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Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Why it matters

Romans is the theological backbone of the New Testament, and Santali presents this pipeline’s clearest case of a genuinely thin Bible-translation tradition, comparable to Fulfulde. Despite real 19th-century missionary translation work (the Norwegian Santal Mission), that history predates Ol Chiki, the script invented in 1925 that has only recently gained official and school-curriculum status, and no settled, doctrinally reviewed theological-study vocabulary exists in Ol Chiki today. Salvation and incarnation are not cases of correcting a wrong existing word, as in several other languages in this pipeline; they are cases of teaching entirely new categories, since Sarnaism, the indigenous religion of the Santal people, has no developed eschatological salvation concept and no incarnation-adjacent category other than spirit possession.

Key findings

  • The registry tracks 40 doctrines across Romans 1-16; 28 require mandatory human theologian review before any translated segment ships (8 Critical, 20 High).
  • Nearly every compound theological term in translation_memory.json is marked provisional, a higher proportion than any other language in this batch, reflecting the genuine absence of a settled Ol Chiki doctrinal-study vocabulary.
  • Incarnation must be sharply distinguished from bonga (spirit) possession as practiced by an Ojha (traditional healer) during ritual, since this is the nearest, and wrong, native category.
  • Grace must be taught against Sarnaism’s offering-and-exchange logic (dan), in which favor from the bongas is secured through proper ritual observance at the jaher sacred grove.

Risks

  • Conceptual-gap risk, not just wrong-word risk: Sarnaism’s ritual life targets this-world protection and harvest, not eschatological salvation; translators may be tempted to borrow generic regional Hindu vocabulary (moksha-adjacent language) simply because it is fluent-sounding, even though it is foreign to Sarnaism itself.
  • Script-confidence risk: Ol Chiki renderings in this Language Package are best-effort and unverified by a native typesetter; deploying them without native-speaker review risks shipping incorrect orthography that looks authoritative.
  • Witchcraft-accusation sensitivity: daain (witchcraft accusation) is a serious, sometimes dangerous social reality in Santal communities; language about “calling out” sin or wrongdoing must be handled carefully to avoid unintended resonance with this practice.

Opportunities

  • The strong Santal cultural emphasis on clan (paris) lineage gives “seed of David” and inheritance-based adoption language in Romans 8-9 a genuine point of cultural entry, once the risk of assuming a ready legal-adoption equivalent is guarded against.
  • The currently active Sarna dharma identity-assertion movement (the “Sarna code” campaign) means Santal religious identity is a live, engaged topic in Santal communities right now, giving this curriculum’s comparative theology real present-day relevance rather than only historical interest.
  • Route every Critical and High risk segment (28 of 40 doctrines), and every segment using a provisional term regardless of tier, through human theologian review before publication.
  • Commission native Ol Chiki-literate typesetting review as a distinct, additional review step beyond the standard theologian/native-speaker routing this registry defines.
  • Reuse this Language Package’s translation_memory.json for every Romans lesson in Santali rather than re-deriving terms per document, per the two-phase pipeline design, precisely because so much of this vocabulary is a first attempt that benefits from consistent reuse and iterative correction.