Linguistic Gap Analysis — Matthew — English → Nepali

Purpose

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the Matthew curriculum. It analyzes, doctrine by doctrine, what Nepali vocabulary is available, where that vocabulary is structurally weak (either because it is empty — a true lexical gap — or because it is crowded by a competing, non-Christian semantic neighbor with independent cultural authority in Nepal), and what strategy (reuse, coinage, transliteration, paraphrase, fencing note) resolves each case. It closes with a ranked list of the highest-risk ambiguities specific to Matthew that must be locked before Phase 2 translation memory ingestion.

This analysis assumes and extends — never contradicts — the baseline Romans translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json / doctrine_risk_registry.json, and is consistent with analysis/08_core_glossary.md and the Matthew-specific assets/bible_term_registry.json already produced. Where those documents record a decision, this document records the reasoning behind it in gap-analysis terms, so that Phase 2 reviewers understand not just what to write but why.

Key finding governing this whole document: Matthew’s vocabulary gaps are overwhelmingly not gaps of absence but gaps of false abundance — Nepali already has ready, fluent-sounding words for “virgin,” “heaven,” “disciple,” “hell,” “perfect,” “worship,” “binding a spirit,” and “rebirth of the world,” and every one of them is already occupied by a Hindu, Buddhist, or Shah-monarchy-era state concept with its own doctrinal content. The translation task is therefore less “find a word” and more “fence a word” — select or coin a form and then hold a firm doctrinal boundary around it through glosses and standing translator notes.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines plus the Core Passage, this matrix records: the available Nepali terms, the specific weakness(es) of that vocabulary, and the recommended strategy. Risk tiers follow the baseline Critical/High/Medium/Low convention.

1.0 Core Passage — The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12)

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
धन्य (blessed), आत्मामा दीन (poor in spirit), दया (mercy), पवित्र हृदय (pure in heart), शान्ति स्थापना गर्नेहरू (peacemakers), सताइएका (persecuted), इनाम (reward)	धन्य risks collapsing into भाग्यशाली (luck) or पुण्य-merit fortune; आत्मामा दीन risks being heard as commending sadhu-style voluntary poverty as achievement; दया must be fenced against करुणा (Buddhist Brahma-vihara term); पवित्र हृदय must be fenced against the more “natural”-sounding शुद्ध हृदय, which carries ritual/caste-purity weight; इनाम risks a merit-accounting reading.	Each Beatitude line functions as a matched doctrinal pair (declaration + inversion of a cultural default). Recommend a single standing “Beatitudes translator note” at 5:3 applied once per document, rather than nine separate footnotes, covering: (a) धन्य is God’s declared verdict, not achieved fortune; (b) this reward structure runs on grace, not accumulated merit.

1.1 The Kingdom of Heaven

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
स्वर्गको राज्य (kingdom of heaven), परमेश्वरको राज्य (kingdom of God — baseline reuse), स्वर्ग (heaven) alone, रहस्य (mystery), साँचो (key)	स्वर्ग independently denotes the Hindu svarga-loka and Buddhist deva-loka — a temporary, meritorious heaven-realm within a cyclical, karma-governed cosmos from which beings eventually fall or are reborn out. Matthew’s overwhelming preference for “kingdom of heaven” over “kingdom of God” (32 vs. 5 occurrences) means this collision cannot be avoided by simply switching to the safer synonym — Matthew’s own literary choice must be respected.	Retain स्वर्गको राज्य as the primary rendering (already established in Nepali Bible tradition) but require a standing translator note on first occurrence per document explicitly equating it with परमेश्वरको राज्य, and clarify in teaching material that this “heaven” is God’s present and coming reign, not a meritorious afterlife destination reached by accumulated good deeds. Elevate risk to High (above baseline’s Medium for the synonym) specifically because of Matthew’s much higher term density.

1.2 Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मसीह (Messiah — baseline reuse), दाऊदका पुत्र (Son of David — new), दाऊदको वंश (seed of David — baseline reuse), कुमारी कन्या (virgin), इम्मानुएल (Immanuel)	मसीह is safe (established, baseline Critical). दाऊदका पुत्र vs दाऊदको वंश is a genuine gap risk: both translate loosely as “David’s [something],” and a careless translator could collapse the confessional title (used by petitioners addressing Jesus, e.g. 9:27; 15:22; 20:30-31) into the lineage-genealogy phrase (1:1-17), flattening a live messianic confession into a mere pedigree note. कुमारी collides severely with Nepal’s living-goddess Kumari cult.	Keep दाऊदका पुत्र and दाऊदको वंश as two permanently distinct translation-memory entries (already done in the Matthew registry); require translators to check which sense — confessional address or lineage — is grammatically active at each occurrence. कुमारी कन्या (never कुमारी alone) plus mandatory standing note at every occurrence (1:18, 1:23) remains the only defensible strategy; no unmarked single-word alternative exists in Nepali.

1.3 Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
पूरा गर्नु (fulfill), अगमवक्ता (prophet — baseline reuse), अगमवाणी (prophecy — baseline reuse), जगतको अन्त्य (end of the age)	पूरा गर्नु itself is doctrinally neutral vocabulary, but its narrative logic — an ancient word reaching completion in a later, once-for-all event — has no native categorical equivalent in either Hindu yuga-cosmology (an endlessly repeating four-age cycle, kalpa) or Buddhist rebirth-cycle time. The risk is not lexical but conceptual: a reader accustomed to cyclical time may unconsciously read “fulfillment” as merely the closing of one turn of a wheel that will turn again. जगतको अन्त्य vs. the far more natural-sounding युगको अन्त्य is the sharpest instance of this: युग is the precise technical term for a Hindu cosmological age.	Retain पूरा गर्नु but pair with catechetical material (not per-occurrence glossing, given its ~16 occurrences) that explicitly teaches Matthew’s linear view of history early in the curriculum, ideally in the same unit that introduces the genealogy (ch.1) or the first formula-quotation (1:22-23). जगतको अन्त्य is mandatory; युगको अन्त्य is forbidden — add to the Critical forbidden-substitution list (see Section 4).

1.4 The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
अधिकार (authority), शास्त्री (scribes), शबथ (Sabbath), पाप क्षमा गर्नु (forgive sins)	अधिकार itself is not a crowded word, but the doctrine it carries is easily flattened: Nepali religious culture readily accommodates a teacher (guru, lama, pundit) whose authority is earned through study, lineage, or ascetic attainment. Matthew’s claim is that Jesus’s अधिकार is inherent and divine, categorically unlike the derivative अधिकार of the शास्त्री. This is a genuine conceptual gap: Nepali has no single existing word that itself distinguishes “authority received by office/attainment” from “authority possessed by nature,” so the distinction must be carried by context and explicit teaching, not by word choice alone.	Use अधिकार consistently but require every Christologically load-bearing occurrence (7:29; 9:6,8; 21:23-27; 28:18) to be paired, in teaching notes, with an explicit contrast to the scribes’ derivative authority. Flag for theologian review wherever अधिकार co-occurs with a forgiveness or Sabbath-lordship claim, since these are the passages where the “inherent vs. derivative” distinction is doctrinally sharpest.

1.5 Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
धार्मिकता (righteousness — baseline Critical reuse), पूर्ण (perfect), पाखण्डी (hypocrite), अशुद्ध (unclean/defile)	धार्मिकता is safe and locked by baseline (never धर्म). The genuine Matthew-specific gap is पूर्ण vs. सिद्ध for “perfect” (5:48; 19:21): सिद्ध is the more literal-sounding, more expected rendering, and is exactly the term for a सिद्ध पुरुष — a Hindu/tantric adept who has attained supernatural perfection (siddhi) through disciplined practice, a live and prestigious category in Newar Tantric tradition. Choosing the less literal पूर्ण is a doctrinally necessary departure from surface fidelity. अशुद्ध surfaces Nepal’s caste purity/pollution axis, but here (15:11-20) the collision is constructive: Jesus’s own move to relocate defilement from ritual-external to heart-internal categories directly engages that history rather than merely risking it.	पूर्ण is mandatory; सिद्ध is forbidden for this sense (add to forbidden-substitution list). अशुद्ध should be retained without euphemism precisely because Matthew 15 gives the curriculum a rare opportunity to teach directly against caste-purity logic using Jesus’s own words — flag this passage for constructive framing in teaching notes, not just risk-avoidance framing.

1.6 The Church and Church Discipline

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मण्डली (church — baseline reuse), चट्टान (rock), बाँध्नु/फुकाउनु (bind/loose), क्षमा दिनु (forgive)	The sharpest true gap in the entire glossary is here: बाँध्नु/फुकाउनु (bind/loose, 16:19; 18:18) has no baseline precedent at all (Romans lacks this term), and Nepali already possesses a live, widely practiced ritual technique — dhami-jhankri shamanic “binding” (मन्त्रले बाँध्ने) of spirits — using the exact same verb. This is not a crowded neighborhood of texts or theology; it is a crowded neighborhood of ritual practice currently performed in villages and even in Kathmandu Valley households.	No alternative verb pair exists that would avoid the collision entirely without becoming unnatural Nepali. Retain बाँध्नु/फुकाउनु but mandate a standing translator note distinguishing (a) corporate, (b) Scripture-governed, (c) declarative church authority regarding sin/repentance from (d) individual, (e) technique-based, (f) spirit-manipulating shamanic ritual. This is the one place in the entire Matthew vocabulary set where the “crowded neighborhood” is a living ritual practice rather than a textual doctrine — treat as its own risk category in Phase 2 QA.

1.7 The Great Commission

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
पूर्ण अधिकार (all authority), सबै जातिहरू (all nations), चेला बनाउनु (make disciples), …को नाउँमा (in the name — singular), बप्तिस्मा (baptism), सुसमाचार प्रचार (mission/proclamation — baseline reuse)	Two distinct gap types converge here: (1) अन्यजाति vs. सबै जातिहरू — a false-friend gap, where the baseline’s established, doctrinally correct term for one context (Jew/Gentile contrast) becomes the doctrinally wrong, narrowing choice at 28:19’s universal scope; (2) the Trinitarian “in the name” (singular) construction has zero baseline precedent, since Romans contains no triadic naming formula — this is a genuinely new grammatical-theological structure for the Nepali translation memory to carry, not a lexical substitution problem.	अन्यजाति is retained only for genuine Jew/Gentile-contrastive verses; सबै जातिहरू is mandatory at 28:19 — add both to the forbidden-cross-substitution list (using अन्यजाति at 28:19 is itself an error, not merely a stylistic weakness). …को नाउँमा must remain grammatically singular (नाउँमा, not नाउँहरूमा or a threefold repetition implying three names); flag as a standalone Critical item requiring dedicated theologian sign-off distinct from ordinary Trinitarian-term review, since the grammar itself (not any single word) carries the doctrine.

1.8 Judgment and the End of the Age

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मानिसका पुत्र (Son of Man), आगमन (coming/parousia), न्याय (judgment), अनन्त जीवन (eternal life), अनन्त दण्ड (eternal punishment), नरक (Gehenna/hell)	This doctrine cluster contains the highest concentration of crowded-neighborhood risk in the whole curriculum. नरक is the standard, universally understood Nepali/Hindu/Buddhist word for hell — but every Hindu and Buddhist hell-realm is temporary and rebirth-generating (a being exhausts bad karma there and is eventually reborn elsewhere), the theological opposite of Gehenna’s finality. अनन्त दण्ड faces the same risk one register up. मानिसका पुत्र is a genuine translation gap in a different sense: there is no ready Nepali phrase carrying Daniel 7’s fusion of full humanity + divine judging authority, so मानिसका पुत्र (a literal calque) must do double duty as both a transparent phrase (“son of a human”) and a technical title — risking flattening to the former sense alone if not taught.	नरक retained only with the mandatory standing gloss “अनन्त दण्डको ठाउँ” (place of unending punishment) at every occurrence — never left to stand alone. अनन्त दण्ड and अनन्त जीवन should always be taught as a fixed pair (they occur together at 25:46) precisely so the finality of the first is anchored by the parallel construction of the second, which has no comparable native-frame collision. मानिसका पुत्र requires dedicated teaching (not glossing) at its first major occurrence (8:20) establishing it as a technical title, kept visually and doctrinally distinct from परमेश्वरका पुत्र throughout.

1.9 Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus

Available Nepali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
चेला (disciple), पछ्याउनु (follow), क्रुस (cross), आफैलाई इन्कार गर्नु (deny oneself), स्वीकार गर्नु/इन्कार गर्नु (confess/deny Christ)	चेला is the single highest-frequency crowded-neighborhood word in Matthew: it is the standard Nepali word for a disciple within both the Hindu guru-shishya relationship and the Buddhist lama-disciple relationship, both of which frame discipleship as the disciple’s own progressive self-advancement toward liberation/enlightenment under a teacher’s guidance — the near-opposite of Matthew’s picture of a sovereign call that reorients the whole life around Christ’s finished work, not the disciple’s own spiritual attainment.	No viable substitute noun exists (a coined alternative would sound foreign and reduce comprehension for a low-literacy target audience). Retain चेला but require a single, prominent standing translator note at its first dense cluster of occurrences (4:18-22) rather than repeating it at every one of Matthew’s ~40+ occurrences — over-glossing a structurally central term risks reader fatigue more than under-glossing it once, clearly, early.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.A Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

These are cases where Nepali vocabulary is not absent — it is abundant, fluent, and immediately available — but every available candidate carries independent doctrinal content from Hindu, Buddhist, or former-monarchy state ideology that actively contradicts the Matthew doctrine in question. “Fencing” here means: select the least-compromised available term (not necessarily the most literal one) and hold the boundary with a standing translator note, a mandatory modifier, or dedicated teaching content — never with silence.

Neighborhood	Competing occupant	Matthew term at risk	Fencing strategy
Heaven-realms	Hindu svarga-loka / Buddhist deva-loka (temporary, merit-based)	स्वर्गको राज्य	Standing equivalence note to परमेश्वरको राज्य; teach as present/coming reign, not afterlife destination
Living-goddess cult	Kumari tradition (state-linked, monarchy-legitimating)	कुमारी कन्या	Mandatory कन्या modifier + standing note at every occurrence, no exceptions
Cyclical cosmological time	Hindu yuga / Buddhist kalpa cycles	जगतको अन्त्य (“end of the age”)	युग forbidden outright; teach linear-history framework explicitly and early
Attained spiritual perfection	सिद्ध पुरुष (tantric adept)	“perfect” (5:48)	पूर्ण mandatory; सिद्ध forbidden for this sense
Ritual purity/pollution (caste)	Muluki Ain-era purity code	अशुद्ध (“unclean,” 15:11-20); पवित्र हृदय vs शुद्ध हृदय (5:8)	Retain अशुद्ध constructively at 15:11-20; mandate पवित्र root over शुद्ध root at 5:8
Cultivated compassion (Brahma-vihara)	Buddhist करुणा	”mercy” (5:7), “compassion” (9:36 etc.)	दया mandatory; करुणा forbidden throughout Matthew for these terms
Guru-shishya / lama-disciple advancement	Hindu and Buddhist teacher-disciple traditions	चेला (“disciple”)	Retain चेला (no substitute available); front-load one strong standing note rather than per-occurrence glossing
Shamanic spirit-binding ritual	Dhami-jhankri मन्त्रले बाँध्ने practice	बाँध्नु/फुकाउनु (16:19; 18:18)	Standing note distinguishing corporate Scripture-governed declaration from individual ritual technique
Rebirth-cycle hell-realms	Hindu/Buddhist temporary, karma-exhausting hell	नरक (Gehenna)	Mandatory gloss “अनन्त दण्डको ठाउँ” at every occurrence, never left unglossed
Ritual river-bathing purification	Hindu repeatable purification bathing (e.g., Bagmati)	बप्तिस्मा (baptism)	Retain transliteration; teach as single, non-repeatable sign, contrasted explicitly with repeatable ritual bathing
Ritual prostration before deities/idols/gurus	दण्डवत् गर्नु	आराधना गर्नु (worship, προσκυνέω)	दण्डवत् गर्नु forbidden; आराधना गर्नु mandatory, with per-occurrence homage-vs-worship sense flagged
Ghost/restless-spirit folk phenomena	भूत (folk-religion ghost)	दुष्ट आत्मा (demon)	भूत forbidden alone; दुष्ट आत्मा mandatory
Repeatable royal/divine descent	Shah-dynasty avatar theology; Vishnu’s avatars across ages	आगमन (parousia, Christ’s future coming)	Must be taught as one person’s second, singular, non-repeating historical moment, not a recurring divine-descent pattern

2.B True Missing Vocabulary (Genuine Lexical/Conceptual Gaps)

These are cases where Nepali does not already possess a ready, fluent competing term — the difficulty is constructing or borrowing one that carries the required theological weight without sounding foreign, esoteric, or invented.

Concept	Why no ready Nepali equivalent exists	Resolution adopted
Trinitarian singular “the name” (28:19)	Nepali has no existing grammatical pattern for naming three distinct, co-equal, co-identified Persons under one single, non-plural “name” — this is a theological-grammatical structure without cultural precedent in any Nepali religious tradition (Hindu triads such as Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva are three separate deities, not “one name”)	Literal calque …को नाउँमा preserving grammatical number exactly; treated as its own Critical review item, not folded into ordinary term review
Daniel-7 “Son of Man” title fusing full humanity + divine judging authority	No existing Nepali honorific or title independently combines these two elements; कोही देवता-सरह मानिस-type constructions would either overstate divinity (avatar-adjacent) or understate it	मानिसका पुत्र retained as a literal, transparent calque, doctrinally activated through direct teaching rather than through the phrase’s surface meaning alone
παλιγγενεσία — cosmic renewal distinct from individual rebirth (19:28)	Nepali’s most morphologically natural rendering (a “-जन्म” compound) would necessarily echo पुनर्जन्म, already Critically forbidden for “resurrection”; there is no unrelated root available that still communicates “renewal on a cosmic scale”	नयाँ सृष्टि (“new creation”) selected precisely because it avoids the -जन्म root family entirely, sacrificing some etymological transparency for doctrinal safety
Immanuel’s self-interpreting wordplay (1:23)	Matthew’s Greek text itself glosses the Hebrew name (“which means, God with us”) — the text requires a transliteration-plus-gloss structure that has no single-word Nepali solution, since इम्मानुएल is not a word carrying inherent meaning to a Nepali reader the way it did to Matthew’s bilingual audience	Transliterate इम्मानुएल and always retain the appositional gloss “परमेश्वर हामीसाथमा,” following the same pattern as the baseline’s treatment of अब्बा
Hosanna’s liturgical-cry function (21:9,15)	A one-word Hebrew liturgical shout with no native Nepali devotional-cry equivalent that carries the same “save now!” force without importing an unrelated devotional register (e.g., a Hindu jaya-ghosh style acclamation)	Transliterate होशाना with standing gloss “बचाउनुहोस्,” parallel treatment to अब्बा
Ransom (λύτρον, 20:28) as substitutionary atonement price	Nepali’s most natural compound for “price of release/liberation” would use मुक्ति (liberation) as its root — but मुक्ति is absolutely forbidden per the baseline’s Hindu-liberation-from-rebirth caution, closing off the etymologically obvious path entirely	छुटकाराको मूल्य constructed instead, using छुटकारा (deliverance) rather than मुक्ति as the base noun

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

3.1 Decision framework

A term is transliterated (with or without a mandatory gloss) when any of the following hold:

1. The source text itself treats the word as a proper name or a self-interpreting foreign term (Immanuel, Hosanna, Abba-pattern).
2. Every available native paraphrase collides with an entrenched, doctrinally incompatible Nepali religious or cultural concept, and no safe native alternative exists (Messiah, baptism, cross, Satan).
3. The term already has an established, widely recognized Nepali Christian transliterated form across Bible translation tradition (continuing baseline practice).

A term is paraphrased/translated (never transliterated) when:

1. A native Nepali phrase exists that communicates the concept accurately once properly fenced, and transliteration would produce an opaque, untaught-sounding technical term for a first-generation, newly literate readership (kingdom of heaven, disciple, righteousness).
2. The concept is structurally central and high-frequency enough that a transliterated loanword would create an unnecessary second layer of vocabulary acquisition on top of the doctrine itself (authority, judgment, disciple).

A hybrid strategy (native/calqued phrase + mandatory standing gloss or modifier) is used when the safest available native term is still close enough to a competing concept that an unglossed rendering would mislead (Gehenna/नरक, virgin/कुमारी कन्या, Son of Man/मानिसका पुत्र, “the name” singular).

3.2 Transliteration decisions table

Term	Decision	Rationale
Messiah (Χριστός)	Transliterate: मसीह	Baseline-established; avatar/enlightened-teacher paraphrase would fatally weaken exclusivity
Immanuel	Transliterate + mandatory gloss: इम्मानुएल (“परमेश्वर हामीसाथमा”)	Text self-interprets the name; must preserve both the transliteration and Matthew’s own gloss
Hosanna	Transliterate + mandatory gloss: होशाना (“बचाउनुहोस्”)	Liturgical cry with no native equivalent; parallel to baseline अब्बा treatment
Baptism (βάπτισμα)	Transliterate: बप्तिस्मा	Established term; paraphrase risks conflation with repeatable Hindu ritual bathing
Cross (σταυρός)	Transliterate: क्रुस	Any native paraphrase (“execution post,” “wooden beam”) loses all theological weight; established Nepali Christian usage
Satan/Devil	Transliterate: शैतान	Established, widely recognized term; native paraphrase would risk an impersonal-evil-principle reading
Passover (πάσχα)	Transliterate-hybrid: निस्तार-चाड	No independent Nepali cultural referent; established Bible-tradition compound
”The name” (singular, 28:19)	Literal calque, not paraphrase: …को नाउँमा	Grammatical number itself carries the doctrine; any paraphrase (“with reference to”) would erase the Trinitarian force
Gehenna/Hell (γέεννα)	Native term + mandatory gloss: नरक (“अनन्त दण्डको ठाउँ”)	नरक alone is a false friend (temporary Hindu/Buddhist hell); gloss required every time
Virgin (παρθένος)	Native term + mandatory modifier: कुमारी कन्या	कुमारी alone is a false friend (living-goddess cult); modifier + standing note required every time
Son of Man	Literal calque, taught not glossed: मानिसका पुत्र	No native title exists; must be established through direct teaching at first occurrence rather than a repeated footnote
Kingdom of Heaven	Native phrase + standing equivalence note: स्वर्गको राज्य	स्वर्ग alone is a false friend (Hindu/Buddhist heaven-realm); note required at first occurrence per document
Disciple (μαθητής)	Native term, single front-loaded note: चेला	No substitute exists; over-glossing at high frequency would fatigue readers more than one clear early note
Ransom (λύτρον)	Paraphrase, deliberately avoiding the obvious root: छुटकाराको मूल्य	Etymologically obvious मुक्तिको मूल्य is forbidden; requires a constructed, less-obvious alternative
Perfect (τέλειος)	Paraphrase, deliberately avoiding the obvious root: पूर्ण	सिद्ध is the more literal, more expected word, and is forbidden for this sense
End of the age	Paraphrase, deliberately avoiding the obvious root: जगतको अन्त्य	युगको अन्त्य is the more literal, more expected phrase, and is forbidden

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4. Ranked List of the Highest-Risk Ambiguities in Matthew

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision force × likelihood a translator defaults to the unsafe option because it is the more literal or more expected rendering).

1. कुमारी कन्या vs. कुमारी alone (Virgin, 1:18,23) — Critical. The single most concrete, currently-living collision in the entire glossary: an actual venerated child-goddess still ceremonially active in Kathmandu, formerly tied to monarchical legitimation. A single dropped modifier could produce a scandal-level misreading, not merely a doctrinal imprecision.
2. नरक without its mandatory gloss (Gehenna, 5:22 etc.) — Critical. नरक is so entirely standard and expected that a translator or reviewer unfamiliar with this analysis could easily omit the gloss as “unnecessary,” silently reintroducing a rebirth-compatible temporary-hell frame at every one of its five occurrences.
3. स्वर्गको राज्य without the equivalence note to परमेश्वरको राज्य — High-to-Critical given frequency (~32 occurrences). Because स्वर्ग is such ordinary vocabulary, this is the ambiguity most likely to pass silently through even careful review — nothing about the sentence itself looks “wrong.”
4. …को नाउँमा rendered with any plural or repeated-name construction (28:19) — Critical. A single grammatical slip (pluralizing “name” or repeating “in the name of… in the name of… in the name of…”) would functionally convert Trinitarian monotheism into tritheism in the reader’s ear, with no other textual signal to correct it.
5. जगतको अन्त्य vs. युगको अन्त्य (End of the age, 13:39,49; 24:3; 28:20) — Critical. युग is the more literal, more “correct-feeling” translation choice for a translator working word-by-word, making this an unusually easy default error precisely because it looks like fidelity.
6. दाऊदका पुत्र vs. दाऊदको वंश conflation (Son of David title vs. seed-of-David lineage) — High. Two near-synonymous-sounding Nepali phrases for two doctrinally distinct functions (confessional address vs. genealogical fact); a translator moving quickly between chapters 1 and 9 could swap them without any surface signal of error.
7. मानिसका पुत्र flattened to a generic “a human being” reading — Critical for judgment/glory occurrences specifically (16:27-28; 24:27-44; 25:31; 26:64). Because the phrase is fully transparent Nepali (“son of a human”), it carries real risk of being read at face value rather than as Daniel 7’s technical title, especially by first-generation readers without prior denominational vocabulary.
8. सिद्ध used for “perfect” (5:48; 19:21) — High. सिद्ध is the more expected, more literal-sounding rendering and directly names a prestigious, still-practiced Newar Tantric attainment category (सिद्ध पुरुष); a translator optimizing for naturalness over doctrine could easily prefer it over पूर्ण.
9. बाँध्नु/फुकाउनु used without the shamanic-practice distinction note (16:19; 18:18) — High. Unlike most other collisions in this analysis, which are with texts and doctrines, this collision is with a currently performed ritual technique — the risk profile is pastoral and practical, not only textual.
10. आराधना गर्नु vs. दण्डवत् गर्नु at ambiguous-sense occurrences (2:2,11; 14:33; 28:9,17) — High. Some of these verses are genuinely ambiguous in the Greek between mere homage and full worship; Matthew’s narrative arc pushes toward worship at each, but a translator defaulting to the more socially “normal” दण्डवत् गर्नु could inadvertently downgrade a worship claim to mere royal courtesy.
11. करुणा substituted for दया at any of the mercy/compassion passages (5:7; 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34) — Medium-High. करुणा is the more common, more “natural-sounding” word in general Nepali religious register, making it a plausible unmarked substitution error by a translator not tracking the Buddhist Brahma-vihara caution specifically.
12. इनाम left unglossed in reward passages (5:12; 6:1-6,16-18; 10:41-42) — Medium. Lower severity than the above because the risk is one of drift toward a merit-economy reading rather than an outright doctrinal reversal, but it recurs often enough across the Sermon on the Mount and mission discourse to warrant a standing catechetical note rather than case-by-case handling.
13. अन्यजाति substituted for सबै जातिहरू at Matthew 28:19 — High. The error direction here is unusual: the correct baseline term becomes the wrong choice in exactly one verse, making this a “trap” risk specifically because translators trained to trust translation-memory defaults could apply the familiar term precisely where it must not be applied.
14. आत्मामा दीन read as commending ascetic poverty as achievement (5:3) — Medium-High. Risk is compounded by the visibility of the sadhu/renunciate ideal at national shrines; without framing, “poor in spirit” could be heard as an endorsement of voluntary poverty practice rather than an admission of spiritual bankruptcy.
15. भूत substituted for दुष्ट आत्मा in exorcism narratives (8:16,28-33 etc.) — Medium-High. भूत is shorter, more colloquial, and instinctively reached for in everyday Nepali speech about spirits, making it an easy informal-register slip in less formal teaching adaptations of the text even where the formal translation itself uses दुष्ट आत्मा correctly.

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5. Governance Notes for Phase 2 Handoff

1. This document’s Section 4 ranked list should be used to prioritize theologian review sequencing within Phase 2 Step 17, not merely to confirm risk tiers already recorded in assets/bible_term_registry.json and analysis/08_core_glossary.md.
2. Every “false friend” identified in Section 2.A (a term that looks safe/expected but is doctrinally wrong or incomplete without fencing) should generate an automated pre-submission linter check in Phase 2, analogous to the baseline’s forbidden-substitution validation table, before human review is invoked.
3. The two forbidden-substitution additions surfaced by this analysis that are not yet present in the baseline’s forbidden list and must be added to the Matthew-specific validation rules are: (a) सिद्ध for “perfect,” and (b) युग/युगको अन्त्य for “end of the age.” Both should be added alongside the baseline’s existing धर्म / पुनर्जन्म / अवतार / शक्ति / मुक्ति-मोक्ष-निर्वाण / भगवान / सन्त-साधु / अकुशल कर्म list for all Matthew segment validation.
4. The Trinitarian singular “name” grammar item (Section 2.B, item 1) requires a bespoke Phase 2 QA check distinct from ordinary term-matching: a grammatical-number check, not a lexical-substitution check.
5. Sections 1 and 2 of this document should be read together with analysis/08_core_glossary.md before any Phase 2 Step 16 batch translation run begins; this document explains why each glossary decision was made, which is required context for translators encountering edge cases the glossary itself does not explicitly cover.