Semantic Analysis

Several Marathi terms in this Language Package carry a narrower or broader semantic range than their English source word, which affects how consistently they can be used across contexts.

Narrower-than-English terms

• पवित्र जन (saints): English “saints” can informally mean “especially holy people,” but पवित्र जन must be used for all believers corporately (Romans 1:7), never for an ascetic or literary elite — that narrower, elevated sense belongs to संत, the specific title of the revered Warkari poet-saints (Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Namdev, Eknath, Chokhamela), and is explicitly rejected for this use.
• बोलावलेले / पाचारण (called/calling): the same English word “called” covers at least three distinct senses in Romans (called to apostleship in 1:1, called to be saints in 1:7, and effectual calling to salvation in 8:28–30). The Marathi rendering is context-sensitive and must be checked against which sense is active in each verse, not applied uniformly.

Broader-than-English terms

• सामर्थ्य (power): used consistently for “power of God” (Romans 1:16) specifically to avoid शक्ती, which has a much broader field in Maharashtra tied to the Shakti/mother-goddess devotional tradition (Tuljapur’s Tuljabhavani). सामर्थ्य is semantically narrower and safer, even though it is slightly less common in casual speech.
• विश्वास (faith): covers both “belief” and “trust” in Marathi, which is actually an advantage here — Romans uses “faith” to mean active, personal trust in Christ, not mere intellectual assent, and विश्वास’s broader range captures both without needing two separate words.

A term whose two “obvious” senses point in opposite directions

• कृपा (grace): in Warkari devotional usage कृपा already names a deity’s favor granted in response to devotion (still merit-adjacent), which is close enough to the biblical sense to be a useful bridge but risky if left unqualified. In a Buddhist frame, by contrast, there is no comparable everyday word at all — कृपा would need to be introduced as a wholly new category rather than corrected from an existing one. The same word therefore needs two different pedagogical moves depending on the reader’s background.

Implication

Where a Marathi term’s semantic range differs from its English source — or, distinctively in this Language Package, differs between its Warkari-Hindu and Buddhist prior meanings — the glossary’s notes field (see translation_memory.json) exists specifically to flag the mismatch for translators, so a term isn’t applied mechanically in a context its actual meaning doesn’t support for every reader.