Linguistic Gap Analysis
1 John — Linguistic Gap Analysis
Purpose
This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 for the 1 John curriculum: it surveys the entire letter (1 John 1:1–5:21) for lexical and doctrinal gaps between Koine Greek/English source concepts and available Maithili vocabulary, and it supplies the linguistic reasoning underlying the term choices already recorded in analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json. It does not introduce new renderings; where a term is already fixed by the baseline Romans package or by the 1 John core glossary, that rendering is treated as authoritative and is analyzed, not re-decided.
Three analytical categories structure this report:
- Missing vocabulary — source concepts for which Maithili has no ready, doctrinally clean equivalent and must build a compound/descriptive phrase.
- Crowded semantic neighborhoods — source concepts for which Maithili/Sanskrit-tatsama vocabulary offers several competing candidate terms, each already carrying strong extra-biblical religious freight from Mithila’s Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta, or Panjikaran-lineage traditions, requiring a “fencing” decision (choose one term, explicitly forbid the others, and hold the boundary with translator notes).
- Transliteration vs paraphrase — decisions about when to import a term as a loanword/transliteration versus construct a native descriptive phrase.
Scope and Method — Full Book Coverage
1 John is short (5 chapters, 105 verses) but doctrinally dense; unlike a narrative book, nearly every verse carries load-bearing theological vocabulary. The chapter ledger below documents that every chapter was reviewed; none is silently skipped.
Chapter-by-Chapter Coverage Ledger
| Chapter | Doctrinal Load | Key Gap-Analysis Contributions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 John 1 | Word of Life, fellowship, God is Light, confession/cleansing of sin | Introduces देहधारण restatement (जीवनक वचन), प्रकाश vs ज्योति fencing, सङ्गति reuse, पाप स्वीकार करब vs अंगीकार करब split, शुद्ध करब ritual-purity fencing | Reviewed — high new-term yield |
| 1 John 2 | Advocate/propitiation, keeping commandments, love for brother, antichrist, anointing, abiding, children/young men/fathers rhetorical structure | अधिवक्ता, प्रायश्चित्त-बलिदान, आज्ञा vs व्यवस्था fencing, भाइ, मसीह-विरोधी, पवित्र आत्माक अभिषेक, संसार/देहक अभिलाषा triad | Reviewed — highest new-term density in the letter |
| 1 John 3 | Children of God vs children of devil, born of God/God’s seed, love-in-deed, confidence before God, lay down life, keep commandments | परमेश्वरक सन्तान, परमेश्वरक बीआ, प्राण देब, साहस, करुणा, धार्मिकता/धर्मी reuse under new-birth diagnostic frame | Reviewed — core new-birth vocabulary cluster |
| 1 John 4 | Core passage. God is Love, love as evidence of new birth, incarnation confession test, testing the spirits, spirit of truth/error, propitiation restated, perfected love, confidence at judgment, overcoming the world | प्रेम (Critical fencing), देहधारण reuse in confession-test form, आत्मा जाँच करब, सत्यक आत्मा/भ्रमक आत्मा, पूर्ण भेल, न्यायक दिन, डर/दण्ड, जीतब/विजय पाओब | Reviewed — theological anchor of entire analysis |
| 1 John 5 | Faith overcoming the world, water and blood testimony, testimony of God concerning the Son, eternal life, sin unto death, guarding against idols | विश्वास reuse, जल आ लहू, गवाही, अनन्त जीवन (मुक्ति/मोक्ष forbidden-term discipline), मृत्युदायक पाप fencing, मूर्ति (Critical, mandatory theologian review) | Reviewed — closing assurance and exclusive-devotion vocabulary |
No chapter in 1 John was found to contribute zero new terminology; the letter’s compressed, repetitive-diagnostic style (its recurring “by this we know” test formulas) means even short chapters carry doctrinally load-bearing vocabulary requiring analysis.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
The curriculum specifies eight doctrines. For each, this matrix records the available Maithili terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended strategy already reflected in the glossary/registry.
| Doctrine | Available Maithili Term(s) | Weaknesses of Available Terms | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| God is Light and God is Love | प्रकाश (light); प्रेम, अनुराग, स्नेह (love) | ज्योति (rejected alternative for light) carries Puranic divine-luster/darshan associations — a deity’s radiant form to be beheld, not a moral-epistemic claim. प्रेम carries heavy Vidyapati-tradition viraha-bhakti (passionate longing) connotations from Radha-Krishna devotional poetry; अनुराग is even more erotically coded; स्नेह is doctrinally too weak to bear “God IS love” as an ontological identity statement (not merely “God loves”). | Use प्रकाश (never ज्योति) for light, with mandatory translator note at 1:5 distinguishing moral/relational/epistemic light from visual divine radiance. Use प्रेम (never अनुराग) for love, with a standing translator note (recurring at every “God is love” and “love one another” occurrence, not just first use) distinguishing self-giving, willed, non-erotic ἀγάπη from viraha-prema. Both terms are Critical risk; both require the identity-statement honorific verb pattern established in baseline (प्रभु/छथि): “परमेश्वर प्रेम छथि.” |
| Fellowship with God and One Another | सङ्गति (baseline reuse); स्थिर रहब (abide) | सङ्गति alone is Low risk and stable, but “abide” (μένω) has no single native Maithili verb conveying mutual, relational, ongoing indwelling between two distinct persons; existing candidates लीन होएब / एक भऽ जाएब both suggest Advaitic/bhakti merger (dissolution of the self into the divine), a live theological option in this region that 1 John’s abiding explicitly does not teach. | Reuse सङ्गति without modification (Low risk, stable). For “abide,” use स्थिर रहब (“to remain settled/fixed”) specifically because it lacks merger connotations, paired with translator notes at first occurrences in each chapter (2:6, 2:24, 3:24, 4:13) reinforcing that two distinct persons remain in communion, not one absorbed into the other. |
| Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | अंगीकार करब (confess-Christ sense); पाप स्वीकार करब (confess-sin sense); क्षमा करब (forgive); शुद्ध करब (cleanse) | The single Greek verb ὁμολογέω covers two senses (confessing Christ’s identity vs. confessing personal sin) that if collapsed into one Maithili verb would blur 1:9’s confession-of-sin from 4:2-3’s confession-of-Christ (a doctrinally load-bearing distinction). क्षमा in general Maithili ethical usage names a cultivated personal virtue (patience/forbearance a person displays), not God’s forensic judicial pardon. शुद्ध evokes संस्कार ritual purification and Panjikaran lineage-purity concerns. | Fence two distinct compound verbs: अंगीकार करब exclusively for Christological confession (2:23; 4:2-3,15), पाप स्वीकार करब exclusively for sin-confession (1:9). Use क्षमा करब but require a translator note at 1:9 distinguishing judicial pardon from cultivated ethical forbearance. Use शुद्ध करब but require a translator note distinguishing Christ’s once-for-all moral cleansing from repeatable ritual purification. |
| Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | भाइ (brother); परमेश्वरसँ जन्म पाओल (born of God); परमेश्वरक सन्तान (children of God) | भाइ risks being heard through बिरादरी, the caste/lineage-community sense reinforced by the Panjikaran registry system, rather than as fictive spiritual kinship cutting across caste lines. “Born of God” has no ready native equivalent that avoids पुनर्जन्म (forbidden reincarnation term); नव जन्म alone is still exposed to a birth-cycle reading without an anchoring “from God” phrase. | Use भाइ but require explicit discipleship-note framing (per baseline’s unity_of_jews_and_gentiles precedent) that this kinship crosses caste and lineage. Use the anchored compound परमेश्वरसँ जन्म पाओल (never पुनर्जन्म, never नव जन्म alone) and teach it as the organic-family counterpart to baseline’s legal पुत्रत्व प्रदान. |
| The Incarnation and Antichrist | देहधारण (incarnation, baseline reuse); मसीह-विरोधी (antichrist) | देहधारण’s central risk is not lexical absence but lexical presence of a rival story: Mithila is the Ramayana’s own geographic setting (Sita’s mythological birthplace, the Janakpur marriage site), so avatar-descent theology is a locally “owned” narrative, raising the risk that देहधारण is heard as one more chapter in that same story. मसीह-विरोधी risks being read through the region’s own epic-antagonist archetype (e.g., Ravana) rather than as doctrinal denial specifically. | Reuse देहधारण exactly, with mandatory translator note at every occurrence (1:1-2 restated as जीवनक वचन; 4:2-3 as the confession-test) distinguishing a once-for-all, permanent taking of human nature from a repeatable avatar-appearance. Use मसीह-विरोधी with a note clarifying this names doctrinal denial of Christ’s identity, not a generic villain figure. |
| Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | अनन्त जीवन (eternal life); साहस (confidence); न्यायक दिन (day of judgment) | अनन्त जीवन must resist collapse into मुक्ति/मोक्ष (liberation-from-rebirth), the default frame in which “eternal/ultimate life” is popularly understood regionally. साहस alone (as “boldness/courage”) lacks the specific courtroom-access/legal-standing connotation of παρρησία. न्यायक दिन risks being heard through the lens of कर्मफलक हिसाब (an impersonal karmic ledger/reckoning). | Reuse अनन्त जीवन exactly (never मुक्ति/मोक्ष), grounding it as relational communion with a personal God, not liberation. Use साहस with translator note tying it to Christ’s finished work (2:28; 3:21; 4:17), not accumulated merit. Frame न्यायक दिन explicitly as a personal tribunal, not an impersonal ledger. |
| Overcoming the World | जीतब / विजय पाओब (overcome); संसार (world) | जीतब/विजय पाओब are exposed to the region’s Durga-Mahishasura victory narrative (celebrated at Vijayadashami/Dussehra) — a singular, decisive, martial triumph by a warrior-deity, which is a different shape of victory than 1 John’s ongoing, persevering, faith-sustained overcoming. संसार in everyday philosophical usage carries संसार-चक्र (rebirth-cycle) associations. | Use जीतब/विजय पाओब with mandatory translator note at 4:4 and 5:4-5 distinguishing persevering faith through ongoing struggle from a singular martial victory. Use संसार (standard, unavoidable) but clarify at first occurrence (2:15) that this names the present moral-relational order opposed to God, not a metaphysical rebirth-cycle. |
| Testing the Spirits | आत्मा जाँच करब (test the spirits); सत्यक आत्मा / भ्रमक आत्मा (spirit of truth/error) | The bare word आत्मा (“spirit”) without qualification risks confusion with पवित्र आत्मा (Holy Spirit) in a region with numerous living guru and spirit-medium traditions where “testing a spirit” is itself a familiar (if differently grounded) practice. | Always keep आत्मा (unqualified, plural sense) sharply distinguished from पवित्र आत्मा by context markers and translator notes at 4:1-6; never allow “spirit of truth” (4:6) to be casually read as a different entity from the Holy Spirit without a clarifying note that in this specific passage they denote the same reality. |
2. Missing Vocabulary (Lexical Gaps)
These are concepts for which Maithili has no existing single word and a compound/descriptive phrase must be built. Absence of a ready lexeme is itself a risk (translators may reach for the nearest crowded-neighborhood term out of convenience), so each is flagged for consistent compound-phrase discipline.
| Concept | Gap Description | Constructed Maithili Phrase | Discipline Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Born of God (γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) | No native single verb distinguishes a completed, God-initiated, non-repeatable begetting from ordinary birth-language, which defaults toward the rebirth-cycle idiom. | परमेश्वरसँ जन्म पाओल | Never shorten to नव जन्म or जन्म लेल alone; the anchoring “from God” (-सँ) must always be present. |
| Propitiation (ἱλασμός) | No native term names a God-initiated atoning sacrifice; the entire regional penance vocabulary (प्रायश्चित्त) is human-initiated. | प्रायश्चित्त-बलिदान | Never use प्रायश्चित्त alone; always pair with बलिदान and a translator note reversing the direction of agency (God provides, not sinner performs). |
| God’s seed (σπέρμα αὐτοῦ) | No existing idiom names an abiding, non-hereditary divine “seed” of moral nature; the nearest native lexeme for descent (वंश) is lineage/genealogical and would import caste-purity associations. | परमेश्वरक बीआ | Use बीआ (agricultural “seed”), never वंश; reserve वंश strictly for physical genealogical descent per baseline’s seed_of_david entry. |
| Word of Life (ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς) | No existing compound joins “Word” and “Life” as a single Christological title in prior Maithili Christian usage. | जीवनक वचन | Must carry a translator note at 1:1 linking it explicitly to देहधारण, since this is 1 John’s own restatement of John 1:14. |
| Sin unto death / not unto death (ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον) | No settled pastoral vocabulary exists for this theologically contested distinction; any confident single-phrase resolution risks pre-deciding an unsettled exegetical question. | मृत्युदायक पाप / मृत्युदायक नहि पाप | Flag for mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence (5:16-17); do not present with false interpretive confidence. |
| Advocate (παράκλητος, forensic sense) | No existing native term distinguishes courtroom legal-defense from general intercessory prayer (already covered by baseline’s मध्यस्थता for a different Greek concept). | अधिवक्ता | Require translator note establishing the legal/courtroom background at 2:1; keep distinct from मध्यस्थता. |
| Antichrist (ἀντίχριστος) as doctrinal category | No existing native term names specifically doctrinal denial of Christ’s identity as opposed to a generic villain/adversary figure. | मसीह-विरोधी | Require translator note distinguishing from epic-antagonist archetypes (e.g., Ravana) at first occurrence (2:18). |
3. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
These are concepts where Maithili/Sanskrit-tatsama vocabulary offers multiple competing candidate terms, each already doctrinally “occupied” by a rival religious frame. The strategy in each case is to select one term and explicitly fence out the others via translation-memory enforcement and mandatory translator notes.
| Concept | Competing Native/Tatsama Candidates | Occupying Frame(s) | Fenced Choice | Fencing Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Love (ἀγάπη) | प्रेम / अनुराग / स्नेह / भक्ति | Radha-Krishna prema-bhakti viraha poetry (Vidyapati tradition); bhakti devotional reverence (baseline already fences भक्ति out of “faith”) | प्रेम (with mandatory recurring translator note) | प्रेम is unavoidable as the entrenched North Indian Bible-translation choice, but its cultural neighborhood is the most crowded and highest-stakes in the entire letter, since 1 John’s central claim (“God is love,” 4:8,16) is repeated as a refrain across the core passage. अनुराग and भक्ति are harder-fenced out entirely (never used for ἀγάπη); स्नेह is too weak to bear ontological weight. |
| Light (φῶς) | प्रकाश / ज्योति / तेज | Puranic divine-luster/theophany imagery (deity’s radiant form beheld in darshan); baseline already fences तेज out of “glory” | प्रकाश | ज्योति and तेज both point to visible radiance-to-behold; 1 John’s light is a moral-epistemic-relational claim (“God is light,” 1:5) about truth and purity, not a visual phenomenon. |
| Abide (μένω) | स्थिर रहब / लीन होएब / एक भऽ जाएब | Advaitic ontological-merger goal; bhakti-union (सायुज्य) traditions of dissolving into the beloved deity | स्थिर रहब | लीन होएब and एक भऽ जाएब both imply the self’s dissolution into the divine, which 1 John’s abiding (mutual, relational, two-persons-in-communion) explicitly does not teach. |
| Perfected (τελειόω) | पूर्ण भेल / सिद्ध भेल / सिद्धि | Yogic/Tantric siddhi-attainment (supernatural power through spiritual discipline), prominent in regional Shaiva-Tantric practice | पूर्ण भेल | सिद्ध/सिद्धि risks being read as attained supernatural power/perfection through the believer’s own practice, rather than love reaching God-given relational maturity. |
| Anointing (χρῖσμα) | अभिषेक / पवित्र आत्माक अभिषेक | Shiva-linga ritual bathing/anointing (जलाभिषेक, दुग्धाभिषेक), central to regional Shaiva devotional practice | पवित्र आत्माक अभिषेक (never अभिषेक alone) | अभिषेक alone would be heard as external ritual substance-anointing of an idol/image; always pairing with पवित्र आत्मा redirects to the Spirit’s inward, non-ritual, universal-to-every-believer anointing. |
| Power / Overcoming (νικάω) | जीतब / विजय पाओब / विजय | Durga-Mahishasura martial victory narrative (Vijayadashami/Dussehra) | जीतब / विजय पाओब (with translator note) | The martial-triumph frame is a singular, decisive, warrior-deity victory; 1 John’s overcoming is ongoing, faith-sustained perseverance, a different theological shape requiring explicit distinguishing notes rather than a different word (no unoccupied native alternative exists). |
| World (κόσμος) | संसार / जगत | Hindu philosophical संसार-चक्र (rebirth/transmigration cycle) | संसार (standard, unavoidable) | No unoccupied alternative exists; risk is managed via translator note (at 2:15) rather than lexical substitution, since जगत is equally exposed and less established in Bible-translation precedent. |
| Idols (εἴδωλον) | मूर्ति / प्रतिमा / देवता | Concrete devotional images of Durga, Kali, Shiva, Vishnu, Ram-Sita central to daily regional religious life | मूर्ति | This is the most direct doctrinal collision in the letter (5:21); softening to an abstract “false things” euphemism would rob the text of its pastoral force. Mandatory human theologian review and careful, non-inflammatory discipleship framing are required, but the concrete referent must not be diluted. |
| Testing spirits (πνεῦμα, plural sense) | आत्मा (bare) vs पवित्र आत्मा | Guru and spirit-medium discernment traditions, where “testing a spirit” is itself an existing (differently grounded) regional practice | आत्मा (bare, plural, contextually marked) vs पवित्र आत्मा (never conflated) | Requires syntactic/contextual fencing rather than a different lexeme, since both senses legitimately use आत्मा in Greek; translator notes at 4:1-6 must make the distinction explicit every time. |
| Confidence (παρρησία) | साहस / निडरता / भरोसा | Popular expectation of an impersonal karmic reckoning (कर्मफलक हिसाब) governing final judgment anxiety | साहस | निडरता is too flat (lacks courtroom/relational-access sense); भरोसा leans toward general trust/reliance without the legal-standing nuance. Fencing is achieved via translator note anchoring साहस in Christ’s finished work rather than a settled karmic account. |
4. Transliteration vs Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| मसीह (Messiah/Christ) | Transliteration (reused from baseline) | Established North Indian Bible-translation precedent; avoids being read as a generic “anointed teacher” category alongside regional avatar-figures. |
| यीशु (Jesus) | Transliteration (reused from baseline) | Established form; never ईसा (Muslim/Urdu-associated). |
| आमीन, हल्लेलूयाह (Amen, Hallelujah — cross-referenced from baseline; not textually present in 1 John but relevant for liturgical framing material) | Transliteration | Consistency with baseline’s established transliterated theological proper nouns. |
| प्रायश्चित्त-बलिदान (Propitiation) | Paraphrase/compound, not transliteration | No Greek/Hebrew loanword tradition exists for this concept in Maithili Christian usage; a compound noun phrase reversing agency (God-initiated) is required rather than importing a foreign term that would need extensive independent explanation. |
| परमेश्वरसँ जन्म पाओल (Born of God) | Paraphrase/compound | A single transliterated or borrowed term would carry no inherent meaning to the reader; the anchored native phrase is required to hold the line against पुनर्जन्म. |
| अधिवक्ता (Advocate) | Paraphrase (native/tatsama compound), not transliteration | The legal-forensic image is better carried by an existing Maithili legal-register word (advocate/legal counsel) than by a transliterated Greek term (paraklētos), which would be opaque to readers. |
| मसीह-विरोधी (Antichrist) | Paraphrase/compound built on the already-transliterated मसीह | A bare transliteration (“एन्टीक्राइस्ट”) would be unintelligible to the target reading level (Class 8–10 proficiency); the compound makes the doctrinal content (“opposed to Christ”) transparent. |
| पवित्र आत्माक अभिषेक (Anointing) | Paraphrase/compound, never bare अभिषेक | Bare transliteration is not an option (अभिषेक is already a native/tatsama word, not a loanword), but the bare word alone is doctrinally unsafe; the compound is mandatory. |
| शैतान (Devil) | Transliteration/loanword (already naturalized) | Already a familiar, low-collision loan term across South Asian Christian and general usage; no native paraphrase is necessary or preferable. |
| न्यायक दिन (Day of Judgment) | Paraphrase | Standard descriptive phrase; no transliteration candidate exists or is needed. |
| General principle | Prefer paraphrase/compound over transliteration whenever a transliterated Greek/Hebrew term would be doctrinally opaque to a reader with low OT/NT background literacy (per baseline’s stated audience assumption); reserve transliteration for proper names and a small set of already-established liturgical terms. | Consistent with baseline’s reading-level target (Class 8–10 proficiency) and its caution against assuming prior exposure to a settled Christian Maithili vocabulary. |
5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × cultural-collision strength × frequency in the letter), drawing on the full-book review above.
- “God is love” (ἀγάπη, 4:8,16) vs. Mithila’s viraha-prema devotional register. Highest risk in the entire letter: this is 1 John’s central ontological claim, repeated as the core passage’s refrain, using the single most culturally “occupied” word in the glossary (प्रेम). Failure here would not merely blur a concept but would reframe the letter’s thesis as a restatement of Radha-Krishna longing-devotion. Requires recurring, not merely first-occurrence, translator notes.
- Incarnation as confession-test (देहधारण, 4:2-3) vs. Mithila’s “owned” avatar-descent narrative. Second-highest risk because Mithila is not a neutral setting for this doctrine but the Ramayana’s own geography; the confession functions in 4:2-3 as the very test separating true from false spirits, so ambiguity here has diagnostic consequences for the letter’s discernment doctrine, not just Christological precision.
- Idols (μῦρτι, 5:21) as the letter’s closing command. High risk because it is the most concrete, unavoidable doctrinal collision (naming the region’s actual devotional images) and because it is the letter’s final word — a mistranslation or euphemistic softening here undercuts the pastoral force of the entire epistle’s closing appeal.
- Born of God / God’s seed (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18) vs. पुनर्जन्म (reincarnation). High risk because “born of God” recurs as 1 John’s primary diagnostic refrain for genuine faith; any drift toward rebirth-cycle vocabulary would make the letter’s repeated test of authentic faith read as compatible with samsaric worldview claims it is written to exclude.
- Propitiation (ἱλασμός, 2:2; 4:10) vs. प्रायश्चित्त self-performed penance. High risk because it inverts agency (God provides atonement vs. human performs penance) in a single compressed noun phrase; the risk is compounded by 4:10’s direct grace/self-effort contrast, echoing the baseline’s grace-vs-merit escalation rule.
- Testing the spirits / spirit of truth vs. spirit of error (4:1-6) vs. the region’s living guru/spirit-medium discernment traditions. High risk because the practice of “testing a spirit” is not foreign to the target culture — it is already a familiar activity — but grounded on a different authority structure; readers may import an existing discernment framework (e.g., a living guru’s authority to validate a spirit) rather than the text’s Christological confession-test criterion.
- Overcome/victory (νικάω, 4:4; 5:4-5) vs. Durga-Mahishasura martial-triumph narrative. Medium-high risk: no unoccupied native term exists, so the risk must be managed entirely through translator notes rather than lexical choice, making consistent note application (across multiple translators/phases) a genuine implementation risk.
- Confess (Christ) vs. confess (sin) — single Greek verb ὁμολογέω split across two Maithili verbs (1:9 vs. 2:23; 4:2-3,15). Medium-high risk: if a translator or reviewer unfamiliar with the split defaults to one verb throughout, 1:9’s confession of personal sin could be misread as a Christological confession or vice versa, with consequences for both the confession-of-Christ salvation doctrine and the sin-confession/forgiveness doctrine.
- Sin unto death / not unto death (5:16-17). Medium risk in cultural-collision terms but high risk in interpretive-confidence terms: the danger is not syncretism but false translational certainty about a genuinely contested exegetical question; flagged for mandatory theologian review rather than resolved by this analysis.
- Abide (μένω) vs. Advaitic/bhakti ontological merger. Medium risk: less immediately visible than the “love” or “incarnation” risks because स्थिर रहब is a comparatively neutral verb, but the concept recurs so frequently (at least eleven times across chapters 2–4) that a single slip toward merger-suggestive phrasing in later Phase 2 segments could cumulatively reshape the doctrine of fellowship with God across the whole letter.
6. Summary and Handoff Notes
- This analysis identifies 7 missing-vocabulary items requiring constructed compound phrases (no existing single Maithili word suffices) and 10 crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring an explicit fencing decision (one term chosen, competing terms explicitly forbidden, translator notes mandated).
- The doctrine vocabulary matrix confirms that all eight curriculum doctrines intersect at least one Critical- or High-risk lexical decision already reflected in
08_core_glossary.mdandbible_term_registry.json; no doctrine in this curriculum is linguistically “safe” by default. - The ranked ambiguity list should directly inform Phase 1 Step 9 (translator note authoring) and Phase 2 Step 17 (review routing): items 1–6 above require mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence, not merely first occurrence, given their recurrence density across the core passage (4:7-21) and the whole letter.
- No contradictions with the Romans baseline package were introduced; every fencing and transliteration decision here either reuses a baseline term unchanged (Section A discipline) or extends the baseline’s established method (Critical forbidden-substitution discipline, honorific-verb identity-confession pattern, translator-note requirement for culturally “owned” doctrines) to 1 John’s new vocabulary.
- This document should be loaded alongside
translation_memory.json(post-merge, version incremented),bible_term_registry.json, and the forthcoming updateddoctrine_risk_registry.jsonbefore Phase 2 segment translation begins for 1 John.