Core Glossary
Core Glossary
translation_memory.json is the enforced glossary for every Phase 2 translation in this curriculum. This document summarizes its shape and the principles behind it; see the Glossary Risk Groups for the full per-term entries.
Composition
The glossary currently holds 47 terms spanning all four risk tiers, drawn from the doctrines identified in Doctrine Analysis and grounded in the cultural risks identified in Culture Analysis. Every term entry records:
- The approved Kurdish (Kurmanji) translation and transliteration
- The doctrine risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low)
- Explicitly rejected alternatives, with reasons — including, distinctively for Kurdish, alternatives rejected because of political-vocabulary overlap or Sufi/Yazidi mystical-absorption risk rather than a competing orthodox-religious claim
- Notes explaining any non-obvious translation choice
Governing principles
- Native Kurdish vocabulary where a safe option exists — this glossary prefers Xwedê, Bav, Mizgînî, and similar native terms over Arabic-derived alternatives, both for linguistic authenticity and to avoid collisions inherited from Arabic’s own linguistic history.
- Explicit anchoring for politically-loaded terms — because Rizgarî (salvation) and Padîşahiya Xwedê (Kingdom of God) share vocabulary with Kurdish nationalist political aspiration, this glossary requires deliberate contextual anchoring rather than assuming the spiritual sense is automatically understood.
- Guard against both rejection and over-assimilation — unlike most Language Packages, several Kurdish entries (Sonship, Incarnation) must guard against a reader too readily absorbing the doctrine into an existing Sufi or Yazidi framework, not only against outright rejection.
- Version-controlled and append-only in Phase 2 — if a new term is discovered during document translation, it is added to translation memory and the version number incremented, never silently improvised per-document.
Relationship to the Doctrine Risk Registry
Every glossary term’s doctrine field links back to an entry in doctrine_risk_registry.json, so a term’s risk tier is always traceable to the specific doctrine it protects — the glossary enforces vocabulary, the doctrine registry explains why that vocabulary, even where linguistically correct, still requires deliberate political and theological framing for a Kurdish-speaking reader.
Critical Risk Terms
Adoption
Approved rendering: Kurxwendin
Transliteration: kurxwendin
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
CRITICAL: the same Quranic restriction on adoption (33:4-5) applies across Sunni and Shia Kurdish communities alike. Kurdish tribal (aşîret) confederation structures, which also emphasize lineage for land and alliance purposes, reinforce this default; Romans 8’s full inheritance must be taught explicitly against it.
Father
Approved rendering: Bav
Transliteration: Bav
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
CRITICAL: a native Kurdish word, sharing the region’s tawhid-anthropomorphism objection to Father-language for God. Kurdish classical Sufi poetry (Melayê Cizîrî, Ehmedê Xanî) does cultivate an intimate mystical-love register for divine address, offering a possible resource for warmth, though channeled through a lover/beloved metaphor rather than the paternal one.
God
Approved rendering: Xwedê
Transliteration: Xwedê
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Allah
CRITICAL: Xwedê is a native word from the same Old Iranian root as Persian’s Khoda and Pashto’s Khudai, reflecting Kurdish’s own status as a Northwestern Iranian language - a genuine independent linguistic asset, not exclusively Arabic/Quranic. Allah is also used, especially in more formal religious registers, but Xwedê is preferred for everyday Kurdish Christian usage. The risk remains in content: strict tawhid theology must be distinguished from the Trinitarian conception denoted by the same word.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Ruhê Pîroz
Transliteration: Ruhê Pîroz
Doctrine: Sanctification
CRITICAL: shares the same Quranic phrase and mainstream tafsir identification with the angel Jibril (Gabriel) found regionally - the created-being-versus-divine-Person distinction must be made explicit at every occurrence.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: Adaleta ku tê hesibandin
Transliteration: adaleta ku tê hesibandin
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: Adaleta ku tê bidestxistin
CRITICAL: ‘Adaleta ku tê bidestxistin’ (‘righteousness that is achieved/earned’) is the exact opposite of Paul’s argument and is explicitly rejected; the compound must retain ‘credited/reckoned,’ never ‘earned.‘
Incarnation
Approved rendering: Tecessud
Transliteration: tecessud
Doctrine: Incarnation
CRITICAL: shares the tawhid objection with Arabic and Persian. Distinctly for Kurdish, Yazidi theology holds that the divine essence (centered on Melek Taus) has manifested through successive holy human figures historically (including the reformer Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir); the incarnation risks being assimilated as one more instance of this recurring pattern rather than taught as a unique, unrepeatable event.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Îsa
Transliteration: Îsa
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
CRITICAL: as in Persian and Pashto, the small Kurdish Christian presence (historically Assyrian/Chaldean rather than ethnically Kurdish) has not produced a rival native transliteration; ‘Îsa’ is used without naming controversy. The risk is entirely in content: ‘Îsa’ still carries the Quranic prophet-only, non-crucified, non-divine narrative that must be actively corrected.
Justification
Approved rendering: Wek adil hatin hesibandin
Transliteration: wek adil hatin hesibandin
Doctrine: Salvation
CRITICAL: compound phrase (‘to be counted/reckoned as just’) required to convey the forensic declaration rather than a process of becoming righteous.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: Padîşahiya Xwedê
Transliteration: padîşahiya Xwedê
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
CRITICAL: the Kurds are widely described as the largest stateless ethnic group in the world, with a century-long, deeply emotional national aspiration for an independent Kurdistan. ‘Kingdom of God’ risks being heard as validating or blending with this specific political aspiration for statehood; this doctrine must be taught as clearly and exclusively about God’s spiritual reign.
Law
Approved rendering: Şerîeta Mûsa
Transliteration: Şerîeta Mûsa
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: Namûs
CRITICAL: bare ‘Şerîet’ risks conflation with Islamic law generally, hence the explicit ‘of Moses’ qualifier. Namûs, the Greek-loanword strategy used successfully in Arabic and Persian for this same term, does NOT transfer safely to Kurdish: in Kurdish (and regional) usage, namûs has narrowed to mean specifically family/female honor, most infamously in the context of so-called honor killings - an entirely unrelated and much more emotionally loaded connotation that would badly confuse this doctrine.
Lord
Approved rendering: Xudan
Transliteration: Xudan
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
CRITICAL: applying supreme, exclusive Lordship to Jesus (Romans 10:9) is the deity claim itself, resisted on the same tawhid grounds as in Arabic and Persian, and must not be softened to mere ownership or leadership.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Mesîh
Transliteration: Mesîh
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
CRITICAL: carries the same pre-loaded Quranic content as Arabic’s al-Masih. Some Kurdish communities also hold Alevi or Yarsani beliefs with their own distinct divinely-guided-figure expectations, adding a further layer of comparison beyond mainstream Sunni Islam that should be considered where relevant to the audience.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: Rabûn
Transliteration: rabûn
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
CRITICAL: shares the Quran’s crucifixion-denial (4:157) with the region’s mainstream Sunni Islam. Distinctly for Kurdish, the minority but culturally significant Yazidi faith holds an actual doctrine of reincarnation (‘kiras guhertin,’ changing shirts/garments, describing the soul’s transmigration through successive bodies) - a genuinely separate risk of conflation with reincarnation, arising from an indigenous Kurdish religious tradition rather than from Islam.
Salvation
Approved rendering: Rizgarî
Transliteration: rizgarî
Doctrine: Salvation
CRITICAL: rizgarî and its companion azadî (freedom) are the defining vocabulary of Kurdish political nationalism across all four host states - the century-long stateless liberation struggle is described using exactly these words (‘Rizgariya Kurdistanê’). This creates a real risk that ‘salvation’ is heard first as national political liberation rather than personal deliverance from sin, or conversely that the material is read as coded political speech. Every occurrence must anchor the term to Christ’s specific, personal, spiritual deliverance.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Kurê Xwedê
Transliteration: Kurê Xwedê
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
CRITICAL: the same Quranic denial (112:3, 19:35) applies. Distinctly for Kurdish, Sufi ‘wahdat al-wujud’ (unity of being) philosophy and Yazidi belief in successive divine manifestations into holy human figures create an inverted risk: rather than resisting the claim outright, some readers may too readily assimilate it into an existing framework of mystical human-divine merger or repeated divine manifestation, rather than Christ’s unique, eternal, ontological sonship.
High Risk Terms
Abba
Approved rendering: Aba
Transliteration: Aba
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Aramaic intimacy-term preserved as in Romans 8:15. Stands in sharp, deliberate contrast to the transcendence emphasis of mainstream regional Islamic piety.
Called
Approved rendering: Bangkirî
Transliteration: bangkirî
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Context-sensitive: in 1:1 = called to apostleship; in 1:7 = called to be saints; in 8:28-30 = effectual calling to salvation.
Church
Approved rendering: Dêr
Transliteration: dêr
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Dêr is the established word for a church building (Kurdistan has ancient Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac Christian heritage); ‘Civata Mesîhî’ (Messianic community) is needed for the NT sense of the gathered people, not a building. Religious freedom varies significantly across the four states Kurdish spans - somewhat greater in Iraqi Kurdistan, much more restricted in Iran, Syria, and Turkey - so this doctrine needs region-aware framing.
Covenant
Approved rendering: Peyman
Transliteration: peyman
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Resonant with Kurdish tribal (aşîret) alliance-making traditions, but such peymans are typically negotiated between relative equals and can be revoked - unlike the unilaterally-initiated, gracious biblical covenant, a distinction that must be taught explicitly.
Election
Approved rendering: Hilbijartin
Transliteration: hilbijartin
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Also the standard modern Kurdish word for democratic elections (hilbijartinên giştî, general elections), given the region’s recent embrace of electoral politics (KRG elections, Rojava’s political experiments). Risk that God’s sovereign choosing is heard as a vote or democratic process rather than a unilateral divine decision.
Faith
Approved rendering: Îman
Transliteration: iman
Doctrine: Faith
Shares the region’s Sunni (predominantly Shafi’i madhhab among Kurds, distinct from the Hanafi madhhab common elsewhere in this batch) six-pillars creedal structure. Must be anchored as personal trust in Christ, not creedal assent to a list of propositions.
Grace
Approved rendering: Kerem
Transliteration: kerem
Doctrine: Grace
Kurdistan’s rich Sufi heritage (the Naqshbandi revival led by the Kurdish Sheikh Mawlana Khalid) uses the cognate ‘keramet’ for miracles granted specifically to elevated Sufi saints as marks of spiritual rank. Using kerem for grace risks implying an elite, hierarchical favor reserved for spiritually advanced figures, rather than Paul’s point that grace is freely given to all who believe.
Intercession
Approved rendering: Navbeynkarî
Transliteration: navbeynkarî
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
A transparent native compound (‘the work of being in-between’). Shares the region’s general shafa’at-adjacent theological complexity; Kurdish tribal reconciliation customs for ending blood feuds offer a modest, less institutionally developed parallel than Pashto’s nanawatai.
Mission
Approved rendering: Peywira Mizgîniyê
Transliteration: peywira Mizgîniyê
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
Kurdish is unique in this batch for being split across four different state jurisdictions (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria) with meaningfully different religious-freedom environments; evangelism-related material must be aware that safety implications differ significantly by which state’s Kurdish population is the audience.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: Guhdarîkirina Baweriyê
Transliteration: guhdarîkirina baweriyê
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Shares the region’s Islamic submission-as-core-category risk; must be taught as faith’s fruit, never its ground.
Prophet
Approved rendering: Pêxember
Transliteration: pêxember
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Same finality-of-prophethood risk as Arabic’s nabi (Muhammad as khatam al-anbiya); must be paired with fuller Christological titles.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: Adalet
Transliteration: adalet
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: Rastî
Rastî (native Kurdish for ‘rightness/truth,’ from ‘rast,’ straight/correct) is too thin for Paul’s weighty forensic sense, reading as mere correctness. Adalet (justice) carries the necessary legal-moral weight.
Saints
Approved rendering: Pîrozan
Transliteration: pîrozan
Doctrine: Sainthood
Kurdish Sufi culture has a deep, structurally significant tradition of venerating a ‘pîr’ - a hereditary spiritual master with shrine veneration and intercessory status, still socially significant in parts of Iraqi Kurdistan today. Romans 1:7’s saints must be taught as all ordinary believers, not this hereditary spiritual elite.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: Teqdîs
Transliteration: teqdîs
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: Pakkirin
Pakkirin (‘to purify,’ from pak, clean) risks reading as ritual cleanliness; teqdîs keeps the specific theological sense of the Spirit’s ongoing moral transformation.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: Dûndana Dawid
Transliteration: dûndana Dawid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Romans 1:3; conveys physical lineage and OT covenant fulfillment. See ‘david’ for the Quranic-figure caveat.
Sin
Approved rendering: Guneh
Transliteration: guneh
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Shares the region’s Islamic fitrah (innate purity) doctrine; Romans 5’s federal-headship argument must be taught deliberately against this default.
Medium Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: Şandî
Transliteration: şandî
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: Resûl
A native Kurdish word (‘the one sent,’ from şandin) that avoids the direct collision with Muhammad’s Rasul Allah title that the Arabic-derived resûl would carry.
Calling
Approved rendering: Vexwendin
Transliteration: vexwendin
Doctrine: Divine Calling
A native compound word for invitation; the direction of address (God calling a person) still needs to be made explicit.
David
Approved rendering: Dawid
Transliteration: Dawid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Shared, positively-regarded Quranic prophet-king figure; supply the covenant-king typology pointing to Messiah explicitly.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: Hevaltî
Transliteration: hevaltî
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
‘Heval’ (friend) is also the standard term of address within Kurdish leftist and nationalist political movements (‘comrade’); hevaltî can carry a secular revolutionary-movement echo that context should be relied on to disambiguate from Christian fellowship.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Ne-cihû
Transliteration: ne-cihû
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: Umet
Umet carries the loaded pan-Islamic community sense; the descriptive ‘ne-cihû’ (‘non-Jews’) avoids that association.
Glory
Approved rendering: Rûmet
Transliteration: rûmet
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Kurdish classical Sufi poetry (Melayê Cizîrî, Ehmedê Xanî) explores divine majesty and love in richly mystical terms; this can lend devotional weight but must be anchored to Christ’s specific, historical glory rather than left as generalized mystical splendor.
Gospel
Approved rendering: Mizgînî
Transliteration: Mizgînî
Doctrine: Gospel
A native Kurdish word for ‘good news,’ not an Arabic loanword like Injil - a genuine linguistic asset. Some readers will also know Încîl via shared Islamic vocabulary, carrying the same tahrif (corruption) assumption found regionally; qualify as the specific NT record when that association is likely.
Holy
Approved rendering: Pîroz
Transliteration: pîroz
Doctrine: Sanctification
The standard, extremely common native Kurdish word for holy/sacred (Kitêba Pîroz, the Holy Book). Also used of Yazidi sacred sites and figures (e.g. Lalish), a generic shared-vocabulary overlap rather than a specific competing doctrine.
Israel
Approved rendering: Îsraîl
Transliteration: Îsraîl
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Unusually for this batch, popular Kurdish sentiment - especially in Iraqi Kurdistan - toward Israel is often notably more favorable than the regional norm, reflecting shared minority-status solidarity and historical Israeli support for Kurdish autonomy; still requires care given real variation across the four host states Kurdish spans.
Peace
Approved rendering: Aştî
Transliteration: aştî
Doctrine: Peace with God
Aştî is the region’s standard word for high-profile political peace processes (e.g. the Kurdish-Turkish peace process); this resonance with real, hard-won conflict resolution is a genuine asset for Romans 5:1 once the specific connection to justification is made explicit.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: Hêza Xwedê
Transliteration: hêza Xwedê
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Broadly compatible concept; low collision risk beyond standard care.
Providence
Approved rendering: Rêveberiya Xwedê
Transliteration: rêveberiya Xwedê
Doctrine: Providence
God’s personal, purposive governance; keep distinct from folk qadar fatalism found regionally.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: Diyariyên Giyanî
Transliteration: diyariyên giyanî
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Always retain giyanî (spiritual, from giyan, soul) so the phrase is not read as ordinary talent.
Low Risk Terms
Exhort
Approved rendering: Handan kirin
Transliteration: handan kirin
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Context-sensitive: şîret kirin (to admonish) for beseeching; handan kirin (to encourage) for building up.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: Pêxemberî
Transliteration: pêxemberî
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Low independent risk beyond the prophet entry’s own note.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: Spasî
Transliteration: spasî
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Standard term with broad positive overlap; low risk.
Referenced passages