctrinal weight in Romans. No single lexical fix resolves this; the strategy must be a consistent, repeated fencing discipline (§2.2).

1.3 The Coming Ruler from Bethlehem

Available Hmong term(s)	Source	Weakness	Recommended strategy
tus uas yuav kav (ruler, moshel)	[NEW] registry #37	Generic; deliberately withholds NT titles	Correct as-is — must NOT be prematurely rendered Leej Tub ntawm Vajtswv or Yexus Khetos in the OT text itself; those belong in a clearly marked NT-fulfillment teaching note only
txij thaum ub los, txij tim ub tas mus li (from of old/everlasting)	[NEW] registry #38	Critical: must carry both the OT-historical (ancient Davidic line) and traditional-Christian messianic/pre-existence readings without overclaiming either	Dual-register teaching note mandatory at every occurrence; see §3.3 (missing vocabulary: no single Hmong idiom natively carries the pre-existence freight of Greek aiōnios-family theology)
Npelehee Efalathas (Bethlehem Ephrathah)	[NEW] registry #36	Provisional transliteration, no existing fixed Hmong Bible convention surfaced in these baseline materials	See §4.1
tus yug yaj / yug (shepherd)	[NEW] registry #39	None significant	Reuse; culturally strong bridge (Hmong highland pastoral/agrarian familiarity, parallel to existing yug yaj imagery)
kev thaj yeeb (peace, shalom)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans peace	None	Reuse exactly
kev ua khawv koob / kev ua yees siv (sorceries, purged at ruler’s coming)	[NEW] registry #16, shares stem with #15	Critical direct collision with Hmong shamanic practice	See §2.3

Doctrine-level assessment: The vocabulary gap here is not lexical availability but doctrinal restraint — the temptation is to translate 5:2’s “ruler” and “from everlasting” too quickly into settled NT christological titles, collapsing the OT text’s own progressive-revelation shape. The recommended strategy across all Phase 2 content is to preserve OT-voice rendering plus a clearly bounded forward-pointing note, never a merged/anachronistic rendering.

1.4 Judgment on Corrupt Leaders

Available Hmong term(s)	Source	Weakness	Recommended strategy
kev ua yees siv / kev saib yaig (divination, qesem)	[NEW] registry #15	Critical, unavoidable direct collision with txiv neeb / shamanic consultation practice central to Hmong traditional religion	See §2.3 — mandatory framing as condemnation of hired, manipulative false prophecy (3:11 makes the profit-motive explicit in the text itself), never a blanket dismissal of Hmong identity
kev ua khawv koob / kev ua yees siv (sorceries, kesaphim)	[NEW] registry #16	Same collision class as above	Same strategy
Vaj Ntsuj Plig (Spirit of the LORD, empowering true prophecy)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans holy_spirit	Contrastive use: true Spirit-empowered prophecy (3:8) directly opposite the condemned divination (3:6-7, 11)	Strong positive pairing opportunity — Phase 2 content should exploit this built-in contrast (Spirit-given truth vs. paid divination) as the primary teaching mechanism for doctrine 4, reducing reliance on abstract condemnation alone
noj tej neeg tus nqaij (eat the flesh of my people)	[NEW] registry #33	Graphic; register risk if under-explained	Retain graphic force; mandatory figurative-language note
quab yuam / txeeb / ntshaw (oppress/seize/covet)	[NEW] registry #32	Comprehension-level only	No collision; reuse as-is
teev nyiaj tsis raug / rab teev dag ntxias (false balances)	[NEW] registry #34	Comprehension-level only	No collision
kev cev lus qhuab qhia zoo nkauj tab sis dag (false/comfortable prophecy)	[NEW] registry #35	Needs explicit contrast with true prophetic office	Cross-reference to Vaj Ntsuj Plig (#3) required

Doctrine-level assessment: This doctrine’s principal risk is not ambiguity but volatility — qesem/kesaphim map onto live, contemporary Hmong religious practice (not merely historical folk-memory, as with some Romans-book collisions). This raises the pastoral stakes of the required teaching note beyond what a purely lexical fix can address; flagged for mandatory human theologian AND native-speaker-pastor review (see ranked list, §5, item 1).

1.5 Hope of Restoration and Forgiveness

Available Hmong term(s)	Source	Weakness	Recommended strategy
cov seem (remnant)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans remnant	None	Reuse exactly
lus cog tseg (promise/covenant oath)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans promise	None; strong parallel to Romans 11:29 irrevocable-calling doctrine	Reuse; recommend explicit cross-book teaching link
qhov tseeb (truth/faithfulness, ‘emet)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans truth	Covenant-fidelity sense richer than baseline’s factual-truth scope	Comprehension-level enrichment note only, no collision
kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath, bounded by mercy)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans wrath_of_god	Used here to affirm wrath’s limitation, opposite emphasis from most Romans occurrences	Teaching note must hold both wrath’s reality and its covenant-bounded non-finality together; must not be taught as illusory or ritual-appeasable in either direction
zam txim thiab tshem kev txhaum mus deb (pardon iniquity / cast into the sea)	[NEW] registry #44	Critical: genuinely new compound, no existing TM entry covers “active, gracious removal” force	See §3.4 — flagged as the single largest genuine missing-vocabulary gap in this book
kev cia siab; kev cawm dim (wait for the God of my salvation)	[TM-INHERITED, extended] Romans hope, salvation_save	Baseline’s mandatory salvation-anchor is to Yexus Khetos; this is a pre-incarnation OT text	See §3.5 — anchoring-convention extension flagged for human theologian review
txhaum / kev txhaum ×3 senses (chattah/pesha/avon)	[TM-INHERITED] Romans sin_act_and_condition, sense-flagged ×3	Three distinct Hebrew sin-words flattened into one Hmong lexeme at the book’s theological climax (7:18-19)	See §3.1 — highest-density flattening risk in the book

Doctrine-level assessment: This doctrine contains the book’s climactic doxology (7:18-20) and therefore concentrates the book’s two largest genuine vocabulary gaps (the sin-word triad and the “cast into the sea” forgiveness idiom) at its single highest-stakes moment. Recommend the richest teaching-note apparatus of the five doctrines be attached here.

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2. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

A “crowded neighborhood” is a Hmong lexical root or fixed collocation already carrying Critical/High doctrinal weight from the Romans baseline that Micah’s vocabulary must reuse for a related but distinct sense. Each requires an explicit, repeatable fencing strategy rather than a one-time note.

2.1 The ncaj (ncees) neighborhood — HIGHEST DENSITY IN THIS BOOK

Members: Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees / tus ncaj ncees (Romans, forensic-imputed righteousness, Critical), raug suav tias ncaj ncees (Romans, justification, Critical), kev txiav txim ncaj (Micah mishpat, justice-in-practice), tus ncaj ncees thiab hlub ruaj khov (Micah chasid).

• Collision risk: All four share the root ncaj(ncees). Micah 6:8’s mishpat and the OT chasid designation could be heard as importing the Romans forensic-imputation doctrine into an ethics-of-social-justice context, or conversely could flatten Romans’ imputed righteousness into achievable good conduct — the exact inversion the Romans baseline’s doctrine-preservation rule #1 (Justification by Faith) forbids.
• Fence: (a) mishpat and chasid-vocabulary NEVER receive the suav tias reckoning-clause. (b) Every lesson unit touching Micah 6:8 and any lesson unit touching Romans 3-4 in the same curriculum sequence must carry a cross-reference note explicitly naming both senses and stating they are lexical cousins, not doctrinal equivalents. (c) Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees reused for Micah 6:4-5’s historical-acts sense must carry its own distinguishing note (already logged in registry #18) every time, not only at first occurrence, given the density of reuse in a single chapter.

2.2 The fij (sacrifice/offering) neighborhood

Members: qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum (Romans, propitiation, Critical), khoom fij uas muaj txoj sia nyob (Romans, living sacrifice, High), khoom fij hlawv tag nrho (Micah, burnt offering), tus tub hlob rhetorical child-sacrifice (Micah, Critical), and the ambient cultural referent fij dab (shamanic spirit-appeasement, never a TM entry but the default folk-religious anchor for the whole domain).

• Collision risk: Four distinct senses now compete for one lexical domain: (1) Christ’s unique, sufficient atonement; (2) the believer’s ongoing ethical self-offering; (3) historical Israelite temple ritual which the text of Micah itself relativizes; (4) the rhetorically-rejected extreme of child sacrifice. A reader moving between Romans and Micah content risks assimilating all four into an undifferentiated “sacrifice = ritual technique for securing favor” folk-category — precisely the shamanic appeasement logic both books independently reject.
• Fence: Every occurrence of any fij-family term must carry an explicit one-of-four tag (atonement / ethical devotion / OT historical-ritual / rejected-extreme). Recommend a standing glossary sidebar in Phase 2 curriculum materials mapping all four senses side-by-side the first time Micah 6 and Romans 3/12 are taught in the same module.

2.3 The divination / occult-power neighborhood (new to this book; no Romans precedent)

Members: kev ua yees siv / kev saib yaig (qesem, divination), kev ua khawv koob (kesaphim, sorcery), and adjacent to the Romans-established hwjchim (unqualified shamanic-power collision, High) and taug kev ua neeg txo hwj chim (Micah, humility idiom sharing the hwj chim morpheme).

• Collision risk: This is the most volatile neighborhood in the Micah package because, unlike most Romans-flagged collisions (which reference historical/folk-memory practices), qesem/kesaphim map onto contemporary, actively-practiced Hmong shamanic consultation (txiv neeb). A careless rendering risks being heard as a direct, personal condemnation of living family members’ religious practice rather than an indictment of hired false prophecy within Micah’s own 8th-century Israelite context.
• Fence: (a) Always frame the condemnation using the text’s own internal criterion — divination-for-hire and self-serving false prophecy (3:5, 3:11) — never a generalized condemnation of shamanic practice as an ethnic-cultural marker. (b) Never allow hwj chim (in the humility idiom, §1.2) to appear unanchored to nrog Vajtswv, since its bare form sits one morpheme away from the shamanic-power-vocabulary neighborhood. (c) This entire neighborhood is escalated to mandatory human-theologian-plus-native-speaker-pastor review (see §5, item 1).

2.4 The txhaum (sin) neighborhood

Members: txhaum / kev txhaum reused for THREE distinct Hebrew roots — chattah (missing the mark), pesha (covenant rebellion), avon (borne guilt/iniquity) — converging in Micah 6:7 and again, climactically, in 7:18-19.

• Collision risk: Unlike the Romans book (which uses hamartia largely as a single unified concept), Micah’s Hebrew vocabulary deliberately escalates through three distinct sin-words to build rhetorical intensity (6:7) and then resolves all three together in the climactic doxology (7:18-19). A single flattened Hmong lexeme txhaum silently erases this escalation and this triadic resolution.
• Fence: Mandatory summary teaching note introduced at 6:7 (first convergence) and repeated at 7:18-19 (climactic convergence), explicitly naming and briefly glossing all three underlying Hebrew terms even though the surface Hmong text uses one word each time. This is a comprehension fence rather than a doctrine-collision fence (Low-Medium base risk per term) but the climax context (7:18-19) elevates the risk to Critical because the entire book’s theological resolution depends on the reader perceiving that all three categories of guilt are simultaneously, actively removed.

2.5 The kev cawm dim / kev cia siab (salvation/hope) neighborhood in a pre-incarnation OT register

Members: kev cawm dim / cawm (Romans, salvation, High — mandatory Christ-anchor), kev cia siab (Romans, hope, Low), both reused in Micah 7:7’s atsappeh l'Elohei yish'i.

• Collision risk: Not a collision with traditional religion, but an internal baseline-consistency risk: the Romans TM’s structural rule requires kev cawm dim to always anchor to Yexus Khetos within the same clause. Micah 7:7 is spoken centuries before the incarnation; a naive application of the rule would produce an anachronistic clause (“I will wait for God’s salvation, in Jesus Christ”) that the OT speaker could not have intended.
• Fence: For OT-context occurrences, the anchor is God Himself (Vajtswv) as the OT-era Savior, with a clearly bounded, separately-formatted forward-pointing teaching note (not inline clause) connecting to Christ’s fulfillment. This constitutes a proposed extension of the baseline anchoring rule for future OT Language Packages and is flagged for human theologian review before being treated as a standing convention (already logged at registry #45; reaffirmed here as a linguistic-gap item, not merely a registry note).

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3. Missing Vocabulary (Genuine Gaps, Not Crowded Neighborhoods)

These are places where no existing Hmong lexical resource — TM-fixed or otherwise — adequately carries the required sense, as distinct from §2’s problem of too many competing senses sharing one term.

3.1 The Hebrew sin-word triad (chattah / pesha / avon)

No three-way lexical distinction exists in the available Hmong resources; Hmong moral vocabulary organizes wrongdoing primarily around social/ritual breach-and-repair categories rather than a graded scale of (a) missing a target, (b) willful rebellion, and (c) borne/carried guilt-weight. Recommendation: Do not attempt to manufacture three permanent new Hmong lexemes (risk of inventing artificial, non-idiomatic vocabulary that native speakers will not recognize as natural Hmong). Instead, retain the single fixed TM term txhaum / kev txhaum for all three and supply the burden of distinction entirely through the teaching-note apparatus (§2.4). Logged for TM-revision review as a documented, permanent limitation rather than a silently-accepted flattening.

3.2 mishpat as a genuinely new doctrinal category

Unlike Romans, which has no dedicated “social/distributive justice” term distinct from forensic righteousness, Micah requires one. kev txiav txim ncaj (“just judgment/verdict”) is proposed and is judged adequate as a court-idiom bridge (Hmong village-court judgment concept, paralleling the Romans baseline’s own use of a similar village-court bridge for katakrima), but it does not by itself carry mishpat’s fuller Old Testament sense of proactive social advocacy for the vulnerable (widow, orphan, poor, resident alien) rather than merely reactive verdict-rendering. Recommendation: Retain kev txiav txim ncaj as the lexical anchor but mandate a teaching note broadening it to active social advocacy at every occurrence tied to Micah 2-3 and 6:8, not merely at first occurrence, since this sense-broadening is doctrinally load-bearing for the Justice/Mercy/Humility doctrine.

3.3 Eternal/pre-existence origin language (qedem/olam) at 5:2

No Hmong idiom natively carries the dual freight of (a) ancient human-royal-lineage depth and (b) full metaphysical divine pre-existence simultaneously; the closest available phrase, txij thaum ub los, txij tim ub tas mus li, is a temporal-duration idiom (very old / continuing forever) that does not by itself assert personal pre-existence in the way Christian systematic theology reads this verse in light of the incarnation. Recommendation: This is not resolvable lexically; it must remain a teaching-note-dependent gap. Do not allow any Phase 2 content to render this phrase with vocabulary borrowed from the Romans baseline’s Leej Tub ntawm Vajtswv (Son of God) framework, since that would silently resolve, rather than teach through, the gap. Flagged Critical per registry #38 and reaffirmed here as a structural (not merely lexical) limitation.

3.4 “Cast our sins into the depths of the sea” — active, gracious guilt-removal (7:19)

This is the single largest genuine missing-vocabulary gap in the book. No existing TM entry (kev txhiv redemption, kev sib haum xeeb reconciliation, or bare zam txim forgiveness alone) adequately captures the specific compound sense Micah’s Hebrew intends: guilt that is not merely pardoned in a legal-declarative sense but actively, physically, finally removed to an inaccessible place. The proposed compound zam txim thiab tshem kev txhaum mus deb (“forgive and remove the sin far away”) is a genuinely new construction, not a reuse of any fixed baseline string. Recommendation: Adopt provisionally for this Language Package; log formally for TM-revision review before treating as permanent; mandate that it never be abbreviated to bare zam txim alone in any Phase 2 content touching 7:18-19, since the “removal/distance” component is the verse’s specific theological contribution beyond ordinary forgiveness vocabulary.

3.5 OT-era salvation anchoring (see §2.5)

Already treated above as a crowded-neighborhood/internal-consistency issue, but it also constitutes a partial missing-vocabulary gap: the Romans baseline provides no template at all for how a mandatory Christ-anchor should behave when the source text itself predates the incarnation. This is not a Hmong-language gap but a methodological gap in the inherited baseline, surfaced for the first time by this book. Recommendation stands as in §2.5: escalate to human theologian review as a precedent-setting decision for all future OT Language Packages, not just Micah.

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4. Transliteration versus Paraphrase Decisions

4.1 Proper nouns

Term	Decision	Rationale
Bethlehem Ephrathah	Transliterate: Npelehee Efalathas	Follows established Hmong Bible transliteration phonology pattern (cf. Yexus Khetos, Povlauj); no viable paraphrase exists for a place name; logged provisional pending cross-check against any existing published Hmong OT (HWB) rendering, which was not available in these baseline materials and must be verified in a future review cycle rather than assumed
Samaria	Transliterate: Xamalis	Same rationale; provisional
Jerusalem	Transliterate: Yeluxalees	Same rationale; provisional, though this name is far more likely to already have a fixed convention in published Hmong Bible tradition given its frequency — highest-priority item for verification against existing HWB text before this Language Package leaves DRAFT status
Zion	Transliterate: Xi-oo	Provisional; lower confidence than Jerusalem given lower frequency; flag for verification
Jacob / Israel	Transliterate: Yakhauj / Yixalayees	Yixalayees reuses the Romans baseline’s established style (cf. all_israel_will_be_saved entry); Yakhauj newly logged
Judah	Reuse TM-fixed cov Yudas root as Yudas	Sense-flagged: OT tribal/kingdom referent distinguished from the NT ethnonym cov Yudas (plural, people-group) — singular kingdom-name usage requires care not to imply the same textual referent
Omri / Ahab	Transliterate: Aumelis / Ahaj	Provisional; low doctrinal weight (historical-illustration function only, 6:16)

General proper-noun policy: All Micah-book transliterations above are marked provisional and logged for TM-revision review, consistent with the governing document’s §2.4 rule that ad hoc renderings of terms outside the existing TM must never be treated as silently permanent. Priority recommendation: before this package exits DRAFT status, cross-check every proper noun above against the existing published Hmong Bible (Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum / HWB) Old Testament text if and where it is available, since the Romans baseline materials provided to this analysis cover only the NT book of Romans and contain no OT proper-noun precedents to inherit from.

4.2 Technical/ritual vocabulary: transliterate or paraphrase?

Term	Decision	Rationale
qesem (divination) / kesaphim (sorcery)	Paraphrase using existing native Hmong shamanic-practice vocabulary (kev ua yees siv, kev saib yaig, kev ua khawv koob), NOT transliteration	A transliterated loanword would be doctrinally inert (opaque, evading the necessary contrast-teaching) exactly as the Romans baseline already ruled for hilastērion — the whole pastoral point requires using the real, recognized Hmong term so the condemnation lands meaningfully, paired with the disambiguating “hired/manipulative” framing from the text itself
olah (burnt offering)	Paraphrase: khoom fij hlawv tag nrho	No transliteration tradition exists; descriptive compound is standard practice for OT ritual vocabulary lacking Hmong cultural equivalents (parallel to the Romans baseline’s treatment of circumcision)
bamot (high places)	Context-dependent paraphrase, NOT a single fixed transliteration	Genuinely bimodal referent (literal mountain geography vs. illicit shrine); a single transliterated or fixed term would erase the needed disambiguation entirely
moshel (ruler)	Paraphrase: tus uas yuav kav	Deliberately generic, non-titular; transliteration would be meaningless (this is a common noun, not a proper name) and a titular paraphrase (e.g. reusing tus Tswv) would prematurely resolve the OT-to-NT typological gap (see §1.3)
Abba-style loanword retention	Not applicable in Micah	No Aramaic intimacy-marker equivalent occurs in this book; noted only to confirm no parallel case was overlooked

General technical-vocabulary policy: Consistent with the Romans baseline’s own established preference (paraphrase/native-idiom over transliteration for doctrinally load-bearing common nouns, transliteration reserved for proper names and already-settled loanwords like Yexus Khetos), Micah introduces no exceptions to this pattern. The one close case — divination/sorcery vocabulary — is resolved in favor of paraphrase specifically because opacity would defeat the pastoral purpose, mirroring the Romans baseline’s own reasoning for rejecting a transliterated hilastērion.

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5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined doctrinal weight × collision probability × pastoral volatility. All items below require, at minimum, human theologian review per the escalation conventions this package inherits from the Romans baseline governing document.

1. Divination/sorcery vocabulary condemning contemporary shamanic practice (kev ua yees siv, kev saib yaig, kev ua khawv koob; ch. 3, 5). Highest risk in the book — unlike most Romans-book collisions, which reference folk-memory or historical practice, this vocabulary can be heard as a direct, personal condemnation of living family members’ current religious practice. Requires mandatory human-theologian-plus-native-speaker-pastor review and explicit “hired/manipulative false prophecy” framing at every occurrence, never a blanket ethnic-cultural condemnation.

2. The rhetorical child-sacrifice question (tus tub hlob, 6:7) left unresolved from its answer (6:8). If any generated unit ever separates the question from its immediate rejection, the text could be badly misread as entertaining or endorsing child sacrifice. Structural rule required: the two verses must never be excerpted independently.

3. The ncaj(ncees) root shared across mishpat/chasid (Micah) and forensic justification (Romans) (§2.1). Highest-density collision in the book because it sits at the intersection of the core passage (6:8) and the Romans baseline’s single most doctrinally weighted Critical term. Risk runs in both directions: importing forensic imputation into social ethics, or importing achievable-goodness moralism into justification.

4. “Cast our sins into the depths of the sea” compound (7:19; §3.4). Genuinely new vocabulary with no TM precedent, carrying the book’s climactic doctrinal payload (active, final removal of guilt). Any abbreviation to bare zam txim collapses the verse’s specific contribution.

5. The sin-word triad flattening at the book’s climax (7:18-19; §2.4). Three Hebrew categories converging in one Hmong lexeme at the single highest-stakes doctrinal moment in the book.

6. “From of old, from everlasting” pre-existence language (5:2; §3.3). No lexical solution exists; risk of either premature christological overclaiming or under-teaching the messianic trajectory entirely, in either direction producing a doctrinally deficient reading of the Coming Ruler doctrine.

7. fij-domain quadruple reuse (§2.2) — Christ’s atonement, ethical living-sacrifice, OT historical ritual, and rejected-extreme child sacrifice all competing for one root within a single curriculum. Risk of assimilation into an undifferentiated “sacrifice = appeasement technique” folk category if the four-way tag discipline is not maintained.

8. OT-era salvation/hope anchoring (7:7; §2.5, §3.5). Internal-consistency risk with the inherited Romans baseline’s mandatory Christ-anchor rule; requires a precedent-setting methodological decision, not just a lexical choice, before this Language Package can be finalized.

9. hwjchim/hwj chim double-duty across the humility idiom and the shamanic-power collision (6:8’s “walk humbly”; §1.2, §2.3). Lower probability than items 1-3 but non-trivial given the shared morpheme’s independent Critical-adjacent status in the Romans baseline.

10. bamot (high places) bimodal referent (ch. 1). Comprehension-level rather than doctrine-collision risk, but ranked here because an undisambiguated rendering could invert the theophany imagery of 1:3-4 (God descending in judgment upon the mountains vs. God descending to a worship shrine).

11. Proper-noun transliteration gaps for Jerusalem, Zion, Samaria (§4.1). Lowest doctrinal weight on this list but flagged because of unusually high textual frequency combined with total absence of a verified existing-published-Hmong-Bible cross-check in the materials available to this analysis; recommend priority verification before DRAFT exit.

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6. Recommendations Carried Forward to Phase 2 TM-Revision Review

The following items, already individually logged in the Micah term registry, are reaffirmed here as a consolidated punch-list for the eventual formal TM-revision cycle that will fold Micah’s vocabulary into a book-agnostic Hmong Bible-translation TM:

• Ratify or reject the provisional proper-noun transliterations (§4.1), ideally against an existing published Hmong OT text if one can be sourced.
• Formally adopt (or revise) the OT-era salvation-anchoring convention (§2.5/§3.5) as a standing rule for all future OT Language Packages, not a Micah-specific exception.
• Formally adopt the zam txim thiab tshem kev txhaum mus deb compound (§3.4) as a permanent TM entry if confirmed by human theologian and native-speaker review.
• Confirm the sin-word-triad flattening decision (§3.1) as an accepted, documented limitation rather than revisit it lesson-by-lesson.
• Confirm the four-way fij-domain tagging discipline (§2.2) as mandatory curriculum-wide formatting, not merely a Micah recommendation.

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7. Full-Book Coverage Confirmation

All seven chapters of Micah were reviewed for this linguistic gap analysis, consistent with the full-book-coverage mandate. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 contributed judgment-oracle and false-prophecy vocabulary (crowded neighborhood §2.3; ranked item 1); chapter 4 contributed eschatological/covenant vocabulary with comprehension-level (not collision-level) risk, reviewed and logged as lower-priority; chapter 5 contributed the Coming Ruler cluster (ranked items 2, 6, 9) and repeated the sorcery collision (ranked item 1); chapter 6 contributed the book’s single highest-density collision zone, containing the core passage (ranked items 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 all converge here); chapter 7 contributed the book’s climactic missing-vocabulary gaps (ranked items 4, 5, 8). No chapter is treated as contributing no linguistic-gap content; each is explicitly logged above rather than silently omitted.