Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Acts 1–28 (English → Kurdish)
Purpose
This analysis identifies where Kurmanji Kurdish has no adequate existing term for an Acts doctrine, where it has too many competing terms whose boundaries must be fenced to prevent doctrinal leakage, where a transliteration vs. paraphrase decision must be made explicit, and which ambiguities in this curriculum carry the highest risk of doctrinal distortion. It extends the baseline Romans Language Package without contradicting any established rendering, and it anchors on the core passage (Acts 2:1-41, Pentecost) while covering the full book. Every recommendation here feeds directly into the Acts extension of translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json.
Full-book coverage note: all 28 chapters were surveyed for load-bearing vocabulary. Chapters contributing no new terms beyond those already captured are explicitly logged in the Chapter Coverage Ledger (Section 5) rather than silently omitted.
Section 1: Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: available Kurdish terms, their specific weaknesses, and the recommended mitigation strategy.
1.1 The Holy Spirit and Pentecost
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Ruhê Pîroz (baseline, Critical) | Mainstream Sunni tafsir identifies “the holy spirit” (rûh el-qudus) of the Quran with the angel Jibril; a Kurdish reader’s default referent is angelic, not a divine Person. | Retain Ruhê Pîroz exactly (no substitute exists that avoids this collision entirely — the phrase is fixed by Quranic usage regionally). Mandate an explicit personhood/deity gloss at first occurrence in every lesson touching Acts 1:5, 2:4, 2:33, 5:3-4 (lying to the Spirit = lying to God), 13:2 (the Spirit speaks/commands). |
| bi Ruhê Pîroz tije bûn (“filled with the Holy Spirit”) | “Tije bûn” (to become full) is a container-metaphor verb also used for ordinary emotional/physical states (tije bûn ji hêrsê = filled with anger); risks reading as impersonal saturation rather than the personal Spirit’s empowering presence. | Retain as recorded but require accompanying pronoun/agency markers (“Ruhê Pîroz ew tije kir” — the Spirit filled them, agentive) rather than a passive stative reading alone. |
| Pentîkost (transliteration) | No native Kurdish festal vocabulary distinguishes a once-for-all redemptive-historical event from a recurring “cejn” (Newroz, Eid, religious feast day observed yearly). Left unqualified, hearers may assume Pentecost is an annual Christian holiday parallel to Newroz. | Transliterate (Pentîkost) rather than translate as “cejn”; supply a one-time historical-narrative frame at first use (“roja ku Ruhê Pîroz yekcarî hat şandin” — the day the Spirit was sent once for all) distinguishing the event from its later liturgical commemoration. |
| ziman / zimanên din; zaravayê xwe yê zikmakî (tongues / own dialect) | Genuine positive asset (Kurdish mother-tongue-suppression history gives “hearing God’s wonders in my own tongue” strong resonance) but also a genuine risk: teaching could be over-politicized into a statement about Kurdish linguistic rights specifically, displacing the point about the gospel’s reach to all nations. | Use both terms exactly as distinguished (glōssai vs. dialektos are different Greek words); explicitly frame the miracle as universal (every nation hears, not “Kurdish is specially honored”), while permitting the resonance to be named pastorally without becoming the passage’s center of gravity. |
| diyariya Ruhê Pîroz; vaftîzma bi Ruhê Pîroz | No structural weakness in the terms themselves; the risk is doctrinal sequencing — Acts 2:38 links repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Spirit in one sentence, inviting either a merit-based reading (gift earned by the prior acts) or a sacramental-automatic reading. | Require the Kerem (grace, High, baseline) cross-reference note at every occurrence of “diyariya Ruhê Pîroz” to keep the gift/merit distinction explicit. |
| birêsandin (“pour out”) | Native, transparent verb, but pouring/outflow imagery is also central to Sufi wahdat al-wujud (divine “overflow” into creation) and to Yazidi belief in successive manifestations of the divine essence; an unanchored “pouring out of spirit” could be assimilated into either framework as one more instance of divine effusion into the world. | Never use “birêsandin” without the explicit object “Ruhê Pîroz” attached in the same clause, and pair with a personal-agency verb (Xwedê… birêsand) to keep the outpouring an act of a personal God, not an impersonal metaphysical overflow. |
Gap identified: Kurdish has no dedicated word distinguishing a repeatable empowering filling (2:4, 4:8, 4:31) from a once-for-all indwelling (baptism in the Spirit, 1:5; 11:16). Both currently render through related but distinct compounds (tije bûn vs. vaftîzma bi Ruhê Pîroz), which is adequate, but translators must not interchange them — this is a fencing issue, not a missing-vocabulary issue (see Section 2).
1.2 The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Ne-cihû (Gentiles, baseline, Medium) | Descriptive/negative (“non-Jew”) rather than a term with its own positive content; adequate but flat. | Retain; supplement in teaching notes with narrative context (who specifically is in view: Cornelius, the Ethiopian official, Lystra/Athens crowds) rather than treating “Ne-cihû” as an abstract category. |
| Xwedêparêz (God-fearer) | No native Kurdish social category corresponds to the specific first-century “God-fearing Gentile attending synagogue without full conversion” status; “Xwedêparêz” (God-revering) is transparent but generic and could be misread as simply “a religious/pious person” of any background. | Treat as a paraphrase-with-explanation term, not a self-sufficient label; every occurrence (10:2, 10:22, 13:16, 13:26, 17:4, 17:17) requires a one-line historical gloss the first time it appears in a given lesson. |
| neptik / gemar (unclean/common, koinos) | Structurally near-identical in form to Islamic halal/haram categories (a pervasive, high-salience regional framework), risking the whole point of Acts 10 being heard as “Christianity has its own halal/haram system” rather than “the ceremonial food law is set aside in Christ.” | Fence deliberately: always narrate Peter’s vision (10:9-16) as abolishing a specific prior Mosaic-ceremonial category, explicitly stating this is not a new dietary law and not a commentary on Islamic dietary practice. |
| Xwedê alîgir nîne (God shows no partiality) | Adequate, transparent compound; risk is scope-narrowing — Kurdish hearers may default first to tribal (aşîret) favoritism applications rather than the text’s primary Jew-Gentile point. | Anchor primary sense (ethnic/covenantal impartiality) explicitly before any secondary tribal-favoritism application is drawn. |
| Ev rizgariya Xwedê ji miletan re hat şandin (28:28 combination) | “Milet” (nation/people) is also standard modern political vocabulary (millet, nation-state discourse); layered onto Rizgarî’s own nationalist resonance (baseline Critical), this closing verse risks a compounded political misreading if not tightly anchored. | Require the personal/spiritual anchoring clause used throughout the curriculum for Rizgarî to be present in the same sentence or immediately adjacent sentence whenever this combination phrase is used. |
Gap identified: No single Kurdish word captures “Gentile-inclusion” as a theological category distinct from ordinary ethnic vocabulary; the doctrine must be taught narratively (through Cornelius, the Jerusalem Council, Antioch) rather than through a single load-bearing term.
1.3 Repentance and Baptism
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Tobe (repentance) | Crowded neighborhood. Tobe is a direct cognate of Islamic tawba, a structurally central concept: human-initiated remorse + resolution + (often ritual) restoration of standing before God, repeatable throughout life, with no guarantee of acceptance. Biblical metanoia in Acts is Spirit-enabled (11:18: “God has granted repentance”), decisive, and tied exclusively to trust in the crucified-and-risen Christ. | No safe alternative exists (a novel coinage would be unintelligible and violate the “prefer established compound over novel coinage” rule). Retain Tobe, but require the Acts 11:18 God-grants-repentance framing to accompany the doctrine’s introduction, explicitly distinguishing it from self-generated tawba-style remorse. |
| Vaftîzm / vaftîz kirin (baptism) | Transliteration from a non-Kurdish/non-Arabic root (ultimately Greek via European Christian usage) — an asset, since it avoids collision with wudu/ghusl vocabulary, but it is also unfamiliar enough that some readers will need an explanatory gloss on first encounter in a given lesson. | Retain transliteration exactly as recorded; supply the wudu/ghusl contrast explicitly at first occurrence per lesson (repeatable ritual purification vs. one-time identification with Christ’s death and resurrection). |
| Vaftîzma Yûhenna (John’s baptism) | Adequate; risk is sequencing confusion at 19:1-7 where disciples must be re-taught, which could be misread as baptism being repeatable/gradable. | Frame explicitly as a distinct, preparatory, superseded rite — not an earlier “lesser” Christian baptism needing supplementation. |
| Lêbûrîna guneha (forgiveness of sins) | Adequate native compound; must be fenced against Islamic maghfira, which remains contingent and unconfirmed until final judgment (weighed at the scales, Yawm al-Din). | Pair with assurance language (“naha, di vê gavê de” — now, at this very moment) to mark forgiveness in Acts as secured decisively at conversion, not deferred to eschatological weighing. |
| Vegerandin (turn/convert) | Generic verb (“to turn/return”) used in many everyday, non-religious contexts (turning a car around, returning goods); on its own carries no doctrinal weight at all. | Never use unqualified; always paired with the light/darkness, Satan’s-power/God’s-power contrast of Acts 26:18 so the specific power-transfer content is not lost in a semantically thin verb. |
Gap identified: Kurdish has no word that inherently distinguishes “conversion baptism into Christ” from generic ritual washing; the entire doctrinal weight rests on paratextual explanation, not lexical choice. This is the single highest-maintenance doctrine in the curriculum precisely because its two central terms (Tobe, Vaftîzm) sit in the most crowded semantic neighborhoods of the whole book.
1.4 The Church as Community
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Dêr / Civata Mesîhî (church, baseline, High) | Dêr defaults to “building” (reinforced by visible ancient Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac church architecture across the region); Civata Mesîhî is correct for the gathered-people sense but is a compound description, not a single settled noun, so drift toward “Dêr” even for the people-sense is a live risk in casual translation. | Enforce Civata Mesîhî without exception for every ekklēsia-as-people occurrence (2:47, 5:11, 8:1, 9:31, 11:26, 12:5, 13:1, 14:23, 14:27, 15:3-4, 16:5, 20:17, 20:28); reserve Dêr strictly for the physical-building sense (which barely occurs in Acts). |
| hemû tişt wek milkê hevpar (all things in common) | Crowded neighborhood. Overlaps heavily with 20th-century Kurdish leftist/socialist political vocabulary of collective ownership, itself entangled with “heval” (comrade, see Hevaltî below); a hearer steeped in that political history may read Acts 2:44-45/4:32-35 as scriptural endorsement of a specific economic-political program. | Fence tightly: always mark as voluntary, Spirit-motivated, temporary, and Jerusalem-specific — never framed as a normative economic system or a scriptural endorsement of any political-economic ideology, ancient or modern. |
| Hevaltî (fellowship, baseline, Low) | “Heval” is the standard address-term within Kurdish leftist and nationalist political movements (PKK, KRG parties) meaning “comrade”; combined with “all things in common” above, Acts 2:42-45 as a unit is the single most politically-resonant passage-cluster in the whole curriculum for a Kurdish audience. | Retain (baseline term); rely on the surrounding worship/prayer/apostolic-teaching context (2:42) to disambiguate from secular-political comradeship, and never let this passage stand without its full four-part description (teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer) — isolating “fellowship” and “common possessions” together, without the other two elements, maximizes the political-misreading risk. |
| Rihspî (elders) | Directly borrowed from aşîret (tribal) authority vocabulary, where eldership is substantially age- and lineage-based and often hereditary in influence. | Fence explicitly: church eldership (14:23, 15:2-6, 20:17) is Spirit-appointed and qualification-based, open to any qualified believer regardless of tribal lineage, clan, or age alone. |
| Xizmet (diaconal service) | Carries residual feudal/tribal connotation of a subordinate serving an axa (lord/landowner) in a hierarchical patron-client relationship. | Fence explicitly: diaconal service (6:1-4) is dignified, Spirit-gifted ministry among equals, not subordinate patron-client labor. |
| Şivan / Kerî (shepherd/flock) | Positive pastoral-nomadic resonance (an asset) but risks assimilation to the Sufi murshid-disciple hierarchy, which is more rigidly hierarchical and often quasi-hereditary. | Use the positive resonance for warmth but explicitly distinguish the biblical shepherd model (loving, sacrificial, accountable to Christ the Chief Shepherd) from murshid-disciple submission structures. |
Gap identified: No neutral, non-political Kurdish vocabulary exists for “voluntary communal generosity” — every available option (hevaltî, hevpar) carries either leftist-political or generic-social freight. This doctrine requires the heaviest paratextual fencing of any in this section.
1.5 Apostolic Authority and Miracles
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Şandî (apostle, baseline, Medium) | Adequate; residual risk is scope — a Kurdish reader accustomed to a single final-prophetic-authority framework (khatam al-anbiya) may ask how apostolic authority relates to, or ranks against, prophetic authority, and how it transfers (or does not) to later elders/overseers. | Clarify explicitly at first occurrence per lesson that apostleship in Acts is a foundational, non-repeated office (12 + Paul), distinct from and not continued by the later elder/overseer offices of chapters 14 and 20. |
| Nîşan û ecêb (signs and wonders) | Deliberately avoids the Sufi “keramet” cognate (already flagged Critical/High under grace in the baseline) — a genuine asset, not a weakness, but requires vigilance that a translator does not “improve” the phrasing back toward a keramet-adjacent term for stylistic variety. | Lock as a fixed collocation; forbid substitution with any keramet-family term under any circumstance (add to forbidden-substitution list). |
| Bi navê Îsa Mesîh (name of Jesus, invocational) | Regional folk-religious practice (shared across Sufi, folk-Islamic, and some Yazidi contexts) invokes divine names, a pîr’s name, or a saint’s name as an independently efficacious formula. | Teach explicitly at every healing/exorcism occurrence (3:6, 3:16, 4:7-12, 16:18, 19:13-17) that the name has no independent, formulaic power apart from Christ’s own person and authority — reinforce with the negative case study of the seven sons of Sceva (19:13-16), which is itself the text’s own built-in corrective. |
| Sêrbazî (sorcery) / Ruhê fala (divination spirit) | Both terms engage a live, high-salience regional belief system (jinn, evil eye, fal/fortune-telling); risk is that the text’s point (rejecting a transactional, magical view of spiritual power altogether) is heard instead as a narrower rule (“don’t pay for miracles,” Simon Magus 8:18-24) or a generic anti-superstition moralism. | Teach the full theological point: the Spirit’s power is not a commodity or a magical technique available to any practitioner, but the sovereign gift of a personal God exercised through Christ’s authorized witnesses. |
| Destlêdanîn (laying on of hands) | Risk of assimilation to folk-healing touch attributed to a pîr’s blessing hand. | Frame explicitly as a sign accompanying, never causing, the Spirit’s sovereign gift — reinforced by Simon Magus’s error at 8:18-19, which the text itself uses as the corrective case. |
Gap identified: No independent gap; this doctrine is well-served lexically but requires heavy narrative/teaching fencing against transactional-magic and saint-veneration frameworks at nearly every occurrence.
1.6 Persecution and Bold Witness
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Şahid (witness) / Şehîd (martyr) | The single most emotionally loaded pairing in the entire Acts glossary. Both derive from the same root as regional political-martyrdom vocabulary; Şehîd specifically is used daily in Kurdish public life for Peshmerga, PKK, and other national-struggle dead, commemorated with formal state and community ritual across all four host regions. | Maintain the Şahid/Şehîd distinction exactly as recorded (testimonial sense vs. death-sealed sense, crystallizing from Stephen’s death, 7:59-60, onward); require an explicit disclaimer at every occurrence of Şehîd that biblical martyrdom is never political and must not be read as endorsing, or drawing an equivalence with, Kurdish national-political martyrdom. This is a mandatory theologian-reviewed footnote requirement, not optional. |
| Wêrekî (boldness/parrēsia) | Originally a Greek civic-political free-speech term; in Kurdish, boldness/courage vocabulary is itself heavily coded by the resistance-movement/activist tradition (a strongly positive value in Kurdish culture). | Distinguish explicitly: Spirit-given gospel boldness (proclaiming the risen Christ despite threat) is not the same virtue as political/activist courage, even though the everyday Kurdish word for courage carries that connotation by default. |
| Tengasî / zulm (tribulation) | “Zulm” specifically denotes oppression/injustice and carries strong overtones of state persecution familiar from Kurdish political history across all four states; risk of the text’s point (suffering is the normal path into the kingdom, 14:22) collapsing into a generic anti-oppression political statement. | Anchor explicitly to kingdom-entry theology (14:22) each time; the kingdom is entered through Spirit-enabled endurance under hostile powers, not achieved through political struggle or resistance. |
Gap identified: No neutral witness/martyrdom vocabulary exists in Kurdish that is free of political-martyrdom resonance — this is not a missing-term problem but the most severe crowded-neighborhood fencing problem in the whole curriculum (see Section 4, Rank #1).
1.7 Conversion of Paul
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Rê (Riya Xwedê) (“the Way”) | Directly parallels the Islamic “sirat al-mustaqim” (the straight path), a load-bearing daily-prayer concept (recited in every rekat of salah via al-Fatiha). This is a structurally close semantic neighbor, not merely a loose analogy. | Fence deliberately: “the Way” in Acts denotes a specific, concrete historical community (followers of the crucified-and-risen Jesus, 9:2, 19:9, 24:14), not a general ethical/devotional path available in principle to any sincere seeker. |
| Amrazê hilbijartî (chosen instrument) | Reuses Hilbijartin (baseline, High) — inherits its own risk of being heard as a democratic/electoral appointment given hilbijartin’s status as the modern word for elections. | Anchor explicitly at 9:15 as sovereign, unilateral divine selection for mission, with no democratic or human-appointment process involved. |
| Hilkişî (ascension) | Inverted risk, already flagged in the baseline registry: mainstream Sunni Islam already affirms Jesus was bodily raised to heaven without dying (Quran 4:157-158); a Kurdish hearer may too-readily accept Acts’ ascension language precisely because it seems to confirm an existing belief, while still rejecting the prior death and resurrection the ascension in Acts actually presupposes. | Never present ascension (1:9-11) in isolation from the resurrection appearances (1:3) that precede it; teach explicitly that Acts’ ascension confirms, rather than replaces or substitutes for, a real prior death and bodily resurrection. |
| Vegerandin (turn/convert) | See 1.3 above; same generic-verb thinness applies at 26:18. | Same mitigation: always paired with light/darkness and power-of-Satan/power-of-God contrast. |
Gap identified: “The Way” is the clearest case in Acts of genuine semantic-neighborhood crowding with an Islamic devotional concept (rather than a legal or credal one), requiring narrative specificity (a concrete community, not an abstract path) as the primary fencing tool since no alternative Kurdish term avoids the resonance entirely.
1.8 Justification Apart from the Law
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Şerîeta Mûsa (law of Moses, baseline, Critical) | Adequate as fenced in the baseline (never bare Şerîet, never Namûs). No new weakness introduced by Acts; reused at 13:38-39, 15:1-11, 21:20-25. | Retain exactly; reinforce the forbidden-substitution list. |
| Wek adil hatin hesibandin (justification, baseline, Critical); Hatin hesibandin wek adil / hatin azad kirin ji sûcê (13:38-39 combination) | Risk specific to Acts 13:38-39: the two Greek terms (aphesis/forgiveness, dikaioutai/justified) describing a single forensic event could be rendered as two sequential or separate benefits, or could imply the law of Moses was itself deficient/evil rather than simply unable to justify. | Render as a single combined forensic event in translation and teaching notes; explicitly state the law was not evil or deficient in itself, only structurally unable to accomplish justification. |
| Sinet (circumcision) | Crowded neighborhood, culturally sensitive. Sinet is a near-universal Islamic-cultural rite of passage for Kurdish boys, practiced independently of any connection to this text, often with significant family/community celebration. | Fence with maximal care: Acts 15’s ruling addresses only whether circumcision is required for salvation (a first-century Judaizing controversy resolved by grace through faith), and must never be presented as commentary on, criticism of, or challenge to the contemporary cultural/religious practice of sinet. This is a mandatory sensitivity note for any lesson touching Acts 15 or 16:3 (Paul circumcising Timothy for missional, not soteriological, reasons — itself a useful teaching nuance). |
| Dilê wan nesinetkirî ye (uncircumcised in heart) | Metaphorical extension (7:51) risks being misheard as a literal statement about, or disparagement of, physical sinet. | Mark explicitly and immediately as a spiritual metaphor (persistent unbelief/resistance to the Spirit) with zero bearing on the physical practice. |
| Kerem (grace, baseline, High) | Acts 15:11 is the doctrinal capstone verse (“we believe we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will”) — reuses the baseline term and its Sufi-keramet caution without modification. | Retain exactly; treat 15:11 as a required cross-reference anchor for the whole grace doctrine within Acts. |
Gap identified: No lexical gap; Sinet is the correct, unambiguous word for circumcision, but this doctrine carries the highest cultural-sensitivity fencing requirement in the curriculum precisely because the term is correct and unavoidable while the associated contemporary practice is a living, cherished cultural institution unrelated to the soteriological point being made.
1.9 The Great Commission Fulfilled
| Available Kurdish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Padîşahiya Xwedê (kingdom of God, baseline, Critical) | Acts 1:6-8 is the single most direct textual instance of the baseline’s Kurdish-statehood-aspiration caution: the disciples themselves ask about restoring a national kingdom, and Jesus redirects them to spiritual mission — this is a built-in teaching opportunity, not merely a risk. | Use Acts 1:6-8 as the primary anchor text for this doctrine across the whole curriculum; explicitly draw the parallel between the disciples’ nationalist-political question and the redirection to spiritual mission, making the caution pedagogically visible rather than merely defensive. |
| Şahid (witnesses, programmatic, 1:8) | See 1.6 above; reused here as the book’s structuring term (Jerusalem → Judea/Samaria → ends of the earth). | Retain exactly; this occurrence should be flagged as the primary occurrence establishing the term’s baseline (testimonial) sense before the death-sealed sense (Şehîd) emerges later in the book — sequence matters pedagogically. |
| Peywira Mizgîniyê (mission, baseline, High) | Adequate; residual risk is uneven safety implications for evangelism-related teaching depending on which of the four host states (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria) the audience is in. | Require region-aware framing notes wherever this term appears in application/discipleship material, consistent with the baseline’s mission doctrine guidance. |
| Bi hemû wêrekiyê, bêastengî… (28:31, unhindered proclamation combination) | Combines three separately-fenced terms (Padîşahiya Xwedê, Xudan/Mesîh, Wêrekî) in the book’s final verse; risk is cumulative — any drift in any one component compounds. | Lock this combination verbatim as recorded in the registry; treat any deviation in any component term as an automatic flag requiring theologian review, consistent with the cross-document consistency rules established in the baseline for thesis/pastoral-anchor verses. |
Gap identified: No independent lexical gap; this doctrine’s risk is entirely structural/cumulative (compounding of multiple already-fenced Critical terms in single high-visibility verses at the book’s beginning and end).
Section 2: Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no adequate native or established term exists)
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Once-for-all Spirit-baptism vs. repeatable Spirit-filling | No single Kurdish lexeme distinguishes these; both currently rendered through descriptive compounds. | Retain the two distinct compounds already established (vaftîzma bi Ruhê Pîroz / bi Ruhê Pîroz tije bûn); require translators never to interchange them, and add an explicit “one-time vs. repeated” teaching gloss at first occurrence of each per lesson. |
| First-century “God-fearer” social category | No Kurdish social-religious category corresponds to it. | Treat Xwedêparêz as a paraphrase requiring a mandatory explanatory gloss, not a self-sufficient technical term (see 1.2). |
| Neutral vocabulary for “voluntary communal generosity” (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-35) | Every available option is politically coded (hevaltî/heval = leftist comrade; hevpar/milkê hevpar = collective-ownership political vocabulary). | No new coinage recommended (would be unintelligible); instead mandate the four-part unified description of Acts 2:42-45 (teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer) never be split apart in teaching material, and require explicit “voluntary, temporary, Spirit-motivated, non-normative” framing at every occurrence. |
| A term for “apostolic finality” distinguishing the Twelve-plus-Paul from ongoing offices | No Kurdish ecclesial vocabulary exists prior to this curriculum distinguishing a closed foundational office from an open ongoing one. | Address through explicit teaching notes at first occurrence (Şandî, 1:2) rather than through a new lexical distinction; cross-reference the later elder/overseer terms (Rihspî, Çavdêr) as a different, non-apostolic office. |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing (adequate term exists, but shares space with a competing framework)
| Kurdish term | Competing neighbor | Fencing requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Tobe (repentance) | Islamic tawba (human-initiated, repeatable, uncertain-acceptance remorse) | Mandatory Acts 11:18 “God-granted” framing at every doctrinal introduction. |
| Vaftîzm (baptism) | Wudu/ghusl (repeatable ritual ablution) | Mandatory one-time, Christ-directed, identification-with-death-and-resurrection framing at first occurrence per lesson. |
| Şahid / Şehîd (witness/martyr) | Kurdish national-political martyrdom vocabulary (Peshmerga, PKK, and related movements) | Mandatory non-political disclaimer at every occurrence of Şehîd; theologian-reviewed footnote required (see Section 4, Rank #1). |
| Rê / Riya Xwedê (“the Way”) | Sirat al-mustaqim (the straight path, daily-recited Islamic devotional concept) | Mandatory narrative-specificity framing: a concrete community following the risen Jesus, not an abstract ethical path. |
| Hemû tişt wek milkê hevpar / Hevaltî | 20th-century Kurdish socialist/communist political economic vocabulary | Mandatory voluntary/temporary/non-normative framing; never isolate from the full four-part Acts 2:42-45 description. |
| neptik/gemar (unclean, koinos) | Islamic halal/haram dietary categories | Mandatory framing as a specific Mosaic-ceremonial category set aside in Christ, not a new dietary law or commentary on Islamic practice. |
| Rihspî (elders) / Xizmet (diaconal service) | Aşîret (tribal) lineage-based elder authority / feudal patron-client service | Mandatory Spirit-appointed, qualification-based, non-hereditary, non-hierarchical framing. |
| Sinet (circumcision) | Islamic-cultural rite of passage, independent practice | Mandatory scope-limitation to the first-century salvation-basis question; never framed as commentary on the contemporary practice. |
| Nîşan û ecêb (signs and wonders) | Sufi “keramet” saint-miracle vocabulary (already baseline-flagged under grace) | Locked collocation; forbidden substitution with any keramet-family term. |
| Ruhê Pîroz (Holy Spirit) | Quranic rûh el-qudus / Jibril (Gabriel) identification | Mandatory personhood/deity distinction at every occurrence (inherited from baseline; reinforced by high occurrence density in Acts). |
| Hilkişî (ascension) | Quran 4:157-158’s own affirmation of Jesus’ bodily elevation to heaven (inverted-risk neighbor — over-acceptance, not rejection) | Mandatory pairing with prior death/resurrection narrative; never presented in isolation. |
| Pentîkost | ”Cejn” (generic annual festival: Newroz, Eid) | Transliterate, not translate; mark as unrepeatable redemptive-historical event, not a liturgical calendar date. |
Section 3: Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Pentecost | Transliterate (Pentîkost) | No native or loan equivalent avoids the “cejn” (recurring festival) collapse; transliteration forces the term to be taught as a specific proper-noun event rather than assimilated to an existing festival category. |
| Baptism / baptize | Transliterate (Vaftîzm / vaftîz kirin), per baseline | Avoids collision with wudu/ghusl entirely by not translating into native ritual-washing vocabulary at all; already established in the baseline and retained without modification. |
| Repentance | Native term, fenced (Tobe), not transliterated | A transliteration (e.g., a Greek-derived neologism) would be unintelligible to the target audience and would fail the “prefer established compound… over novel coinage” rule; the cognate-collision risk with tawba must instead be managed through mandatory teaching glosses, since no viable transliteration alternative exists. |
| The Way | Paraphrase/compound (Rê / Riya Xwedê), not transliterated | A transliteration of hē hodos has no precedent in Kurdish Christian usage; the descriptive compound is required, with narrative-specificity fencing against sirat al-mustaqim (see 2.2). |
| God-fearer | Paraphrase (Xwedêparêz) with mandatory gloss | No single Kurdish word captures the first-century technical sense; paraphrase plus explanatory footnote is the only viable path. |
| Christians (self-designation) | Transliteration-derived native form (Mesîhî), per prior output | Transparent derivation from the already-established Mesîh; low risk, no paraphrase needed. |
| Sorcery / divination spirit | Native terms (Sêrbazî / Ruhê fala), not transliterated | Existing native vocabulary for regionally live jinn/fal categories is more immediately intelligible than a transliteration, and the doctrinal point (rejecting transactional magic altogether) is served better by naming the actual regional practice than by an unfamiliar loanword. |
| Unknown God (Areopagus) | Paraphrase (Xwedayê nenas) | Direct, transparent compound; no native or transliterated equivalent needed or available. |
| Hades | Transliteration retained alongside gloss (Cîhana miriyan / Hades) | A pure paraphrase (“realm of the dead”) risks conflation with barzakh or Cehennem; retaining the transliterated proper name alongside the descriptive phrase preserves the term’s distinctness as recorded in the registry. |
| Appeal to Caesar | Paraphrase (Gazî li Qeyser dikim) | Legal-procedural phrase; low doctrinal risk, transliteration unnecessary. |
General principle applied: transliterate where (a) a native term would import an unwanted competing theological framework wholesale (baptism, Pentecost) or (b) no Kurdish Christian precedent exists and coinage would be opaque; paraphrase/native-compound where (a) an established compound already carries the correct sense with manageable fencing (repentance, the Way) or (b) the target audience needs the concept named in terms of their own lived religious vocabulary to be intelligible at all (sorcery, divination, unknown god).
Section 4: Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities (Acts 1–28)
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision strength × emotional/political charge for the Kurdish audience).
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Şahid / Şehîd (witness / martyr) — Acts 1:8, 7:59-60, 12:2, 22:15, 26:16. The single highest-risk ambiguity in the curriculum. The same root that names Christ’s resurrection-witnesses also names contemporary Kurdish national-political martyrs (Peshmerga, PKK, and related movements) commemorated with deep, active, daily emotional and civic weight across all four host states. A drift toward political-martyrdom resonance would fundamentally recast Acts’ missionary theology as national-liberation ideology. Mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence of Şehîd; disclaimer footnote required.
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Rizgarî ji miletan re (salvation to the Gentiles/nations, 28:28) and Padîşahiya Xwedê (kingdom of God, 1:6-8, 28:31). Both terms independently carry Critical baseline risk from Kurdish political-nationalist vocabulary (rizgarî = the century-long liberation-struggle word; padîşahî = statehood aspiration); their combination at the book’s opening and closing bookends compounds the risk at the two most structurally significant points in Acts. Mandatory personal/spiritual anchoring clause required at every occurrence; theologian review required.
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Tobe (repentance) vs. Islamic tawba — Acts 2:38, 3:19, 11:18, 17:30, 20:21, 26:20. High-frequency term (appears at every major evangelistic turning point in the book) sharing its root and much of its conceptual shape with the Islamic six-pillars-adjacent tawba framework; the risk is not occasional but structural, recurring in nearly every gospel-proclamation passage in Acts. Mandatory Acts 11:18 God-granted framing at first occurrence per lesson.
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Rê / Riya Xwedê (“the Way”) vs. sirat al-mustaqim — Acts 9:2, 19:9, 19:23, 24:14, 24:22. Unlike most collisions in this analysis (credal or legal in nature), this one collides with a devotional, daily-recited Islamic concept, making it psychologically closer to the surface of an ordinary reader’s religious experience than most other risk terms. Mandatory narrative-specificity framing (a concrete community, not an abstract path).
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Sinet (circumcision) — Acts 15:1-29, 16:3, 21:20-25. Not a theological-abstraction risk but a live cultural-sensitivity risk: the correct word names a cherished, near-universal contemporary practice unrelated to the text’s soteriological point, and careless handling could give offense entirely disproportionate to the doctrinal content at stake. Mandatory scope-limitation note; sensitivity review required for any lesson touching Acts 15.
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Hemû tişt wek milkê hevpar / Hevaltî (all things in common / fellowship) — Acts 2:42-45, 4:32-35. The clearest instance of doctrinal content being at risk of full political-ideological reassignment (as endorsement of 20th-century Kurdish socialist/communist economic programs) rather than partial distortion. Mandatory voluntary/temporary/non-normative framing; never isolate from the full four-part Acts 2:42 description.
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Hilkişî (ascension) — Acts 1:9-11. The curriculum’s only inverted-direction risk (over-acceptance rather than rejection): because mainstream Sunni Islam already affirms a bodily ascension of Jesus, this doctrine is uniquely likely to be accepted too readily and in isolation from the prior death and resurrection it in fact presupposes. Mandatory pairing with 1:3 resurrection-appearances narrative.
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Ruhê Pîroz (Holy Spirit) identified with Jibril — recurring at high density throughout Acts (1:5–20:28, dozens of occurrences). Individually a baseline-inherited Critical risk, but its sheer frequency in Acts (a book substantially organized around the Spirit’s activity) makes cumulative drift a distinct structural risk across a long curriculum, even where each individual occurrence is separately unremarkable. Mandatory personhood/deity distinction at first occurrence per lesson, not merely once per curriculum.
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neptik/gemar (unclean/common) vs. halal/haram — Acts 10:9-16, 10:28, 11:8-9. A structurally close formal parallel (a binary permitted/forbidden dietary category) risks the entire Cornelius narrative’s Jew-Gentile theological point being read merely as “Christianity relaxed its food rules,” missing the ceremonial-law-fulfilled-in-Christ argument entirely. Mandatory fulfillment framing.
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Rihspî (elders) / Xizmet (service) vs. aşîret and feudal patron-client structures — Acts 6:1-6, 14:23, 15:2-6, 20:17-28. Lower doctrinal centrality than the above but a persistent risk of quietly re-importing tribal or feudal authority patterns into church polity teaching without any single flagged verse drawing attention to it, making it more likely to be missed in review than the higher-ranked items above. Mandatory Spirit-appointed/qualification-based framing at every occurrence.
Section 5: Chapter Coverage Ledger (Full-Book Confirmation)
Every chapter of Acts was reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary. Chapters not separately itemized above contributed no terms beyond those already captured in Sections 1–4 or the baseline; they are logged here as reviewed, not omitted.
| Chapter | Status |
|---|---|
| 1 | Load-bearing: kingdom of God (1:6-8), witnesses-programmatic, ascension, election (Matthias, lots cast) — covered above. |
| 2 | Core passage (2:1-41): Pentecost, tongues/dialect, pouring out, repentance, baptism, gift of the Spirit, salvation formula, fellowship/common possessions — covered above in full. |
| 3 | Prophet-like-Moses (3:22-23, reuses baseline “prophet” High risk), name-of-Jesus healing — covered above; no new terms. |
| 4 | Boldness (parrēsia), no-other-name exclusivity (4:12), grace/works tension anticipated — covered above. |
| 5 | Holy Spirit personhood (Ananias/Sapphira, 5:3-4), angel of the Lord, signs and wonders — covered above; reviewed, no new terms beyond registry. |
| 6 | Diaconal service (Xizmet), laying on of hands — covered above. |
| 7 | Stephen’s speech: covenant, uncircumcised in heart, martyr-sense origin (7:59-60) — covered above. |
| 8 | Sorcery (Simon Magus), laying on of hands, Gentile-adjacent Ethiopian official (God-fearer-adjacent) — covered above; reviewed, no additional terms. |
| 9 | Paul’s conversion: the Way, light from heaven, persecute (9:4-5), Son of God (9:20) — covered above. |
| 2A | |
| 10 | Cornelius: God-fearer, unclean/common, God’s impartiality — covered above. |
| 11 | Repentance-granted-by-God (11:18), church (Antioch, 11:26), Christians (self-designation) — covered above. |
| 12 | Angel of the Lord, intercession (church prayer for Peter), martyr-sense recurrence (James, 12:2) — covered above; reviewed, no new terms. |
| 13 | Filled with the Spirit, justification/law combination (13:38-39), Son of God (13:33), sorcery (Elymas) — covered above. |
| 14 | Tribulation/kingdom-through-suffering (14:22), idol (Zeus/Hermes at Lystra), elders appointed — covered above. |
| 15 | Jerusalem Council: circumcision, law of Moses, grace (15:11) — covered above in full. |
| 16 | Baptism (Lydia, jailer), the Way, divination spirit, salvation formula (16:30-31) — covered above. |
| 17 | Idol, unknown God, judgment to come, resurrection (Areopagus) — covered above. |
| 18 | Peace (church at rest, 9:31 cross-reference), providence (18:9-10) — reviewed; no new terms beyond registry. |
| 19 | John’s baptism contrast (19:1-7), baptism in the Spirit, sorcery (magic books burned), divination — covered above. |
| 20 | Elders, overseer, shepherd/flock, sanctification (20:32), boldness — covered above. |
| 21 | Circumcision/law-of-Moses application (21:20-25) — covered above; reviewed, no additional new terms. |
| 22 | The Way, conversion narrative retold, forgiveness of sins (22:16) — reviewed; no new terms beyond ch.9/26 treatment. |
| 23 | Resurrection (Paul before the Sanhedrin, 23:6), providence (23:11) — reviewed; no new terms. |
| 24 | Righteousness (ethical sense, 24:25), judgment to come, the Way — covered above (disambiguation note). |
| 25 | Appeal to Caesar — covered above. |
| 26 | Conversion summary (26:18, turn/convert), Son of God/resurrection reprise, boldness (26:26) — covered above. |
| 27 | Providence (shipwreck, 27:23-25), thanksgiving (27:35) — covered above; reviewed, no new terms. |
| 28 | Salvation-sent-to-Gentiles (28:28), unhindered proclamation (28:31) — covered above in full as capstone combinations. |
No chapter of Acts was found to contribute doctrinal vocabulary requiring treatment beyond what is captured in Sections 1–4 above; all 28 chapters are confirmed reviewed under the full-book coverage mandate.
This analysis extends but does not alter any baseline Romans Language Package rendering. All terms marked [Baseline — reuse exactly] in 08_core_glossary.md are reused verbatim per the hard rule against altering established renderings. Recommendations above are inputs to the next phase’s update of translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json for the Acts curriculum.