Titus — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

0. Purpose and Method

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the Hmong Titus Language Package. It:

1. Builds a doctrine vocabulary matrix for the seven doctrines assigned to this curriculum (Grace That Trains for Godly Living, Qualifications for Elders, Sound Doctrine and Good Works, Salvation by Grace not Works, Regeneration by the Holy Spirit, Submission to Authority, Avoiding Divisive Controversies), each mapped to the terms already logged in analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json (Titus draft), with weaknesses and a recommended handling strategy.
2. Distinguishes missing vocabulary (concepts Titus requires for which no adequate Hmong term yet exists in either the Romans TM or the Titus registry) from crowded semantic neighborhoods (Hmong roots already carrying multiple, potentially conflicting theological senses within this one short letter) and proposes fencing strategies for each.
3. Documents transliteration vs. paraphrase decisions for proper names and theologically loaded vocabulary unique to Titus.
4. Produces a ranked list of the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities, for prioritized human theologian / native-speaker review.

This analysis never contradicts the Romans baseline (assets/translation_memory.json, assets/bible_term_registry.json, assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json, analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md). Where a Titus term is built on a baseline entry, that dependency is stated explicitly.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

Doctrine	Available Destination-Language Terms (registry refs)	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
1. Grace That Trains for Godly Living (Titus 2:11-14)	txiaj ntsim (grace, #12/BASELINE); kev hwm Vajtswv (godliness, #25); kev tswj tus kheej (self-controlled, #68); uas coj txoj kev cawm dim los (saving, #6); tshwm los / qhov yuav tshwm los rau sawvdaws pom (appearing-triad, #7-#8); lub yeeb koob (glory, #9); kev sib cais ntawm lub sim ceeb no thiab kev hwm Vajtswv (worldly desires vs. godliness, cf. #87)	Grace here is not merely a status conferred but the grammatical subject of an active pedagogical verb (παιδεύουσα, “training/disciplining/instructing”). No Hmong term currently logged captures “grace personified as an active moral tutor.” A literal rendering risks either (a) a passive gloss that loses the personification, or (b) borrowing corporal-discipline vocabulary (nplawm, “to whip/strike”) that would wrongly suggest grace punishes. This is a genuinely missing-vocabulary gap, not a crowded-neighborhood collision.	Render the clause periphrastically as “txiaj ntsim…qhia thiab cob qhia peb kom…” (grace…teaches and trains/disciplines us to…), using the compound qhia + cob qhia (teach + train/rear, the verb used for rearing/training a child in right conduct, not corporal punishment) rather than any single lexeme. Log as [NEW — Titus-specific], pending native-speaker confirmation that cob qhia carries no shamanic-apprenticeship connotation (cf. a shaman’s cob qhia of an apprentice), which must be checked before finalizing.
2. Qualifications for Elders (Titus 1:5-9)	tus txwj laus hauv pawg ntseeg (elder, #38); tus saib xyuas pawg ntseeg (overseer, #39); tus saib xyuas vaj tsev (steward, #42); yog tus txiv ntawm ib tug poj niam xwb (husband of one wife, #64); kev tswj tus kheej / kev tswj lub siab (self-control near-synonyms, #68-#69); tej haujlwm zoo (good works, #21); dawb huv (holy/pure, #70)	Three converging weaknesses: (a) txwj laus already denotes the clan/village elder with existing socio-ritual authority over ancestor rites — an office-boundary risk, not a doctrinal collision per se, but severe if unqualified; (b) elder/overseer (#38/#39) must be taught as one office under two Greek titles, or Hmong hearers may infer two distinct ranks; (c) the one-wife qualification collides directly with historical/diaspora Hmong polygamy.	Maintain the mandatory qualifier hauv pawg ntseeg on every occurrence of txwj laus in this doctrine, paired with an explicit teaching note stating the office excludes authority over ancestor-veneration ritual. Teach #38/#39 side-by-side as one office. For polygamy, require a dedicated catechetical note (not a lexical fix) distinguishing an eldership-qualification standard from a salvation requirement for already-polygamous converts.
3. Sound Doctrine and Good Works (Titus 1:9,13; 2:1,7,10; 3:1,8,14)	kev qhia tseeb uas raug cai (sound doctrine, #46); kev qhia (teaching, generic, #47); tej haujlwm zoo (good works, #21); tus qauv (example, #79); Tej lus no muaj tseeb thiab tsim nyog ntseeg (faithful-saying formula, #48)	“Sound doctrine” has no direct lexical collision but a boundary-drift risk: an under-qualified rendering (“good/correct teaching”) could describe any customary instruction, including traditional ritual instruction, diluting Paul’s specific referent to apostolic, gospel-grounded content.	Never render kev qhia tseeb uas raug cai without contextual anchoring to the gospel/apostolic content of chs. 1-2 (contrast explicitly with tej lus sib cav ruam / zaj lus dab neeg, the letter’s own foils). Treat as a doctrine-boundary term requiring a contrastive teaching note at first occurrence in every lesson unit, per §6 reading-level convention inherited from the Romans baseline.
4. Salvation by Grace not Works (Titus 3:4-7)	txiaj ntsim (grace, BASELINE); txoj kev khuv leej (mercy, BASELINE); tej haujlwm ncaj ncees uas peb tau ua (works excluded, #20); kev cawm dim (salvation, BASELINE); raug suav tias ncaj ncees (justified/reckoned righteous, BASELINE)	Highest lexical density of any single doctrine in this letter: five Critical/High terms co-occur across three verses (3:5-7). The chief risk is not any single term’s collision but cumulative collision compounding — if even one qualifier is dropped (e.g., mercy loses distinction from grace, or “works” loses its dual-sense fencing), the whole soteriological argument of the passage can silently invert toward merit.	Treat 3:4-7 as a single fenced unit: every teaching pass through this passage must verify ALL FIVE terms simultaneously carry their mandatory qualifiers/distinctions (see ranked ambiguity #4 below for the works/works fencing specifically). Recommend a dedicated “five-term checklist” callout box in any Phase 2 lesson covering this passage.
5. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)	kev raug yug dua tshiab (regeneration, #29); kev ntxuav (washing, #30); Vaj Ntsuj Plig (Holy Spirit, BASELINE/Critical); kev hloov siab tshiab los ntawm Vaj Ntsuj Plig (Spirit-renewal, #31)	This is the single highest-priority collision in the whole letter (see ranked list §4.1). Yug dua (“born again”) sits immediately beside a folk-cosmology concept of soul-portions being reborn in a descendant, and immediately beside kev ntxuav (washing), which shares the kevcai purification-ritual root, and immediately requires the mandatory Vaj-prefixed Holy Spirit reference — three collision-adjacent terms compressed into one verse.	Never present 3:5 without a compound teaching note covering all three items together: (a) regeneration is a one-time, non-cyclical, whole-person spiritual event, not soul-transmigration; (b) the washing is a single spiritual reality accomplished by the Spirit, not a repeatable ritual cleansing; (c) Vaj Ntsuj Plig, never bare ntsuj plig. Escalate every Phase 2 draft touching 3:5 to BOTH human theologian and native-speaker review before publication (no automated-review bypass), matching the escalation tier the Romans baseline reserves for its most severe collisions.
6. Submission to Authority (Titus 2:5, 2:9, 3:1)	txo hwjchim nyob rau hauv (submit, #60); cov muaj hwjchim kav teb chaws (governing authorities, BASELINE/#61); mloog cov nom tswv lus (obey rulers, #62); tus tswv qhev (master of a slave, #43)	Unlike Romans, where the submission-to-authority risk was primarily the hwjchim/shamanic-power collision, in Titus the dominant risk is social reinforcement: Hmong clan culture already carries strong pre-existing hierarchical submission norms (wife-to-husband, junior-to-elder, slave-to-master-analogues), so an unqualified rendering risks being received as blanket endorsement of unrestricted patriarchal/civil authoritarianism rather than Paul’s specific, gospel-shaped, three-relationship parallel structure.	Render hypotassō identically at all three occurrences (2:5, 2:9, 3:1) to preserve Paul’s structural parallel, but pair EVERY occurrence with a teaching note bounding the submission to its gospel purpose (2:5’s “so that the word of God may not be reviled”; 3:1-2’s civic-peaceableness purpose), never presenting it as an unqualified endorsement of existing Hmong hierarchical norms.
7. Avoiding Divisive Controversies (Titus 3:9-11)	tej lus sib cav ruam (foolish controversies, #54); keeb kwm xeem (genealogies, #55); kev sib cav thiab kev sib ceg txog Txoj Kevcai (quarrels/fights about the law, #56); tus ua kom sib cais ua pab ua pawg (divisive person, #57)	keeb kwm xeem is a direct, high-stakes collision: Hmong clan genealogy is central to identity, funeral ritual, and social structure. An unscoped rendering of 3:9 risks sounding like Scripture condemns clan-genealogy practice itself, which is not Paul’s target (Jewish/gnostic-influenced speculative lineage-mythology).	Never render 3:9’s genealogies clause without an explicit scoping clause identifying the target as the false teachers’ speculative, doctrine-distorting lineage tales — NOT Hmong clan genealogy generally. This scoping note is mandatory at every occurrence, structurally identical to the mandatory qualifier-phrase convention the Romans baseline requires for Txoj Kevcai and hwjchim.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Missing vocabulary (no adequate Hmong term yet logged)

These are concepts Titus requires for which the existing Romans TM plus the current Titus registry provide no adequate handling — genuine gaps, not collisions with an existing competing sense.

Gap	Greek	Issue	Recommended Handling
Grace as active personified trainer	παιδεύουσα (2:12)	No single Hmong verb captures “grace itself disciplines/trains toward character” without either flattening the personification or importing corporal-discipline connotations.	Periphrastic compound qhia thiab cob qhia (see Matrix row 1). Flag cob qhia for native-speaker confirmation it carries no shamanic-apprenticeship overtone.
Fixed cross-book title-sharing mechanism for σωτήρ	σωτήρ ×6 (1:3,4; 2:10,13; 3:4,6)	The Romans baseline never needed a single fixed title applied identically and repeatedly to BOTH Father and Son within one short letter; Romans’s closest analogue (9:5) is a single verse, not a six-fold refrain. Titus requires a reuse discipline — not a new word, but a new enforcement rule — that does not yet exist in the TM apparatus.	Adopt tus Cawmseej (already proposed in the glossary/registry, #5) as a single fixed title and add an explicit cross-reference rule to the eventual Titus TM: this string must appear character-for-character at all six occurrences with no stylistic variation, exactly as the Romans baseline mandates for Vaj Ntsuj Plig. This is a process gap, logged here so it is not lost before Phase 2 generation.
Distinct verb for “manifested/made known” (φανερόω) vs. the ἐπιφαίνω appearing-family	φανερόω (1:3) vs. ἐπιφαίνω (2:11; 2:13; 3:4)	Hmong lacks two clearly distinct roots for these; both risk being flattened to “tshwm/qhia,” collapsing Paul’s literary appearing-triad structure with the separate revelation-of-the-word statement of 1:3.	Keep tau qhia tawm los (#10) reserved exclusively for 1:3’s φανερόω, and tshwm los / qhov yuav tshwm los rau sawvdaws pom (#7/#8) reserved exclusively for the ἐπιφαίνω family; document this as a structural, not lexical, fencing rule for consistency across lessons.
A dedicated proper-name transliteration policy for Titus-specific names	Τίτος, Κρής/Κρήτη, Ζηνᾶς, Ἀπολλῶς, Νικόπολις	None of these proper names occur in Romans; no established Hmong Bible-tradition transliteration is yet confirmed for this Language Package.	See §3 below (Transliteration Decisions). Logged as [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] pending verification against the published Hmong Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum (HWB) text, per the escalation rule in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md §9 for genuinely new terms with no TM entry.

2.2 Crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring fencing

These Hmong roots are not missing — they are already doing double or triple doctrinal duty within this one short letter, creating a much higher density of same-root collision risk per verse than Romans exhibited. Each requires an explicit fencing strategy so that one lesson’s use of the root does not bleed meaning into another.

(a) The dawb huv root (holy/pure/sanctified/priestly-fitting) — appears across FOUR distinct senses in Titus alone:

• Elder qualification “holy” (#70, ὅσιος, 1:8)
• Younger women’s “pure/chaste” (#70/#77, ἁγνός, 2:5)
• The “defiled” negative counterpart (#71, μεμιαμμένος, 1:15)
• Older women’s “reverent/priestly-fitting” demeanor (#77/#92, ἱεροπρεπής, 2:3)
• (Inherited from Romans) sanctification (kev raug ua kom dawb huv) and baptismal washing (#30, kev ntxuav, 3:5)

Fencing strategy: Each of the four Titus-specific senses must carry its own qualifying phrase distinguishing it from folk ritual-purity (already flagged generically in the Romans baseline for sanctification): elder-holiness as dawb huv, tsis muaj chaw thuam (holy, above reproach); women’s purity as dawb huv, tsis muaj chaw thuam with an explicit moral-not-ritual gloss; defilement as qias tsis huv kept as a strict antonym pair with holiness, never independently glossed; priestly-fitting demeanor kept deliberately muted (per the Romans priestly_minister strategy) as coj lub neej dawb huv thiab hwm Vajtswv, explicitly avoiding txiv neeb framing. A single consolidated teaching note explaining that none of these senses refers to ritual/spirit-contamination cleanliness should accompany the FIRST occurrence of any dawb huv form in each lesson module.

(b) The qhev / ua qhev root (bondservant/slave) — appears with THREE distinct valences:

• Paul’s honored self-designation (#37, δοῦλος, 1:1)
• Literal household slaves under literal human masters (#37/#43, 2:9-10)
• Degrading, involuntary enslavement to wine/desire (#80, δουλεύω/δουλόω, 2:3, 3:3)

Fencing strategy: Retain the single Hmong root (unavoidable, per the Romans baseline’s own treatment of δοῦλος) but require an explicit valence-marking teaching note at every occurrence distinguishing “willing, honored bondservice to a worthy Master” (senses 1-2) from “shameful, involuntary enslavement to sin” (sense 3). Never let a single lesson introduce more than one valence of qhev without this explicit contrast, since the shared root makes silent conflation especially easy in Titus (unlike Romans, where the honored sense dominates and the degrading sense is comparatively rare).

(c) The tswv root (lord/master) — a NEW script-level risk not present in Romans:

• tus Tswv (BASELINE, the divine Lord, applied to God/Christ)
• tus tswv qhev (#43, δεσπότης, a human slave-owner, 2:9)

Fencing strategy: In RPA script, capitalization is not phonemically marked and cannot be relied upon in read-aloud or oral-curriculum contexts. The qualifying phrase qhev after tswv (i.e., always tus tswv qhev, never bare tus tswv) is mandatory and non-optional whenever the human-master sense is intended — this is a harder constraint in Titus than in Romans, since Romans never applies δεσπότης to a human referent. Any Phase 2 content introducing a human “master” figure (2:9-10) must run a specific check that tus Tswv (divine) has not been used unqualified for what should be tus tswv qhev (human).

(d) The hwm root (honor/reverence) — carries the SAME ancestor-veneration collision risk documented in Romans for pehawm (latreuō), now extended to a new headline term:

• kev hwm Vajtswv (#25, godliness/εὐσέβεια, the letter’s positive keynote virtue, 1:1; 2:12)
• tus tsis hwm Vajtswv (#24, ungodly/ἀσεβής, negative counterpart, 2:12)

Fencing strategy: Identical to the Romans baseline’s mandatory-object rule for pehawm: the object Vajtswv must NEVER be dropped from either the positive or negative form. Because hwm is also the verb for honoring ancestors and household/nature spirits (hwm dab, hwm poj koob yawm txwv), and because “godliness” recurs as a headline term across both ch.1 and ch.2 (unlike Romans’s single-occurrence eusebeia-adjacent vocabulary), this fencing rule carries higher cumulative exposure in Titus than in Romans and should be flagged for its own dedicated first-occurrence teaching note in every lesson module, not merely a footnote.

(e) The hwjchim root (power/authority) — inherited crowding, now with an added Titus-specific layer:

• Vajtswv hwjchim (BASELINE, God’s power)
• cov muaj hwjchim kav teb chaws (BASELINE/#61, governing authorities, 3:1)
• txo hwjchim nyob rau hauv (#60, submit, used for wives/slaves/citizens, 2:5, 2:9, 3:1) — this compound literally contains the hwjchim root inside the verb “submit” itself, a construction not present in the Romans baseline’s submission-adjacent vocabulary.

Fencing strategy: Because Titus’s chosen verb for “submit” is itself built on the flagged hwjchim morpheme, every occurrence of txo hwjchim nyob rau hauv carries a compounded double burden: it must be read neither as “reduce one’s shamanic ritual power” nor as “submit to something functionally identical to shamanic power,” but as a bounded, gospel-shaped act of yielding social position. This is a new interaction not present in Romans (where hwjchim and submission-adjacent vocabulary did not share a root) and should be logged as a distinct Titus-specific fencing note, reviewed alongside — but not conflated with — the inherited hwjchim/governing-authority note.

(f) The xaiv / election-adjacent root, now extended with a “special possession” collocation:

• kev xaiv (BASELINE, election)
• cov uas Vajtswv xaiv (#16, elect, 1:1)
• ib haiv neeg uas Vajtswv xaiv ua nws tug tshwj xeeb (#35, “a people for God’s own possession,” 2:14)

Fencing strategy: Both retain the mandatory volitional clause per the Romans baseline (never bare hmoov-adjacent vocabulary). Additionally, haiv neeg (“people/ethnic group”) in #35 requires its own separate fencing note, distinct from the election-fatalism collision: Hmong social use of haiv neeg defaults to ethnic/clan-lineage identity, and without a scoping note hearers may read “a people for God’s own possession” as describing a new ethnic-lineage group rather than a transnational, spiritual covenant community. This is a comprehension-fencing issue layered on top of, not identical to, the election-collision fencing.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Consistent with the Romans baseline’s general principle (loanwords are rejected for doctrinally load-bearing common nouns — e.g., hilastērion, baptism — but retained for proper names and already-settled Christian vocabulary — e.g., Yexus Khetos, Abba), the following decisions govern Titus-specific vocabulary:

Item	Decision	Rationale
Titus (recipient’s name)	Transliterate: Titau (provisional)	Follows the established pattern of adapting proper names to Hmong phonotactics (cf. Povlauj for Paul, Yexus for Jesus). [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: verify against the published Hmong Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum (HWB) rendering of "Titus" before finalizing; do not treat "Titau" as permanent until confirmed].
Book title / citation form	Provisional: Tsab Ntawv uas Povlauj Sau rau Titau (“The Letter Paul Wrote to Titus”), abbreviated thereafter to Titau, mirroring the Romans baseline’s Loos citation convention (§7 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md)	Consistency with the established Romans citation pattern; chapter:verse format should follow identically: Titau [chapter]:[verse], e.g. Titau 2:11. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] pending confirmation of the abbreviated book-name form against existing Hmong Bible tradition.
Crete / Cretans	Transliterate: Kelej (place), cov Kalej (people) (provisional)	No native descriptive equivalent exists; proper geographic/ethnic names are transliterated per established convention, parallel to cov Yudas / cov Kilis in the Romans baseline. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED].
Zenas, Apollos (3:13)	Transliterate directly: Xenas, Apoloj (provisional; Apoloj likely already fixed elsewhere in Hmong NT tradition from Acts/1 Corinthians)	Standard proper-name transliteration; Apoloj especially should be checked against existing Hmong Bible tradition since he appears elsewhere in the NT. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED].
Nicopolis (3:12)	Transliterate: Nikaupauliv (provisional)	Standard place-name transliteration; low doctrinal stakes, comprehension-level only.
Epimenides (the unnamed Cretan “prophet”)	Paraphrase, not transliterate: tus kws sau lus (already fixed at registry #45)	The poet is never named in the text itself (Paul says only “one of their own prophets”); no proper name needs transliteration, but the title “prophet” must be deliberately paraphrased away from tus yaj saub (the canonical-Scripture-authority term) to avoid conferring inappropriate scriptural authority on a pagan source, per the existing registry note.
σωτήρ / Savior	Paraphrase, not transliterate/loanword: tus Cawmseej	Rejects any transliterated-loanword option in favor of a native compound, consistent with the Romans baseline’s rejection of loanwords for hilastērion and baptism; a loanword here would sidestep rather than resolve the Father/Son title-sharing consistency requirement (see ranked ambiguity #2 below), and would cut the term off from existing Hmong Christian usage of Cawmseej-family vocabulary already in circulation for “Savior.”
παλιγγενεσία / Regeneration	Paraphrase: kev raug yug dua tshiab	A transliterated loanword was considered and rejected for the same reason the Romans baseline rejected loanwords for baptism/propitiation: it would be doctrinally opaque and would prevent the mandatory contrast-teaching against soul-reincarnation, which is precisely the collision requiring active management, not avoidance.
μῦθοι / Myths	Paraphrase: zaj lus dab neeg, NOT a transliterated loanword	A loanword would avoid the dab (spirit) root entirely but would also strip the term of any teachable connection to Hmong oral-tradition tale-forms, making the required scoping note (myths = the false teachers’ speculative fables, not Hmong folklore generally) harder to anchor concretely. The native compound, carefully scoped, is judged more pedagogically useful than an opaque loanword here.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × density of co-occurring risk in the same verse-cluster). All items ranked High or above require mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 publication, consistent with assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json’s routing rule inherited from the Romans baseline.

4.1 — CRITICAL: Regeneration (παλιγγενεσία) vs. soul-reincarnation (Titus 3:5)

The single highest-risk item in the letter. kev raug yug dua tshiab sits directly beside kev ntxuav (washing, itself kevcai-root-collision-adjacent) and the mandatory Vaj Ntsuj Plig marker, compressing three collision-prone terms into one verse. A failure here does not merely under-teach a doctrine — it risks actively converting the doctrine’s content into its Hmong cosmological opposite (a repeatable, cyclical soul-event rather than a once-for-all, whole-person new birth). Escalation: human theologian + native speaker, no automated bypass, before any TM-revision finalizes.

4.2 — CRITICAL: Savior title-sharing consistency (σωτήρ, six occurrences)

Not a traditional-religion collision but a translation-discipline failure risk with Christological consequences equal to Romans 9:5. If tus Cawmseej is not rendered identically at all six occurrences (1:3,4; 2:10,13; 3:4,6), the letter’s deliberate Father/Son title-sharing — which underwrites the full-deity claim of 2:13 — silently erodes into an implied distinction between a “greater” divine Savior and a “lesser” human-adjacent one. Escalation: human theologian, same tier as Romans 9:5.

4.3 — CRITICAL: Works/works dual-sense wordplay (ἔργα, excluded ground vs. commanded fruit)

The Titus-specific analogue of the Romans flesh/sarx dual-sense discipline. tej haujlwm ncaj ncees uas peb tau ua (3:5, excluded ground) and tej haujlwm zoo (six other occurrences, commanded fruit) must remain the SAME lexeme family with opposite doctrinal function, requiring accompanying teaching material at every occurrence specifying which sense is in play. Given that Hmong customary morality already frames right-standing as achievable through right conduct (the same base tendency the Romans baseline flags for sin_act_and_condition and dikaiosynē), this wordplay is unusually exposed to silent doctrinal collapse in Titus specifically because ch.3 places both senses within four verses of each other (3:5 vs. 3:8).

4.4 — CRITICAL: Grace as active personified trainer (παιδεύουσα, 2:12) [missing-vocabulary gap]

Not a traditional-religion collision but a genuine lexical gap (§2.1) whose mishandling would either flatten Paul’s central metaphor for this doctrine (“Grace That Trains for Godly Living”) into passive status-language, or risk implying grace disciplines through corporal correction. Ranked Critical because this is the doctrine’s headline verse and currently has no vetted Hmong rendering at all — highest urgency for a first TM-revision cycle alongside 4.1-4.3.

4.5 — HIGH: Genealogies (γενεαλογίαι) vs. Hmong clan-genealogy identity (Titus 3:9)

A direct, specific, high-cultural-stakes collision: unscoped, this verse risks being heard as Scripture condemning the keeb kwm xeem tradition central to Hmong identity and funeral ritual, rather than the false teachers’ speculative lineage-mythology Paul actually targets.

4.6 — HIGH: Elder (πρεσβύτερος) vs. clan-elder ritual authority (Titus 1:5-9)

tus txwj laus hauv pawg ntseeg’s root already carries real socio-ritual authority in Hmong village/clan structure, including presiding over ancestor-veneration rites. Without the mandatory hauv pawg ntseeg qualifier and an accompanying scope-limiting note, hearers may assume the biblical office inherits or authorizes that broader ritual role.

4.7 — HIGH: Godliness (εὐσέβεια) vs. ancestor/spirit veneration (Titus 1:1; 2:12)

kev hwm Vajtswv reuses the exact verb (hwm) used for honoring ancestors and household/nature spirits. As this book’s positive keynote virtue (occurring at both the letter’s opening and its ethical climax), the mandatory-object rule (hwm Vajtswv, never bare) carries higher cumulative exposure here than any single Romans occurrence of the analogous pehawm risk.

4.8 — HIGH: Washing (λουτρόν) vs. ritual purification (Titus 3:5)

Compounds directly with 4.1 (regeneration) in the same verse; inherits the kevcai-root collision already documented for baptism in the Romans baseline, now applied to a second, adjacent term in the same clause.

4.9 — HIGH: tus Tswv (divine Lord) vs. tus tswv qhev (human slave-master) script-level homophony (Titus 2:9)

A risk class not present anywhere in Romans: in unaccented RPA script, dropping the qhev qualifier collapses a human slave-owner into the divine Lord title. Purely mechanical/orthographic in cause but doctrinally serious in effect if missed.

4.10 — HIGH: Submission (ὑποτάσσω) reinforcing existing patriarchal/authoritarian norms (Titus 2:5, 2:9, 3:1)

Distinct from the Romans-documented hwjchim collision: the dominant risk here is social over-reinforcement rather than under-comprehension, since Hmong clan culture already supplies strong pre-existing hierarchical submission norms into which an unqualified rendering could be absorbed without any of Paul’s gospel-shaped qualifications surviving.

4.11 — HIGH: One-wife elder qualification vs. historical/diaspora Hmong polygamy (Titus 1:6)

A direct social-practice collision requiring a dedicated pastoral-catechetical strategy (not a lexical fix) for congregations that include polygamous converts.

4.12 — MEDIUM-HIGH: Myths/fables (μῦθοι) vs. Hmong oral-tradition folktales (dab neeg) (Titus 1:14)

The dab (spirit) root risks an over-broad condemnation of Hmong storytelling tradition generally if the scoping note (false teachers’ speculative Jewish-influenced fables, not Hmong folklore) is dropped.

4.13 — MEDIUM-HIGH: Foolish controversies (μωραὶ ζητήσεις) vs. legitimate doctrinal inquiry (Titus 3:9)

Risk of doctrinal-boundary overcorrection: without careful scoping, this command could be misapplied to suppress legitimate theological question-asking, which Titus itself commands elsewhere (1:9’s teaching/refuting function).

4.14 — MEDIUM: σώφρων / ἐγκράτεια near-synonym distinction (Titus 1:8; 2:2,4,5,6,12)

Six-fold recurrence of kev tswj tus kheej across every social group addressed in ch.2 makes consistency itself the primary risk (structural repetition must survive translation), while its co-occurrence with the near-synonym kev tswj lub siab (1:8) requires the two to remain lexically distinguishable despite overlapping English glosses.

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5. Governance Note

This gap analysis identifies 4 genuinely missing-vocabulary items, 6 crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring explicit fencing (beyond those already fenced in the Romans baseline), 8 transliteration/paraphrase decisions (all but one — σωτήρ, παλιγγενεσία, μῦθοι, which are settled paraphrase decisions inheriting Romans-baseline logic — flagged [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] pending verification against published Hmong Bible tradition), and a 14-item ranked ambiguity list, of which the top 4 are Critical and the next 7 are High.

No chapter of Titus is silently unaddressed by this analysis: chapter 1 supplies the elder-qualification, godliness, and myths/prophet gaps; chapter 2 supplies the grace-training, appearing-triad, submission, and near-synonym self-control gaps; chapter 3 supplies the regeneration, washing, works-wordplay, genealogies, and foolish-controversies gaps — consistent with the full-book-coverage mandate governing this Language Package.

All items in §4 ranked High or Critical require human theologian review before Phase 2 publication; items 4.1 and 4.4 additionally require native-speaker review before any permanent TM-revision entry is finalized, per the escalation classes established in analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md §9 of the Romans baseline, which this document extends without contradiction.