06 — Linguistic Gap Analysis: 1 John (Kurdish / Kurmanji)

Purpose

This analysis identifies where Kurmanji Kurdish has (a) no native vocabulary for a 1 John concept, (b) an available term that is already “crowded” by a competing regional religious or political meaning requiring deliberate fencing, or (c) a genuine linguistic asset that should be exploited with care. It builds directly on 08_core_glossary.md and the baseline translation_memory.json/bible_term_registry.json, and must not contradict either. Coverage spans all five chapters of 1 John, anchored on the core passage 4:7-21.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

1.1 God is Light and God is Love (1:5; 4:8,16)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
God is Light	Ronahî (light)	Kurdistan’s pre-Islamic Zoroastrian substrate and living Yazidi practice (fire/sun veneration, Newroz, Lalish) carry an indigenous light-vs-darkness cosmic dualism: two co-existing, competing eternal principles. John’s “God is Light” is an ethical-relational essence-statement, not a claim that Light is one of two eternal cosmic forces.	Use Ronahî (already registered Critical) but require accompanying teaching note at every occurrence of 1:5-7 that darkness (Tarî) has no independent ontological power — it is the mere absence of God’s purity, not a rival eternal principle. Never let the pairing stand as bare poetic contrast without this gloss.
God is Love	Evîn (love, noun)	Kurdish classical Sufi poetry (Melayê Cizîrî, Ehmedê Xanî) has cultivated Evîn/evîndar into a rich mystical lover-beloved register describing human-divine union (wahdat al-wujud-adjacent). “God is Love” risks being absorbed as a devotional invitation to mystical merger rather than John’s point: a personal God whose love is historically, concretely demonstrated by sending His Son (4:9-10).	Retain Evîn (already registered Critical) but mandate that every occurrence of 4:8,16 within the core passage be textually anchored to 4:9-10’s historical sending-and-propitiation act, not left as an unanchored essence-statement.
Darkness	Tarî	Same dualism risk as Ronahî, companion term.	Always teach as privation, never a competing force; pair systematically with the Ronahî teaching note.
Walk (conduct) in light/darkness	meşîn	Low risk on its own; the doctrinal weight rides entirely on Ronahî/Tarî.	Standard rendering sufficient; no additional fencing needed beyond the paired terms.

1.2 Fellowship with God and One Another (1:3,6-7; 4:9,14,17)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Fellowship (koinōnia)	Hevaltî (REUSED from baseline)	The baseline flagged Hevaltî’s secular “heval” (comrade) political-solidarity echo as Medium risk in Romans, where only the horizontal sense (believer-to-believer) was load-bearing. 1 John 1:3,6-7 uniquely requires the same word to carry both a vertical sense (fellowship with the Father and the Son) and a horizontal sense (fellowship with one another) within a few verses — a dual load the Romans package did not test.	Elevate doctrine-level risk to reflect this dual load (already done in doctrine registry below); require translator notes distinguishing “hevaltî bi Xwedê re” (with God) from “hevaltî bi hev re” (with one another) wherever both occur close together, so the reader does not collapse the vertical claim into a merely social one.
World (neutral sense, object of God’s love)	cîhan	Genuine gap: Kurdish, like English, uses one root (dinya/cîhan family) for “world” across senses; the neutral sense at 4:9,14,17 must be disambiguated from the negative kosmos-system sense (see 1.7 below) purely by context and by consistently using cîhan (not dinya) for the neutral referent.	Fix cîhan for 4:9,14,17 (neutral/comprehensive humanity) and dinya for the negative world-system sense throughout, as a systematic disambiguation convention — not merely a per-verse judgment call.
Know (relational, ginōskō)	nasîn	Risk of flattening into factual/informational knowing (paralleling Îman’s creedal-assent risk). No dedicated Kurdish verb distinguishes relational/experiential knowing from propositional knowing as Greek’s ginōskō/oida distinction does.	Use nasîn consistently and rely on context (obedience/love as evidence, 2:3-5) to carry the experiential sense; flag for native-speaker review at each occurrence per the doctrine registry entry.

1.3 Confession and Forgiveness of Sin (1:7-10; 2:1-2,12; 4:10; 5:16-17)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Sin	Guneh (REUSED)	Confronts the regional fitrah (innate purity) default more sharply here than in Romans — 1:8,10 brands the denial of personal sin as itself making God “a liar” (derewîn), an unusually blunt formulation.	Reuse Guneh exactly; ensure translator notes on 1:8-10 flag the fitrah-collision explicitly, stronger than the baseline’s general Romans note.
Confess (sin)	îtîraf kirin / eşkere kirin	Kurdish Sufi tariqa practice includes structured murīd-to-pîr disclosure of inner states to a living spiritual intermediary. Risk that “confession” is read as requiring (or benefiting from) a human intermediary rather than being direct and unmediated to God.	Use îtîraf kirin / eşkere kirin but require explicit teaching that 1:9’s confession is unmediated — addressed to God Himself, on the basis of Christ’s finished work, with no human pîr/sheikh role.
Cleanse	paqij kirin	Must not merge with baseline’s Teqdîs (Sanctification, ongoing process). Kurdish has no dedicated distinct verb marking a one-time judicial cleansing-upon-confession versus a lifelong purification process; paqij kirin covers general “clean,” used elsewhere for ritual/physical cleanliness too.	Reserve paqij kirin strictly for the 1:7,9 judicial-event sense; reserve Teqdîs strictly for the ongoing-process sense; never substitute one for the other, and add a translator note distinguishing them at first occurrence in each chapter.
Forgiveness	lêbihûrandin	Standing alone this can read as unconditioned leniency/mercy (a “letting go”) without a satisfied legal basis — risking a reading closer to generic clemency than a Christ-secured, propitiation-grounded forgiveness.	Never leave lêbihûrandin unanchored; always pair 1:9 and 2:12 occurrences with explicit reference to Kefaret/hilasmos (2:2; 4:10) as basis.
Propitiation (hilasmos)	Kefaret	Crowded neighborhood, highest severity in this doctrine cluster. Kefaret is the region’s standard loanword for Islamic kaffārah: a legal, self-performed compensatory act (fasting, alms-giving, freeing a slave) undertaken BY THE SINNER to atone for a specific violation. Hilasmos is the opposite mechanism — God Himself, in the Son, provides and bears the atoning sacrifice; the sinner performs no compensatory work.	Kefaret may be used ONLY when explicitly and grammatically anchored to Christ’s own substitutionary death in the same clause or sentence (never as a bare noun). This is now a formal forbidden-substitution rule (see baseline glossary addendum) and must be enforced at validation.
Advocate (paraklētos)	Parêzvan	Distinct from Navbeynkarî (general intercession, reused from baseline); risk of conflation with the region’s shafa’at-adjacent framework (departed saints/holy figures interceding).	Use Parêzvan exclusively for 2:1’s specific legal-defense-counsel image of Christ before the Father; do not substitute Navbeynkarî here, and teach the two as related but distinct offices.
Sin unto death	guneha ber bi mirinê	Genuine interpretive crux in the source text itself (not primarily a translation problem) — risk of silently importing the regional shirk-as-unforgivable-sin framework via word choice alone.	Render literally/plainly; do not resolve ambiguity through vocabulary choice; require accompanying explanatory teaching note flagging the crux as an open interpretive question, per theologian review routing.

1.4 Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth (2:9-11; 3:10-17; 4:7-8,20-21)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Love (verb, agapaō)	hez kirin	Same Sufi mystical-union anchoring risk as Evîn (noun); additional risk that the repeated imperative (“love one another”) is heard as one devotional exercise among others rather than John’s decisive evidentiary test of new birth.	Anchor every 4:7-8,20-21 occurrence explicitly to the new-birth/knowing-God claim it evidences, not merely as an ethical exhortation.
Born of God / new birth	ji Xwedê hatin zayîn	No native regional-Islamic category corresponds (fitrah = innate purity from birth, not a second, supernatural birth). Genuine vocabulary gap requiring a descriptive compound rather than a single word.	Retain the descriptive compound; coordinate explicitly with, but do not collapse into, baseline’s Kurxwendin (legal adoption) — teach both the organic (new birth) and legal (adoption) facets together as complementary, not redundant.
Children of God (tekna theou)	zarokên Xwedê	Kurdish aşîret (tribal) identity is fundamentally blood/lineage-based. Real risk “children of God” is heard as simply extending an existing familiar blood-based membership category rather than a supernatural, Spirit-wrought new identity transcending blood and tribe.	Require explicit teaching contrast with aşîret lineage logic at 3:1-2,10; pair with born-of-God language rather than standing alone.
Commandment (entolē)	Emir	Forbidden substitution risk. “Ferman” (the natural cognate/near-synonym for “decree/command” in general Kurdish usage) carries an active, painful Yazidi genocide-memory association (“the 74 Fermans,” including the 2014 Sinjar genocide) entirely unrelated to, and incompatible with, John’s warm relational sense of God’s charge to love.	Emir only — add to forbidden-substitution list (already done at baseline-addendum level); this is a hard validation-rule requirement, not merely a stylistic preference.
Brother/brethren (adelphos)	bira	Must be distinguished from two separate crowded neighbors: aşîret tribal-fraternity bonds (blood-based) and “heval” political-comrade solidarity (baseline-flagged secular echo on Hevaltî).	Use bira consistently; rely on context (new-birth grounding, 2:29-3:1) to signal this is neither blood-kinship nor political solidarity.
Liar (pseustēs)	derewîn	Kurdish honor-culture convention treats directly branding someone “a liar” as a serious, face-threatening accusation; oral-teaching pressure may soften this to something like “mistaken.”	Preserve full blunt force at 1:10; 2:4,22; 4:20; 5:10 — John’s either/or logical structure depends on it; flag any softened rendering for native-speaker review.

1.5 The Incarnation and Antichrist (1:1-3; 2:18-23; 4:1-6)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Word of Life (Logos)	Peyva Jiyanê	Parallels baseline Tecessud; 1:1-3’s sensory-verb chain (heard/seen/looked upon/touched) is the letter’s own opening anti-docetic argument.	Retain full sensory-verb list in translation; do not compress or summarize it, since the doctrinal force depends on its cumulative sensory specificity.
Christ come in the flesh (4:2)	Îsa Mesîh ku bi laş hatiye eşkere/îtîraf kirin	Direct application of baseline’s Critical Tecessud; must guard against BOTH the mainstream tawhid-denial direction AND the inverted Yazidi/Sufi over-assimilation direction (manifestation-cycle or mystical-union reading) — a dual-direction burden unique to this term class in the Kurdish package.	Require translator note on every 4:2-3 occurrence explicitly naming both directions of error, per the system prompt’s existing dual-caution rule.
Only-begotten (monogenēs)	Kurê Xwedê yê Yekta	Genuine gap: no single Kurdish word captures “uniquely, singularly begotten” without qualification; a bare “Kur” (son) alone would not convey ontological singularity.	Always render as the full qualified compound (Kurê Xwedê yê Yekta), never abbreviate to bare “Kurê Xwedê” in monogenēs-specific verses (4:9), to preserve the singularity claim distinct from generic sonship language.
Antichrist	Dijî-Mesîh	Crowded neighborhood, genuine bridge and genuine risk simultaneously. Regional Sunni eschatology’s al-Masîh ad-Dajjal (“Dajjal”) is structurally similar and widely known — an asset for initial comprehension, but importing Dajjal’s extra-biblical narrative details (one eye, forty-day reign, miracle-working) would distort 1 John’s own, narrower doctrinal-denial definition.	Use Dijî-Mesîh but require every occurrence (2:18,22; 4:3) to be defined strictly by John’s own criterion — denying the Father and the Son (2:22) and denying Christ’s coming in the flesh (4:2-3) — never by physical/narrative description borrowed from Dajjal tradition.
Manifested (phaneroō)	hate xuyakirin	Risk of reading as an ongoing mystical self-disclosure (Sufi tajallî/theophany register) rather than a historical, datable, once-for-all event.	Anchor to the specific historical referent in each context (God’s love shown at the cross, 4:9; Christ’s appearing, 3:5,8); avoid generic “revealing” vocabulary that could suggest repeatability.
Sent (apostellō)	şandin	Risk of reading as sending a mere prophet/messenger (a category mainstream Sunni Islam readily accepts) rather than the unique sending of God’s own only-begotten Son.	Always pair with monogenēs qualifier or explicit Sonship language in the same sentence at 4:9-10,14, so “sent” cannot be misread as prophetic commissioning alone.

1.6 Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life (2:28; 3:14,21; 4:17-18; 5:11-13)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Eternal life	jiyana herheyî	Mainstream regional Islamic eschatology presents Paradise-entry as the outcome of a final divine weighing of deeds, not something claimable with settled present knowledge before death. 5:13’s present-tense assurance is in structural tension with this regional default.	Preserve present-tense grammar exactly (“you may know that you HAVE eternal life,” not “will have” or “may hope to have”); flag any future-tense drift for theologian review per the forbidden-substitution-adjacent rule already in the glossary addendum.
Boldness/confidence (parrēsia)	wêrekî / cesaret	Mainstream regional piety treats confident certainty about one’s own final standing before God as presumptuous overreach.	Ground every occurrence explicitly in Christ’s finished work and perfected love (4:17-18), not human merit or spiritual achievement, to distinguish it from presumption.
Fear (phobos) / Punishment (kolasis)	tirs / ceza	”Tirs” alone does not distinguish servile dread-of-punishment from reverent awe of God (which Scripture elsewhere commends); “ceza” shares vocabulary with regional ‘adhāb (divine punishment) concept, where such dread is normally expected to persist until final judgment.	Explicitly qualify tirs as dread-of-judgment (not reverent awe) at 4:18; explicitly state that perfected love casts out precisely this dread for believers now, against the regional expectation of persistent uncertainty.
Passed from death to life	derbas bûn ji mirinê ber bi jiyanê ve	Must retain decisive, completed-transfer sense; risk of softening into a gradual-improvement metaphor under natural narrative pressure.	Render as a completed-aspect construction; avoid progressive/continuous verb forms.
Savior (sōtēr)	Rizgarkar	Inherits baseline Rizgarî’s full nationalist-political loading — “Rizgarkar” risks being heard as a political liberator of Kurdistan rather than personal spiritual Savior.	Never leave unanchored; always pair with explicit reference to personal deliverance from sin at 4:14, following the same discipline baseline requires for Rizgarî generally.
Testify/Witness (martyreō/martyria)	şahidî dan / şahidî	No independent gap; low risk beyond requiring verb-noun consistency.	Render consistently across 4:14 and 5:6-11 so the forensic-witness argument reads as one coherent unit.
Water and blood	av û xwîn	Genuine scholarly ambiguity over referent (baptism/cross? sacraments? birth and death?) — a source-text interpretive gap, not primarily a lexical one.	Render literally without over-specifying; avoid teaching notes that assert a single interpretation as textually certain.

1.7 Overcoming the World (2:13-17; 4:1,4-6; 5:4-5,19)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Overcome (nikaō)	serkeftin	Crowded neighborhood. Serkeftin is the standard modern Kurdish word for political, military, and revolutionary victory (serkeftina şoreşê, “victory of the revolution”) — extremely current, emotionally resonant vocabulary given the Kurdish liberation-struggle context the baseline already documents for Rizgarî and Hilbijartin.	Never leave unanchored; every occurrence (2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5) must be explicitly tied to faith in the Son of God (5:4-5) as the means of victory, distinguishing spiritual victory over sin/the world from any political/military reading. Add to forbidden-unanchored-use list (already flagged in glossary addendum).
World, negative sense (kosmos)	dinya	Regional Islamic dunya/ākhirah (this-world/hereafter) framework is fundamentally temporal. John’s sense is a moral-allegiance system opposed to God, a different axis entirely. Risk of flattening John’s ethical-spiritual antithesis into the familiar temporal-eschatological one.	Fix dinya for this sense specifically as “world-system,” and require explicit teaching that the contrast is allegiance-based (loving the world vs. loving the Father, 2:15) not merely temporal (this life vs. the next).
World, neutral sense (kosmos)	cîhan	See 1.2 above; same root ambiguity in reverse.	Systematic dinya/cîhan split as the disambiguation convention (see 1.2).
Worldly desires triad (2:16)	xwestekên laş, xwestekên çavan, û pesindayîna jiyanê	Genuine asset: Sufi teaching on the nafs (lower self) offers real point of contact for ascetic/moral vocabulary.	Exploit this resonance for teaching warmth, but anchor the remedy explicitly in new birth/abiding in Christ (2:24-29), not ascetic self-discipline alone, to avoid a works-based remedy reading.
Devil (diabolos)	Şeytan	Shared antagonist vocabulary across Islamic, Yazidi (distinct cosmology centered on Melek Taus), and folk traditions — largely an asset.	Use with awareness of differing regional fall/role narratives; no fencing required beyond general awareness note.

1.8 Testing the Spirits (2:20,27; 4:1-6)

Doctrine element	Available Kurdish term(s)	Weakness / gap	Recommended strategy
Test the spirits (dokimazete ta pneumata)	ruhan biceribînin	Kurdistan’s religious landscape includes widespread folk-Islamic belief in cin (jinn) requiring discernment/exorcism, Yazidi veneration practice, and Sufi discernment under a pîr’s guidance. Risk of assimilation into general folk spiritual-discernment/exorcism practice rather than John’s narrow, specific doctrinal test.	Every occurrence of 4:1 must be immediately followed by, or explicitly cross-referenced to, the specific Christological confession test of 4:2-3 — never presented as a general spiritual-discernment technique.
Anointing (chrisma)	Rûnkirin	Crowded neighborhood. Kurdish Sufi tariqa structure transmits esoteric spiritual knowledge hierarchically through a silsila (chain of authority, sheikh/pîr to murīd), reserved for advanced initiates. 1 John teaches the opposite: every believer, without hierarchical mediation, has received the Spirit’s anointing.	Explicit teaching contrast required at 2:20,27: no human spiritual master/pîr is needed; the anointing is universal among genuine believers, not tiered by spiritual rank.
Spirit of truth / error (4:6)	Ruhê Rastiyê / Ruhê Şaşîtiyê	Risk of being read as merely differing human viewpoints or teaching styles rather than opposing spiritual realities.	Teach explicitly as ontologically distinct spiritual sources (one divine, one deceptive), preserving the doctrinal weight of the antichrist test rather than diluting it into a matter of opinion.
Holy Spirit (background to all of the above)	Ruhê Pîroz (REUSED)	Regional tafsir identification with the created angel Jibril.	Reuse baseline discipline exactly; explicit created-being-versus-divine-Person distinction required at every occurrence within this doctrine cluster too (3:24; 4:2,13).

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Genuine Missing Vocabulary (no adequate single native term; descriptive compounds required)

Concept	Gap type	Kurdish solution	Note
Justification/imputation-adjacent “born of God”	No native category (fitrah is innate purity, not new birth)	ji Xwedê hatin zayîn (descriptive compound)	Consistent with baseline’s general preference for compounds over risky single-word coinages
Only-begotten (monogenēs)	No single word for “uniquely/singularly begotten”	Kurê Xwedê yê Yekta (compound qualifier)	Must not be abbreviated
Propitiation as God-provided atonement	No native term free of the self-performed-kaffārah association	Kefaret + mandatory anchoring clause	Not a true lexical gap but a “false friend” gap — see 2.2
Christ come in the flesh (4:2 confession formula)	No single verb; requires the full confessional clause	Îsa Mesîh ku bi laş hatiye eşkere/îtîraf kirin	Full clause must be preserved, not compressed
Passed from death to life	No single verb for this decisive transfer	derbas bûn ji mirinê ber bi jiyanê ve (descriptive compound)	Completed-aspect grammar required

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Deliberate Fencing

These are cases where a perfectly good, established Kurdish word already carries a strong competing association from Islam, Sufism, Yazidism, tribal (aşîret) social structure, or Kurdish nationalist/political vocabulary, and therefore needs an explicit “fence” (anchoring rule, forbidden-substitution rule, or mandatory teaching note) rather than substitution:

1. Ronahî/Tarî (Light/Darkness) — fenced against Zoroastrian/Yazidi cosmic dualism.
2. Evîn/hez kirin (Love) — fenced against Sufi mystical lover-beloved union register.
3. Kefaret (Propitiation) — fenced against Islamic kaffārah self-performed compensation; hardest fence in the letter, given the word’s near-total capture by the Islamic legal concept in ordinary usage.
4. Emir vs. Ferman (Commandment) — fenced by hard forbidden-substitution rule against Yazidi genocide-memory association.
5. Rûnkirin (Anointing) — fenced against Sufi tariqa hierarchical-transmission model.
6. Ruhan biceribînin (Test the spirits) — fenced against folk jinn-discernment/exorcism practice.
7. Dijî-Mesîh (Antichrist) — fenced against Dajjal narrative over-import.
8. Serkeftin (Overcome) — fenced against Kurdish nationalist/revolutionary-victory rhetoric (same family of risk as baseline’s Rizgarî/Hilbijartin).
9. Rizgarkar (Savior) — fenced against political-liberator reading (direct extension of baseline Rizgarî discipline).
10. zarokên Xwedê (Children of God) — fenced against aşîret blood-lineage membership logic.
11. derewîn (Liar) — fenced against honor-culture softening pressure (a social/register fence, not a doctrinal-collision fence, but still required).
12. dinya/cîhan (World, negative/neutral) — fenced by a systematic root-split convention against collapsing into the dunya/ākhirah temporal framework.

2.3 Terms Confirmed as Genuine Assets (no fencing needed beyond standard care)

• Aştî-adjacent relational vocabulary is not heavily used in 1 John, but the general principle from Sufi poetic warmth (baseline note) extends usefully to Evîn/hez kirin for devotional register, provided the mandatory anchor (2.2 #2) is applied.
• xwestekên laş, xwestekên çavan, û pesindayîna jiyanê (2:16 triad) — genuine positive resonance with Sufi nafs teaching; exploit for warmth, anchor remedy in new birth per 1.7 above.
• deyndar bûn (owe/debt-obligation, 4:11) — genuine resonance with Kurdish tribal reciprocity/hospitality-obligation custom; asset provided it is not confused with earning grace (contrary to baseline Kerem entry).
• Şeytan — shared antagonist vocabulary, asset across traditions with only light awareness-level caution needed.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
Îsa, Mesîh	Transliteration (established, REUSED)	Baseline’s settled, uncontroversial Kurdish Christian usage; no rival native form exists
Xwedê	Native term, not transliteration	Genuine Northwestern Iranian cognate asset per baseline; retained exactly
Kefaret	Transliteration/loanword retained, NOT replaced	No safe native alternative exists; the loanword itself is not the problem, its unanchored use is — solved by mandatory anchoring clause, not by avoiding the word
Dijî-Mesîh (Antichrist)	Paraphrase-compound (Dijî = “against” + Mesîh), not a transliteration of Greek antichristos or an adoption of “Dajjal”	Preserves recognizability as a Christ-related term while avoiding importing Dajjal’s specific narrative content
Parêzvan (Advocate)	Native paraphrase, not a transliteration of paraklētos	No natural Kurdish transliteration path exists; “Parêzvan” (defender/protector, from parastin) captures the legal-defense image natively
Rûnkirin (Anointing)	Native paraphrase (from rûn, oil)	Retains the literal oil-anointing image, avoids any Arabic-loanword association with Islamic ritual anointing terms
Peyva Jiyanê (Word of Life)	Native compound paraphrase	Parallels baseline’s preference for native compounds (e.g., Kurxwendin) over Arabic-derived alternatives
Aba (Abba, background reference only — not primary in 1 John but relevant to Bav/Father cluster)	Transliteration retained per baseline	Preserves Aramaic intimacy register distinct from formal Bav
Amîn, Hallelûya (general liturgical forms, background)	Transliteration retained per baseline	Established convention; no change needed for this curriculum
ji Xwedê hatin zayîn (Born of God)	Paraphrase (full descriptive clause), not a single coined word	A single-word coinage risks obscurity; the descriptive clause is transparent and matches the register of existing Kurdish Christian literature
guneha ber bi mirinê (Sin unto death)	Literal paraphrase, deliberately non-resolving	Preserves source-text ambiguity rather than importing an interpretive resolution via word choice

General principle applied throughout: transliteration is preferred only where (a) an established, uncontroversial Kurdish Christian form already exists (proper names, liturgical exclamations), or (b) no safe native paraphrase exists and the loanword’s risk can be adequately fenced by an anchoring rule (Kefaret). Native paraphrase/compounding is preferred everywhere else, consistent with the baseline’s stated preference for native Kurdish vocabulary over Arabic loanwords and for established compounds over novel coinages.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in 1 John

Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal consequence and likelihood of misreading given the Kurdish religious-cultural landscape:

1. Kefaret (Propitiation, 2:2; 4:10) — Highest risk. A single unanchored occurrence would invert the letter’s entire atonement logic, substituting a self-performed compensatory work (kaffārah) for God’s own substitutionary provision. Directly touches the core passage (4:10) and is the doctrinal hinge of “Confession and Forgiveness of Sin.”

2. Confess Christ come in the flesh (4:2-3) / Antichrist (2:18-23; 4:3) — The letter’s own defining doctrinal test. Risk runs in two directions simultaneously (tawhid denial vs. Yazidi/Sufi manifestation-cycle over-assimilation), a dual-direction burden with no exact precedent elsewhere in the baseline package.

3. God is Light / God is Love (1:5; 4:8,16) — The letter’s two governing essence-statements, both facing a genuine indigenous (not merely Islamic) collision: Zoroastrian/Yazidi light-dualism for the first, Sufi mystical-union poetry for the second. Directly within the core passage (4:8,16).

4. Serkeftin (Overcome, 5:4-5) / Rizgarkar (Savior, 4:14) — Both inherit the baseline’s most politically-charged vocabulary family (alongside Rizgarî and Hilbijartin); Kurdish nationalist-liberation resonance is uniquely strong and current in this language, and both terms occur inside or adjacent to the core passage’s argument that faith secures spiritual, not political, victory.

5. Emir vs. Ferman (Commandment, 4:21 and throughout 2:3-11; 3:22-24) — A hard forbidden-substitution case unique to Kurdish among this batch’s languages, given the specific, painful, and very recent (2014 Sinjar) Yazidi communal memory attached to “Ferman.” The commandment to love is the core passage’s climactic imperative (4:21); a wrong word here is not a subtle theological drift but a potential active injury to Yazidi-background readers.

6. zarokên Xwedê / ji Xwedê hatin zayîn (Children of God / Born of God, 3:1-2,10; 4:7) — Directly touches the core passage’s opening logic (4:7, “born of God…knows God”) and collides with the structurally strong aşîret blood-lineage identity category, a distinctly Kurdish social-structural risk beyond the baseline’s more general adoption/fitrah concern.

7. Rûnkirin (Anointing, 2:20,27) / Ruhan biceribînin (Test the spirits, 4:1) — Both risk assimilation into the region’s active tariqa/pîr spiritual-hierarchy and folk jinn-discernment practices; less severe than items 1-6 because the confusion is more likely to produce a category mistake (wrong kind of practice) than an outright doctrinal inversion, but still requires human theologian review per the doctrine registry.

8. Hevaltî (Fellowship, dual vertical/horizontal load, 1:3,6-7) — Elevated beyond its baseline Low/Medium rating specifically because 1 John, unlike Romans, requires the same word to bear both senses in close proximity; risk is one of under-communication (flattening a rich dual claim) rather than doctrinal inversion, placing it lower on this list.

9. Eternal Life present-tense assurance (5:11-13) / Boldness (parrēsia, 2:28; 3:21; 4:17) — Real risk of grammatical softening into future-hope language under the pull of regional deeds-weighing eschatology and presumption-avoidance piety, but the Kurdish grammatical resources to preserve present-tense assurance are adequate; risk is one of translator drift rather than lexical unavailability.

10. dinya/cîhan (World, negative/positive, throughout) — Lowest-ranked of the “highest-risk” tier: the ambiguity is real and recurring but is manageable through a systematic, learnable root-split convention rather than requiring case-by-case theological adjudication.

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This analysis extends, and must never contradict, translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, doctrine_risk_registry.json, and 08_core_glossary.md. All fencing rules and forbidden-substitution additions identified here must be merged into the Kurdish translation_memory.json (version increment) and into 12_ai_translation_requirements.md’s forbidden-substitution list before Phase 2 processing of 1 John begins.