Executive Summary

Why it matters

Romans is the theological backbone of the New Testament, and Maithili presents a doctrinal-risk profile categorically different from most languages in this pipeline: unlike Hindi or Assamese, Maithili has no long-settled Christian Bible translation tradition to anchor its highest-risk terms, and Maithili speakers carry strong linguistic-identity pride (Maithili won recognition as an independent language in India’s Eighth Schedule only in 2003, after decades of being treated administratively as a Hindi dialect). That combination means this Language Package must build genuinely Maithili doctrinal vocabulary from underdetermined ground, resisting both an uncritical wholesale import of Hindi Christian terms and the region’s own richly developed Ram-Sita/Vaishnava devotional vocabulary rooted in Mithila’s status as the Ramayana’s geographic setting.

Key findings

• The registry tracks 40 doctrines across Romans 1-16; 30 require mandatory human theologian review before any translated segment ships (7 Critical, 23 High).
• Incarnation is the highest-risk single term because Mithila is not a generic Hindu-majority region observing avatar theology from a cultural distance — it is the mythological birthplace of Sita and the site of the Sita-Ram marriage, meaning the region has a locally ‘owned’ avatar narrative that देहधारण must be actively distinguished from, not merely translated past.
• Several terms (righteousness, saints, grace, covenant) carry a secondary risk unique to this language: the temptation to illustrate or ground them in the regionally cherished ideal of Sita as a self-sacrificing, virtuous wife (सतीत्व), which quietly substitutes an achieved-merit exemplar for a freely given, faith-received status.
• Maithili’s grammar itself carries doctrinal stakes: its three-tier honorific verb-agreement system (absent in the same form from Hindi) means consistent honorific verb marking when referring to God/Christ is a distinct translation-quality requirement, not just a style preference.

Risks

• Vocabulary-vacuum risk: with no settled Christian Maithili translation precedent, translators are more likely than in Hindi or Assamese to default either to raw Hindi borrowings (which can read as imposed rather than authentically Maithili) or to reach for the region’s own devotional vocabulary (which imports Vaishnava/Shaiva theological freight).
• Sita-exemplar substitution: righteousness, grace, and faithfulness concepts risk being explained through Sita’s culturally revered virtue and self-sacrifice, which reframes these doctrines around achieved moral merit rather than a freely given, faith-received standing.
• Caste/lineage-hierarchy softening: Mithila’s Panjikaran genealogical-registry tradition, which verifies caste-lineage purity for marriage, gives “no distinction” language in Romans particular social weight; softened phrasing here understates a direct challenge to a still-active social institution.

Opportunities

• Romans’ argument for salvation by grace through faith, not through achieved virtue, offers a genuinely sharp and locally resonant counterpoint once translators are equipped to name and set aside the Sita-exemplar comparison rather than reach for it by habit.
• Maithili’s shared Sanskrit tatsama vocabulary with Hindi (सुसमाचार, अनुग्रह, विश्वास, उद्धार, etc.) means this Language Package can responsibly reuse well-tested Critical-risk term choices from the Hindi Language Package as a starting point, while adapting grammar, honorific marking, and cultural framing to be authentically Maithili.

Recommended actions

• Route every Critical and High risk segment (30 of 40 doctrines) through human theologian review before publication; do not allow automated-only review to touch these terms.
• Brief every reviewer specifically on the Sita-exemplar substitution risk and on Maithili’s honorific-verb requirements, neither of which a reviewer trained only on Hindi risk categories would anticipate.
• Reuse this Language Package’s translation_memory.json for every Romans lesson in Maithili rather than re-deriving terms per document, per the two-phase pipeline design.