06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — 1 Corinthians (Full Book)
1. Purpose
This analysis identifies, for the 1 Corinthians curriculum, where the Manipuri (Meiteilon, Bengali script) language and its live dual religious landscape — Sanamahism (Sanamahi, Pakhangba, the Umang Lai forest deities, Lai Haraoba, maibi/maiba ritual specialists) and Gaudiya Vaishnavism (Krishna-Radha bhakti devotion, the Ras Lila tradition) — provide (a) no ready vocabulary at all, (b) vocabulary that is available but semantically crowded by an existing, actively practiced religious meaning, or (c) vocabulary that can be reused cleanly from the Romans baseline. It extends, and never contradicts, the baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json, and it is the working basis for analysis/08_core_glossary.md, which this document precedes in the pipeline sequence and with which its findings must remain fully consistent.
Scope: full-book coverage of 1 Corinthians 1–16, organized around the ten curriculum doctrines, with the core passage (15:1-11) as theological anchor rather than scope boundary.
2. Method
For each doctrine, three questions are asked:
- What Manipuri vocabulary is already available (reused from the Romans TM, or a natural regional/Indic loanword)?
- What is structurally weak, missing, or dangerously crowded by an existing live-tradition meaning?
- What translation strategy — reuse, new descriptive compound, transliteration, or “fenced” term with mandatory teaching note — resolves the gap without contradicting baseline conventions?
Risk tiers follow doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions (Critical/High/Medium/Low; routing to theologian/native-speaker/automated review).
3. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
3.1 The Resurrection of Christ and Believers
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| সিবদগী হিংজত-লকপা (resurrection, reused Critical) | Solid for the single event/doctrine word, but the chapter 15 argument requires nine supporting terms (received/delivered tradition, buried, third day, appeared, once-for-all, firstfruits, spiritual body, sown, imperishable/mortal, sting, victory) that do not exist in Manipuri Christian vocabulary at all | New descriptive compounds for each supporting term (see 08 glossary); anchor every occurrence to সিবদগী হিংজত-লকপা so the chain of argument reads as one unified doctrine, not ten unrelated new words |
| থাওয়াইগী হকচাং (spiritual body, new High) | Bare থাওয়াই already names ancestral/nature-spirit categories in Sanamahi belief (Apokpa, Umang Lai); “spiritual body” risks being heard as a disembodied ghost-state | Always pair with হকচাং (body) in full compound; never allow থাওয়াই alone to stand for the resurrection body; explicit teaching note contrasting with Apokpa ancestor-spirit existence |
| হুনবা (sown, new Medium) | Agrarian sowing metaphor transfers naturally to Manipur’s rice-cultivating context — a genuine strength, not a gap — but risk of being reheard through a cyclical-return frame (crop cycles, seasonal harvest festivals) if not anchored to a single historical resurrection event | Teach explicitly: one seed, one unrepeatable rising, not a repeating agricultural or festival cycle |
| উৎপা (appeared, new Critical) | No existing Manipuri vocabulary distinguishes “verifiable eyewitness appearance of a bodily-risen person” from (a) a maibi’s trance-vision of an Umang Lai deity or (b) a bhakti devotee’s inner visionary encounter with Krishna | Fence with mandatory teaching note: 15:5-8 names specific individuals and a named group of 500, most still living at time of writing — a public, checkable historical claim, not a private inner or trance experience |
Doctrine-level recommendation: Treat 15:1-11 as introducing a full technical sub-vocabulary, not a single term; every supporting term must carry its own short teaching gloss the first time it is used, since none of them exist in prior Manipuri Christian literature attested in the Romans baseline.
3.2 Christian Unity versus Factionalism
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| তোকহনবা (schism, new High), খৎনবা (quarrels, new Medium) | Plain descriptive compounds exist and function adequately at the lexical level; the real risk is pragmatic, not lexical — Manipur’s contemporary ethnic/inter-community fractures (Meitei–Kuki-Zo and related tensions) give “division in the church” language unintended present-day political resonance | No new coinage needed; strategy is a mandatory framing note restricting the doctrine to personality-based factionalism within one congregation (1:12, “I follow Paul… I follow Apollos…”), explicitly not a template for reading onto Manipur’s current ethnic-community situation |
| ক্রিস্তোদা ক্রিস্তান খংনবা (identity in Christ, reused High, from Romans registry) | Available and adequate | Reuse to ground unity positively (one body, one Lord) rather than only negatively (don’t divide) |
3.3 The Cross as Wisdom and Power
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| খংবগী মতিক (wisdom, new High) | Manipuri Vaishnavism carries its own prestigious, philosophically developed jnana/wisdom-path vocabulary (bhakti-jnana synthesis); a bare “wisdom” word risks being received as one more wisdom-path option alongside existing ones | Always pair with the cross’s foolishness-inversion (1:18-25) in the same breath; never present গ Christ’s wisdom as a philosophy competing on the same plane |
| অপাংবা (foolishness, new High) | The rhetorical inversion (what looks foolish is actually God’s wisdom) is fragile in translation and can be flattened into a simple insult or dismissed as false modesty | Preserve the paradox structurally in every occurrence; do not smooth toward either “wisdom” or “foolishness” alone |
| ক্রুশ (cross, transliteration, Critical) | No native Meitei object or event corresponds to crucifixion; a literal descriptive translation (“wooden execution-frame”) would strip the term of its established devotional weight | Transliterate (as already decided) but never leave unglossed on first occurrence — must always appear with the wisdom/power paradox of 1:18 |
| লুকপা থৌরাং (mystery, new High) | Crowded neighborhood: esoteric/graded initiatory knowledge held by a maiba/maibi specialist, and tantric-influenced secret knowledge in some Vaishnava lineages, both real cultural categories of “hidden knowledge for the initiated” | Fence explicitly: God’s mystery in Christ (2:7) is now publicly proclaimed to all who believe, not privately guarded knowledge for religious specialists — the opposite structure from the crowded neighbor concepts |
3.4 Church Discipline and Holiness
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| তেংবাং মপুগী লৈফম (temple of God, new Critical) | Extremely crowded neighborhood: মন্দির (Vaishnava temple) is already forbidden in the Romans baseline for “church”; the Umang Lai sacred grove is a second, distinct worship-site category; a body indwelt by God’s Spirit is a different structure from either (a visited holy place vs. a permanently indwelt person) | New descriptive compound, never মন্দির, never grove-language; theologian review every occurrence; teaching note must state explicitly that God’s presence indwells persons/the church corporately, not a location one visits |
| ব্যভিচার (sexual immorality, new High) | Regionally attested loanword, lexically adequate; risk is framing, not vocabulary — Meitei culture (like much of the region) processes sexual sin primarily through honor/shame and family reputation categories | Teach 5:1-13 as sin against a holy indwelling God requiring redemptive community discipline, not primarily family-honor management; church discipline’s restorative goal (5:5, “that his spirit may be saved”) must not be lost |
| শয়তান (Satan, new High) | Crowded neighborhood: Sanamahi cosmology has a populated spirit-world (ancestral Apokpa, Umang Lai nature-spirits); risk of merging “Satan” into this pantheon as one more spirit-figure to be placated | Teach as a single, personal, hostile adversary of God — categorically different in kind from ancestral or nature spirits, who are not, in Sanamahi belief itself, framed as opposed to Sanamahi/the divine order |
3.5 Marriage and Singleness
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| লুহোংবা (marriage), অমা হকচাং (one flesh) | Adequate, non-crowded; marriage is a stable existing Meitei institutional category | Reuse as proposed |
| লুহোংদবা (unmarried, new High) | Genuine cultural gap, not a crowded-neighborhood problem: Meitei clan (yumnak) continuity runs through marriage and childbearing, making sustained voluntary singleness for undivided devotion to the Lord (7:32-35) a countercultural, currently unglossed category | No borrowed term exists to repurpose; must be taught as a positive theological vocation (a gift, 7:7) with explicit contrast against clan-continuity expectations, not left as an unexplained negative (“not married”) |
| লৈরেম্মা (virgin), লুহোংবগী থৌদাং (conjugal duty) | Adequate as descriptive compounds | Reuse as proposed; confirm naturalness with native speaker |
3.6 Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| মীওইনা শেমখ্রবা লাই (idol, new Critical), লাইদা কতখিবা চাক (food sacrificed to idols, new Critical), মীওইনা শেমখ্রবা লাইদা খুরুমজবা (idolatry, new Critical) | The single most concrete, highest-frequency real-world collision in the whole curriculum: this is not a hypothetical ancient practice but the living, ongoing custom of communal food shared after Lai Haraoba offerings to the Umang Lai and prasad/mahaprasad shared after Krishna worship | Every occurrence requires human theologian review; teaching note must state precisely what Paul argues (idols represent no true god, 8:4-6; the meat itself is religiously neutral, 10:25-27) without this being heard as a blanket insult to practicing neighbors’ current devotional life |
| থমোইগী খংবা (conscience, new High) | Genuine vocabulary gap: no crisp traditional Meitei category isolates an individual’s internal moral self-judgment from external communal/ritual propriety norms | New descriptive compound required; must be taught explicitly as an inner faculty distinct from community expectation, since Paul’s argument (8:7-12; 10:25-29) depends on this distinction functioning |
| লাইরাক (demon, new Critical), মপু ইবুংগোগী চাক-থাক (“the Lord’s table,” contrasted with “the table of demons,” new Critical) | High risk of being heard as declaring that Umang Lai deities or Krishna are demonic in a way that flatly denies their reality or insults current worshippers, rather than the narrower Pauline claim that hostile spiritual realities operate behind idol worship | Theologian review every occurrence; pastoral framing note distinguishing the theological claim from personal condemnation is mandatory, not optional |
3.7 The Lord’s Supper
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| মপু ইবুংগোগী চাক (Lord’s Supper, new Critical), ঈ (blood of Christ, new Critical), ৱারেপ্পা (covenant, reused High) | Structurally similar-looking, currently practiced neighboring rites exist on both sides of the Meitei religious landscape: Vaishnava prasad/mahaprasad communal feasting, and Lai Haraoba communal feasting (including historical/ritual blood-offering to the Umang Lai) | Every occurrence flagged for theologian review; teaching note must state the Lord’s Supper is a once-for-all completed atonement remembered, not a repeatable ritual meal or blood-offering renewing standing with a deity |
| নিংশিংবা (remembrance, new Medium), মতিক চাদবা মৱোংদা (unworthy manner, new Medium), ৱায়েল (judgment, new Medium) | Lexically adequate, non-crowded | Reuse as proposed |
3.8 Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| থাওয়াইগী খুদোল (spiritual gifts, reused Medium) | Adequate at the general level, but chapter 12’s specific gift list introduces two genuinely new high-risk sub-terms not covered by the Romans baseline: tongues and body-of-Christ | See below |
| লোল (tongues, new Critical) | Single highest-collision term in this doctrine: Lai Haraoba’s maibi trance-possession utterance is a live, high-salience, currently practiced phenomenon structurally similar on the surface (ecstatic speech in a religious assembly) | Theologian review every occurrence; mandatory teaching note: Spirit-given tongues in 1 Corinthians are Spirit-controlled (14:32, “the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets”), always ordered, and require interpretation for public use — never trance-possession in which the speaker’s own agency and awareness are suspended |
| বাপ্তিস্মা (baptized, new High) | New ordinance term beyond the Romans baseline entirely; risk of being read as one more ritual water-purification analogous to pre-Lai Haraoba or pre-temple-worship washing | Must be taught explicitly as the Spirit’s incorporating act into the one body of Christ (12:13), not a repeatable purity rite |
| ক্রিস্তোগী হকচাং (body of Christ, new High) | Risk of being heard through the lens of Meitei clan (yumnak) or contemporary ethnic-community belonging, both very socially load-bearing categories in Manipur today | Teach explicitly that this unity transcends clan/ethnic lines (echoing Romans’ “no distinction” universality principle) without directly mapping the doctrine onto present inter-community tensions |
3.9 Love as the Greater Way
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| মথৌ তাদনা নুংশিবা (love, new Critical — single highest-salience new term in the entire curriculum) | The most direct and prestigious semantic collision in the whole book: Manipuri Vaishnavism’s প্রেম (Radha-Krishna romantic devotional love, enacted in the UNESCO-recognized Ras Lila) is a culturally celebrated, high-status vocabulary of divine love; ভক্তি (already rejected in the Romans baseline for “faith”) is the other obvious reach-for-word | Neither প্রেম nor ভক্তি may ever be used as the primary term. The descriptive compound মথৌ তাদনা নুংশিবা (“love given without needing to be earned,” structurally parallel to the grace compound মথৌ তাদনা পীবা তেংবাং) must carry ch.13’s entire argument: selfless, patient, non-jealous, cruciform love, contrasted explicitly with romantic devotional longing. Theologian review at every occurrence, no exceptions. |
| আশা (hope, new High) | Crowded neighborhood: a bhakti devotee’s aspirational hope of eventual nearness to/union with Krishna (Vaikuntha/Goloka) is a live devotional category, already flagged in the Romans baseline salvation entry | Teach 13:13’s hope as confident expectation grounded in Christ’s already-accomplished resurrection (15:19-23), not aspirational devotional longing for a future divine encounter |
| খংবা (knowledge, reused/extended Medium) | Non-crowded, but doctrinally paired: 8:1’s “knowledge puffs up, love builds up” must be read forward into ch.13’s argument | Cross-reference explicitly in teaching notes; do not treat 8:1 and 13:1-13 as unrelated occurrences |
3.10 Order in Worship
| Available terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|
| কোক (headship, new High), কোক ফুম্বা (head covering, new Medium) | Head covering has a genuine point of natural resonance (existing Meitei women’s innaphi/khudei head-covering customs), which is a strength, but the underlying headship doctrine (11:3-10) is a live, sensitive gender-relations topic requiring careful, non-oppressive framing | Reuse proposed compounds; mandatory teaching note pairing headship language with the mutual-honor qualification of 11:11-12 (“in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman”) so the doctrine is not taught in isolation from its own internal balance |
| ৱা হায়দবা (keep silent, new High) | Genuinely sensitive passage (14:34-35) at risk of being read as a universal prohibition on women’s speech in worship, in tension with 11:5’s assumption that women do pray and prophesy in the assembly | Theologian review required; teaching note must restrict this instruction to its specific disorderly-questioning context, explicitly cross-referenced against 11:5 so the two passages are not left in apparent contradiction |
| তোঙান তোঙানবা ফোংদোকপা (prophet, reused Low), লোল (tongues, see 3.8), ৱাহন্থোকপা (interpretation, new Low), মপুং ফাবা মৱোং (order, new Low) | Adequate; non-crowded except for তোঙান তোঙানবা ফোংদোকপা’s existing fencing against মৈবা/মৈবী (already established in Romans baseline) | Reuse as proposed |
4. Missing Vocabulary Requiring New Coinage (No Prior Attestation)
The following concepts have no attested Manipuri Christian rendering in the Romans baseline and required fresh descriptive compounds for this curriculum. All are marked [PROVISIONAL] in 08_core_glossary.md pending confirmation with a Manipuri-speaking theologian/native speaker before Phase 2 deployment:
- Formal reception/handing-down of apostolic tradition (paralambanō/paradidōmi pair) — 15:1,3; no prior Manipuri Christian vocabulary marks this technical creed-transmission sense.
- Substitutionary “for” (hyper, 15:3) — Manipuri has no fixed grammatical particle carrying “in place of” with atoning force; a contextual possessive/purpose compound (-গীদমক) must be used and taught explicitly, since no Sanamahi or Vaishnava atonement category (prayaschitta, Lai Haraoba purification) has a substitutionary-death structure to borrow from.
- Conscience as an individual internal moral faculty distinct from communal/ritual propriety (syneidēsis) — a genuine conceptual gap, not merely a lexical one.
- Positive theological singleness (agamos) — countercultural relative to yumnak clan-continuity expectations; requires coinage plus sustained positive framing, not just translation.
- Natural body vs. spiritual body contrast (psychikos/pneumatikos applied to sōma) — no prior Manipuri anthropological vocabulary distinguishes these; both sides of the contrast are new coinages built on existing roots (হকচাং, থাওয়াই অসেংবা).
- “Untimely born” self-deprecating apostolic image (ektrōma, 15:8) — culturally delicate; flagged for native-speaker sensitivity review to avoid an unintentionally graphic or shaming Manipuri phrase.
5. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Needing Fencing
These are cases where a usable Manipuri word or phrase exists, but it (or an obvious near-neighbor) already carries strong, currently active meaning within Sanamahism or Manipuri Vaishnavism, such that unfenced use would import that meaning into the biblical text. Each requires an explicit teaching note distinguishing the biblical sense from the neighboring live-tradition sense, not merely a glossary entry.
| Biblical concept | Crowding neighbor(s) | Nature of the collision | Fence required |
|---|
| Love (agapē) | প্রেম (Ras Lila Radha-Krishna romantic devotion), ভক্তি (bhakti devotional love) | Both are prestigious, UNESCO-adjacent, actively celebrated vocabularies of divine love | Never use either as primary term; contrast selfless/cruciform love against devotional romantic longing explicitly |
| Idol / idol-food / idolatry | Umang Lai offerings at Lai Haraoba; Krishna prasad/mahaprasad | Currently practiced, high-frequency community food-sharing customs | Teach precisely what Paul argues (idols = no true god behind the image) without denying the reality of hostile spiritual forces (10:20) or insulting practicing neighbors |
| Tongues | Maibi ecstatic/oracular trance-possession speech at Lai Haraoba | Surface-similar: ecstatic speech in a religious assembly | Teach as Spirit-controlled, orderly, interpretable speech — the opposite structure of trance-possession, in which ordinary agency is suspended |
| Temple (of God) | মন্দির (Vaishnava temple, already fenced in Romans baseline); Umang Lai sacred grove | Both are visited holy places; the biblical concept is an indwelt person/community | Never use মন্দির or grove-language; stress permanent personal indwelling, not a site one visits |
| Spiritual body / resurrection | থাওয়াই (spirit/soul) as ancestral Apokpa or Umang Lai nature-spirit category | Risk of hearing “spiritual body” as disembodied spirit-existence | Always pair থাওয়াই with হকচাং in full; teach as a real, transformed, physical body, never a ghost-state |
| Demon / Lord’s table vs. table of demons | Umang Lai deities, Krishna worship | Risk of blanket denial of neighbors’ devotional reality rather than the narrower claim about hostile spiritual realities | Mandatory pastoral framing note at every occurrence |
| Mystery (previously hidden, now revealed) | Maiba/maibi esoteric ritual knowledge; graded/initiatory tantric-influenced knowledge in some Vaishnava lineages | Biblical mystery is now publicly proclaimed; the neighbor concept is privately guarded | Fence with explicit contrast: openly preached, not secret |
| Headship / head covering | Existing Meitei women’s head-covering customs (innaphi/khudei) | Genuine resonance is a strength here, but risks the doctrine being received as mere custom-continuity rather than a theological argument | Teach the theological rationale distinctly from cultural custom; pair with 11:11-12 mutual-honor qualification |
| Anathema (closing curse, 16:22) | A maiba’s ritual imprecation/curse-power in Sanamahi practice | Risk of hearing Paul’s closing formula as one more ritual curse-invocation | Teach as God’s own eschatological judicial verdict, categorically distinct in source and authority |
| Satan | Populated Sanamahi ancestral/nature-spirit world (Apokpa, Umang Lai) | Risk of merging into that pantheon as one more spirit-figure | Teach as a single, personal adversary of God, not one spirit among many to be placated |
6. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|
| Cross (stauros) → ক্রুশ | Transliterate | No native Meitei object/event corresponds to crucifixion; a literal descriptive rendering would strip the term of its established devotional/doctrinal weight already present in regional Christian usage. Always glossed with the wisdom/power paradox on first use. |
| Baptized (baptizō) → বাপ্তিস্মা | Transliterate | A specific church ordinance with no native ritual equivalent close enough to safely paraphrase without importing an unwanted purification-rite meaning; established transliteration convention already used in regional Christian literature. |
| Maranatha → মারানাথা | Transliterate (preserve Aramaic) | Follows the same precedent already set for আব্বা (Abba) in the Romans baseline: an untranslated liturgical exclamation retains intimacy/urgency a paraphrase would flatten. |
| Jesus / Christ / David / Israel | Transliterate (established forms retained) | Per Romans baseline convention; no change for 1 Corinthians. |
| Satan → শয়তান | Transliterate (regionally attested loanword) | Widely attested across regional Indic Christian and Islamic vocabulary as a proper name for a personal spiritual adversary; paraphrase would risk generic “evil spirit” language that blurs into the populated Sanamahi spirit-world. |
| Sexual immorality (porneia) → ব্যভিচার | Use existing regional loanword, not a new compound | Already lexicalized across regional Bible translation tradition; a new Manipuri-only compound would create unnecessary inconsistency with neighboring-language Christian literature without doctrinal gain. |
| Grace, salvation, resurrection, love, idol, temple, spiritual body, wisdom | Paraphrase (descriptive compound), never transliterate | These are precisely the terms with the highest syncretism risk; a transliterated Greek/English loanword would carry no inherent meaning to a Manipuri reader and would default to being filled in by the nearest live-tradition concept (bhakti, Sanamahi ritual purity, etc.) rather than being taught. Descriptive compounds force the doctrinal content to be stated, not assumed. |
| ”For” / substitution (hyper) → contextual -গীদমক compound | Paraphrase only, no fixed single-word gloss | Manipuri has no grammatical particle carrying atoning substitutionary force; must be built compound-by-compound in context and taught explicitly each time. |
General principle governing this table: transliterate only where (a) the underlying referent (an object, ordinance, or liturgical exclamation) has no native equivalent to be confused with, and doctrinal content is carried by surrounding teaching rather than the word itself; paraphrase with a descriptive compound wherever an existing native word or near-neighbor already carries competing devotional content that could silently substitute for biblical meaning.
7. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal stakes and likelihood of syncretistic misreading, given the currently live (not historical) status of both Sanamahism and Manipuri Vaishnavism:
- ἀγάπη / love (13:1-13) — Critical. Direct collision with the culturally prestigious, UNESCO-recognized প্রেম (Ras Lila) devotional-love tradition; the single highest-salience new term in the whole curriculum.
- εἰδωλόθυτον / food sacrificed to idols (8:1-13; 10:23-11:1) — Critical. The most concrete, highest-frequency real-world collision point: an ongoing, present-tense community practice, not an ancient hypothetical.
- γλῶσσα / tongues (12:10; 14:1-40) — Critical. Surface-similar to maibi trance-possession utterance, a live and highly salient phenomenon in currently practiced Lai Haraoba.
- δαιμόνιον / demon and “table of demons” (10:20-21) — Critical. Risk of being heard as a blanket denial of the reality/worth of neighbors’ currently practiced devotional life, rather than Paul’s narrower claim.
- ναός / temple of God (3:16-17; 6:19) — Critical. Crowded between two existing worship-site categories (মন্দির, Umang Lai grove); the doctrine (indwelt person, not visited place) is structurally different from both.
- ὤφθη / appeared, resurrection appearances (15:5-8) — Critical. Must be distinguished from maibi trance-vision and bhakti visionary experience; the entire evidential structure of Paul’s argument depends on this distinction landing correctly.
- ὑπέρ / substitutionary “for” (15:3) — Critical. A genuine grammatical gap (no native particle carries this sense) compounded by the absence of any substitutionary-atonement structure in either neighboring tradition.
- κεφαλή / headship and κατακαλύπτω / head covering (11:3-16) — High. Live, sensitive gender-relations doctrine; risk of either over-imposing patriarchal reading or under-teaching the mutual-honor qualification of 11:11-12.
- σιγάω / keep silent (14:34-35) — High. Risk of contradiction with 11:5 if not carefully fenced to its specific disorderly-questioning context.
- σχίσμα / schism (1:10-17; 3:3) — High. Risk of being mapped onto Manipur’s contemporary inter-community/ethnic tensions rather than kept to personality-based congregational factionalism.
- ἄγαμος / unmarried, positive singleness (7:1-40) — High. Genuine cultural counter-pressure from yumnak clan-continuity expectations; requires sustained positive theological framing, not just a word.
- ἀνάθεμα / anathema (16:22) — High. Risk of being heard as one more maiba ritual curse rather than God’s own eschatological judicial verdict.
- κοπιάω / labored, grace-vs-works (15:10) — High. Risk of being reheard as bhakti-style সেবা (devotional service that builds standing) rather than grace’s fruit.
- μυστήριον / mystery (2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51) — High. Risk of assimilation to esoteric maiba/tantric-lineage secret knowledge; the biblical structure (publicly proclaimed) is the inverse.
- σῶμα πνευματικόν / spiritual body (15:44) — High. Risk of being heard through the Sanamahi thawai/Apokpa ancestral-spirit lens as disembodied existence rather than a real transformed physical body.
8. Recommendations for Phase 2
- Every term in Sections 4, 5, and 7 above must retain its [PROVISIONAL] flag in
translation_memory.json until confirmed by a Manipuri-speaking theologian or native speaker, per the baseline’s own established practice for uncertain terms.
- Critical-tier ambiguities (items 1-7 in Section 7) require a mandatory translator/teaching note attached at every occurrence, not merely at first occurrence, given the pastoral stakes of the live-tradition collisions involved.
- Phase 2 segment translation must load this document alongside
08_core_glossary.md before processing any 1 Corinthians segment, consistent with the Pre-flight Checklist established in the baseline 12_ai_translation_requirements.md; an updated instruction set for this curriculum should extend that checklist’s forbidden-substitution list to include প্রেম and ভক্তি (for love), মন্দির and Umang-Lai-grove language (for temple), and any word suggesting trance-possession (for tongues).
- Where a crowded neighborhood is identified (Section 5) but no better native term exists, the strategy is never silence or omission — it is explicit, sustained doctrinal fencing through teaching notes, consistent with the baseline’s treatment of গ্রেস/কৃপা and লর্ড/ঠাকুর.