Linguistic Gap Analysis — James (English → Somali)

Purpose

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8. It analyzes the structural fit — and misfit — between James’s theological vocabulary and the Somali destination language’s existing lexical resources, building on the term-level decisions already recorded in the extended translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json and the 08_core_glossary.md. Where that glossary answers “what term did we choose,” this document answers “why the language forced that choice, what it cost us, and where the remaining danger sits.” It covers James 1–5 in full; no chapter is treated as out of scope.

This analysis does not introduce new Somali renderings not already grounded in the Core Glossary; it explains the linguistic terrain that produced them and ranks the residual risk.

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0. Full-Book Coverage Map

Chapter	Doctrines represented	New/contested vocabulary load	Reviewed
James 1	Trials and Testing of Faith; Wisdom from Above; Worldliness vs Friendship with God (religion); Faith and Works (implanted word, law of liberty)	High — dokimion, hypomonē, dipsychos, stephanos tēs zōēs, sophia, patēr tōn phōtōn, logos alētheias, nomos teleios tēs eleutherias, thrēskeia, peirasmos (double sense)	Yes
James 2	Faith and Works (core passage, 2:14-26); Favoritism and the Poor (2:1-13); Wisdom (royal law)	Critical — dikaiōsis, erga, pistis nekra, philos theou, daimonia, nomos basilikos, prosōpolēmpsia	Yes
James 3	Taming the Tongue; Wisdom from Above (fruit vs counterfeit)	High — glōssa/chalinagōgeō cluster, geenna, kath’ homoiōsin theou, karpos dikaiosynēs, epigeios/psychikē/daimoniōdēs	Yes
James 4	Worldliness vs Friendship with God; Prayer and Healing (wrong asking); Favoritism (lawgiver/judge)	High — philia tou kosmou, echthra tou theou, aiteisthe kakōs, ean ho kyrios thelēsē, alazoneia, disputed pneuma (4:5)	Yes
James 5	Patience and the Lord’s Return; Prayer and Healing; Confession and Restoration	Critical — parousia tou kyriou, sōzō (healing sense), presbyteroi + elaiō, exomologeisthe, kalypsei plēthos hamartiōn, omnyete, hypomonēn Iōb, Ēlias	Yes

Every chapter contributes load-bearing vocabulary; none is a pass-through.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the Somali terms currently available (existing everyday vocabulary, Islamic-shared vocabulary, or coined compounds), their structural weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy.

1.1 Faith and Works

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Iimaan (faith, reused from Romans TM)	Already a pillar-of-belief term in Islamic vocabulary; James’s rhetorical move (“faith without works is dead”) risks being heard as agreeing with an Islamic works-inclusive framework rather than James’s own faith-vindicated-by-works logic	Retain Iimaan; every occurrence in 2:14-26 must carry an explicit teaching gloss anchoring it back to genuine trust in Ciise Masiixa, not generic pillar-assent
Camalka (Arabic-loan “deeds/religious works”)	Directly imports the Islamic merit-ledger category (five pillars, good-deeds accounting toward Judgment) — the exact framework the Romans baseline rejected for “righteousness”	REJECTED for “works.” Use native-root Shuqullada instead
Shuqullada (native Somali “labor/tasks”)	Lower doctrinal loading, but risks being read as merely secular “work/employment” if unglossed	Adopted, with mandatory first-use gloss: “the visible fruit that shows a living Iimaan is real”
Xaq lagu caddeeyay (justification, Romans TM)	James 2:21,24,25 use δικαιόω demonstratively (before people), while the identical Somali phrase was fixed for Paul’s forensic (before God) sense in Romans — a single surface form now must carry two distinct theological registers	Hard rule mandates identical phrase reuse; the entire weight of disambiguation must be carried by teaching notes, not by the term itself. This is the single highest-stakes vocabulary decision in the curriculum (see §4, rank 1)

1.2 Trials and the Testing of Faith

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Jirrabaad (positive trial) vs Jirrabid (negative temptation)	Somali, like Greek πειρασμός, has no single native lexical item that cleanly splits “God-permitted growth trial” from “self-generated sinful enticement”; the two coined forms are morphological siblings and risk being conflated by hearers	Maintain the two forms as a fixed minimal pair; 1:2 and 1:13-14 must never share a rendering, and teaching must state explicitly that 1:13 denies God as source of the second sense
Dulqaadasho (endurance) vs Samir (patience, ch. 5)	Somali has two culturally weighted endurance-words that could both plausibly render ὑπομονή; Samir carries the deeper Islamic sabr-virtue resonance	Reserve Dulqaadasho for active perseverance-under-pressure (1:3-4,12; 5:11 Job) and Samir specifically for chapter 5’s eschatological waiting-for-the-Lord sense, per Core Glossary

1.3 Wisdom from Above

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Xigmadda (shared with Islamic hikma)	Genuinely crowded neighborhood: Somali/Islamic hikma often connotes proverbial folk wisdom or Sufi mystical insight received through a sheekh, neither of which matches James’s Father-of-lights-sourced, fruit-defined wisdom	Retain Xigmadda (no better native alternative exists) but fence it tightly: always co-occur with “Aabbaha Iftiinka” (1:17) as source and the 3:17 fruit-list as definition, in every lesson introducing the term
Nuur (light, rejected) vs Iftiinka (light, adopted)	Nuur specifically evokes the Sufi doctrine of Nuurka Muxammed (Muhammad’s pre-existent light) — a direct competing-glory claim already fenced off in the Romans baseline for “glory”	Extend the same fence to James 1:17; never use Nuur for “Father of lights”

1.4 Favoritism and the Poor

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Eexda (favoritism/partiality)	Standard term, low lexical risk, but James’s social target (wealth-based seating preference) maps onto a different primary Somali social fault line than the text’s own	Eexda retained, but teaching must explicitly extend it to qabiil (clan)-based favoritism — the dominant real-world axis in Somali church life — not merely wealth, or the doctrine will be heard as addressing a foreign problem
Saboolka vs Miskiin	Miskiin carries specific zakat-recipient legal-category weight in Islamic almsgiving law; using it would import an obligation-category foreign to James’s spiritual-valuation argument	Use Saboolka (plain “poor”), avoid Miskiin
Qaanuunka Boqornimada (royal law)	No existing Somali compound for this; a coinage was required	Coinage adopted; low ambiguity since “Qaanuunka” root is already fenced away from Sharciga

1.5 Taming the Tongue

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Carrabka / Xakamayn	Well-supplied neighborhood — Somali’s strong oral/poetic culture and pastoral-livestock vocabulary give natural, low-risk equivalents	No fencing required; genuine translation asset
Naarta (fire/Gehenna)	Crowded: shared wholesale with Islamic eschatological an-Nār vocabulary	Retain Naarta (no viable native alternative) but fence with explicit final-judgment content tied to Christ’s return (ch. 5), not assumed identical to Jahannam theology
u ekaanshaha Ilaah (likeness of God)	No existing fixed Somali theological phrase; direct collision with Qur’anic tanzīh (God’s categorical unlikeness to creation, 42:11)	Coinage adopted; must be taught as conferred moral/relational dignity, not physical resemblance — flagged High in §4

1.6 Worldliness versus Friendship with God

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Diinta vs Cibaadada (religion, 1:26-27)	Crowded/contested: Diinta is the direct lexical match but functions in ordinary Somali usage as the entire religious-legal-social system (closer to “Islam” as a totalizing identity) rather than θρησκεία’s narrower “outward practice of devotion”	Unresolved pending native-speaker/theologian decision (Section C of Core Glossary); interim default is Diinta with a mandatory contextual gloss, Cibaadada offered as fallback
Saaxiibtinimada Dunida / Cadownimada Ilaah	No existing fixed Somali phrase; coinages required, but structurally transparent (friendship/enmity + world/God)	Coinages adopted; pair consistently, and teach as competing loyalty rather than withdrawal from ordinary life
haddii Rabbigu doonayo (4:15)	Crowded: near-identical structurally and functionally to the ubiquitous Somali/Islamic insha’Allah	Genuine positive bridge; retain “Rabbiga” (not generic Ilaah) so the confession keeps its specifically Christian referent even while sounding culturally natural

1.7 Prayer and Healing

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Badbaado vs tukashada iimaanka ah way bogsiin doontaa (5:15)	James uses the same Greek root (σῴζω) Romans reserved exclusively for eternal salvation, but here in a physical-healing sense; reusing Badbaado would conflate guaranteed physical healing with the distinct, weightier doctrine of eternal salvation	Hard fence: 5:15 must NEVER use Badbaado; use the descriptive healing phrase instead (already fixed in registry)
saliid ku shubid (anoint with oil)	Crowded: physical oil-application overlaps conceptually with Sufi ritual use of blessed substances (oil, water) as vehicles of a sheekh’s transmitted baraka	Teach explicitly that healing power resides in the Lord answering believing prayer, not in the oil itself
Waayeellada Kiniisadda (elders)	Crowded: Somali “waayeel” carries major independent social/political weight (cf. the guurti clan-elder council)	Fence tightly to “of the church” (Kiniisadda) in every occurrence to prevent collapse into a clan-elder or wadaad role

1.8 Patience and the Lord’s Return

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
Samir	Crowded: one of the most heavily loaded Islamic virtue-terms in the entire Somali religious vocabulary (Qur’anic sabr)	Retain (no viable native alternative carries equivalent weight/naturalness) but anchor explicitly and repeatedly to waiting for Christ’s own Parousia, not generic stoic/fatalistic endurance
Imaatinka Rabbiga (Parousia)	Missing-then-coined: no existing Somali phrase distinguishes this from the popular hadith-based Isa/Mahdi return narrative already familiar to most readers	CRITICAL fence required — see §4, rank 4; teaching must state the two narratives explicitly rather than let one silently absorb the other
Dulqaadashadii Ayuub	Genuine positive bridge — Ayuub’s patience is independently praised in Qur’an 38:41-44	Use as a bridge illustration, but note the biblical narrative’s additional content (the specific trial detail, restoration, and connection to James’s endurance theme)

1.9 Confession and Restoration

Available Somali terms	Weakness	Recommended strategy
dembiyadiinna isu qirta (confess sins to one another)	Missing functional equivalent: mainstream Somali Islamic devotional practice holds that confession/repentance (tawba) is made directly to Allah alone, with no established horizontal peer-confession practice to draw on	Coinage from plain verbs (qirasho, “to admit/confess”) adopted; must be taught as reciprocal, non-hierarchical mutual accountability — explicitly not a priestly/sacramental practice, and explicitly not shafeeco-style mediated forgiveness (fenced per Romans baseline)
wuxuu qarin doonaa dembiyo badan (cover a multitude of sins)	Crowded: risks being heard as functionally equivalent to Islamic kaffara (expiation/atonement for sin through an act)	Teach as the restorative, protective fruit of loving correction — never as an independent means of atonement competing with Christ’s finished work

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

James’s Somali vocabulary problem splits into two structurally different kinds of gap, requiring two different repair strategies.

2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no existing Somali lexical item; compound coinage required)

These concepts have no pre-existing single Somali word or fixed phrase; a transparent compound had to be built from ordinary vocabulary already fixed in the Core Glossary.

Concept	Coined Somali form	Coinage method
Dead faith	Iimaan meyd ah / Iimaan dhintay	noun + adjective (“dead”)
Double-minded	Laba Qalbi ah	numeral + “heart” + adjectival suffix
Crown of life	Taajka Nolosha	noun + genitive noun
Father of lights	Aabbaha Iftiinka	noun + genitive noun (deliberately avoiding “Nuur”)
Perfect law of liberty / Law of liberty	Qaanuunka Xorriyadda ee Dhammaystirka ah / Qaanuunka Xorriyadda	noun + genitive noun (+ modifier)
Royal law	Qaanuunka Boqornimada	noun + genitive noun
Friendship with the world / Enmity with God	Saaxiibtinimada Dunida / Cadownimada Ilaah	noun + genitive noun, paired antonym set
Friend of God	Saaxiibka Ilaah	noun + genitive noun (parallels Qur’anic Khalīl Allāh structurally)
Faith perfected / worked together with	waa la dhammaystiray / way la shaqaysay	verb-phrase construction
Likeness of God	u ekaanshaha Ilaah	verbal-noun + genitive
Fruit of righteousness	Midhaha Xaqnimada	noun + genitive noun (reuses fixed Xaqnimo root)
Confess sins to one another	dembiyadiinna isu qirta	reciprocal verb construction
Judge at the door	Xaakinku wuu albaabka ku dhawaaqayaa	full clause, no fixed idiom available
Coming of the Lord (Parousia)	Imaatinka Rabbiga	noun + genitive noun

Implication: none of these coinages are pre-existing Somali religious vocabulary, which is an advantage as much as a gap — they carry no inherited baggage from either Sufi devotional or mainstream Islamic legal vocabulary. The cost is that first-use explanatory glosses are mandatory throughout, since a reader cannot lean on prior familiarity to fill in meaning the way they could with, say, Iimaan or Xigmadda.

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing Somali/Arabic-loan terms available, but occupied by competing religious content — require active fencing)

Concept	Somali term(s) available	Competing occupant of the neighborhood	Fence required
Works	Camalka (rejected) / Shuqullada (adopted)	Islamic deeds-ledger merit system	Never use Camalka; Shuqullada + gloss every time
Law	Qaanuunka (adopted) / Sharciga (rejected)	Islamic Sharia legal system	Never use Sharciga for any Jamesian law-compound
Wisdom	Xigmadda	Islamic hikma / Sufi mystical insight	Always pair with Aabbaha Iftiinka + 3:17 fruit-list
Religion	Diinta / Cibaadada	Islam as totalizing socio-legal identity	Mandatory gloss or provisional use of Cibaadada; unresolved, escalated
Demons / evil spirits	Jinniyada (qualified as Sharka ah)	Broader Islamic jinn category (morally mixed, includes “Muslim jinn”)	Always qualify as Jinniyada Sharka ah
Fire/hell	Naarta	Islamic an-Nār / Jahannam	Anchor to Christ’s Parousia-linked final judgment
Patience	Samir	Islamic sabr virtue-ethics	Anchor explicitly to waiting for Christ’s return
Oaths	dhaaran / dhaaro	Common Somali “wallaahi”-style casual oath culture; Qur’an 5:89 also restricts oaths	Teach as reinforcing, not novel — a rare doctrinal point of near-total overlap
Elders	Waayeel(lada)	Clan guurti council authority	Always bind to “Kiniisadda”
Blessed	barakaysan	Barako (Sufi transmitted spiritual potency, fenced in Romans TM for “grace”)	Use only predicatively (“is in a blessed state”), never nominalize as an independent noun “barako”
If the Lord wills	haddii Rabbigu doonayo	insha’Allah cultural convention	Retain “Rabbiga” specifically to keep the Christian referent, exploiting rather than avoiding the overlap
Anointing with oil	saliid ku shubid	Sufi ritual use of blessed substances	Teach the Lord, not the oil, as the healing agent
Cover a multitude of sins	wuxuu qarin doonaa dembiyo badan	Islamic kaffara (expiation)	Teach as restorative fruit of correction, not an atoning act
Friend of God	Saaxiibka Ilaah	Qur’anic Khalīl Allāh (Ibraahim)	Genuine positive bridge — fence by requiring full biblical covenantal content on first teaching, not left as bare shared honorific

Pattern observed: Somali’s crowded neighborhoods cluster overwhelmingly around (a) legal/merit vocabulary (works, law, kaffara), (b) Sufi-devotional-potency vocabulary (barako, oil, wisdom-as-mystical-insight), and (c) eschatological/virtue vocabulary shared wholesale with Islamic theology (fire, patience, Parousia). By contrast, missing vocabulary clusters around James’s own distinctive theological compounds (law of liberty, friend of God, dead faith) that have no Islamic or generic-Somali counterpart to compete with at all — these are safer in one sense (no false-friend risk) but harder in another (zero contextual scaffolding for the reader).

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3. Transliteration vs Paraphrase Decisions

Item	Decision	Form	Rationale
Jesus	Transliterate (established)	Ciise (always + Masiixa)	Established Somali Bible form; must never stand alone in doctrinal contexts (Romans baseline)
Christ	Transliterate (established)	Masiixa	Established Somali Bible form; must carry full Davidic/atoning content
James (the author/book)	Transliterate — new decision required, not yet fixed	Yakoob (proposed, pending confirmation against the destination Somali Bible Society’s published Somali NT if available)	Greek Ἰάκωβος shares its root with Israa’iil’s patriarch Yacquub/Ya’qub; Somali Bible tradition typically renders the epistle’s author distinctly from Jacob-the-patriarch to avoid confusion — flagged for native-speaker/publisher verification before Phase 2
Abraham	Transliterate (established)	Ibraahim	Established form; positive abtirsiimo (lineage) resonance already flagged
Isaac	Transliterate (established)	Isxaaq	Established form; flag Eid al-Adha’s Ismail-tradition divergence in teaching notes
Rahab	Transliterate (established)	Raxaab	Do not soften πόρνη (“prostitute”) — the social scandal is rhetorically load-bearing
Job	Transliterate (established)	Ayuub	Positive Qur’anic-resonance bridge (38:41-44)
Elijah	Transliterate (established)	Eliyaas	Positive Qur’anic-resonance bridge (37:123-132); narrative content (drought) must be taught as additional, not assumed shared
Abba (n/a in James)	N/A	—	No occurrence in James; Romans convention (retain untranslated as “Abbaa”) remains available if a future lesson cross-references Romans 8:15
Dead faith	Paraphrase (compound)	Iimaan meyd ah / Iimaan dhintay	No single-word equivalent for “spiritually inert faith” exists; paraphrase preserves severity better than any available single adjective (e.g., “tabar yar,” weak, which would wrongly soften)
Works	Paraphrase (native-root substitution, not transliteration of “erga” or borrowing of “camal”)	Shuqullada	A transliteration was never viable (Greek erga has no Somali loan-form in circulation); the choice was between two native/loan Somali options, resolved toward the doctrinally cleaner native root
Justification	Paraphrase (fixed compound, reused)	Xaq lagu caddeeyay	No single Somali word carries the forensic-declaration sense; the existing Romans compound is reused whole, at the cost of needing heavy disambiguating teaching notes for James’s different (demonstrative) usage
Parousia	Paraphrase (descriptive compound), NOT transliteration of the Greek	Imaatinka Rabbiga	A Greek transliteration (“parousia”) would be opaque to Somali readers and would forfeit the chance to make the “coming of the LORD” content explicit up front, which is doctrinally necessary given the competing Isa/Mahdi narrative
Amen / Hallelujah (general convention, may appear in James’s doxological asides)	Transliterate (established, per Romans baseline)	Aamiin / Halleeluuya	Consistency with established Somali Bible-translation convention
Friend of God	Paraphrase (structural calque of Khalīl Allāh)	Saaxiibka Ilaah	Deliberately calques the existing Qur’anic honorific structure rather than inventing an unrelated phrase, to activate the positive cultural bridge while requiring full biblical content to be taught on top of it

General principle applied: transliteration is reserved strictly for proper names and a small fixed set of established liturgical exclamations; every theological concept-term in James required paraphrase/compounding because James’s distinctive vocabulary (law of liberty, royal law, friend of God, dead faith, Parousia) has no Greek-to-Somali loanword tradition the way, e.g., “Injiilka” or “Masiixa” do from the wider Qur’anic-Arabic vocabulary shared with Romans’ terms.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal distortion potential) and likelihood (how naturally a Somali reader’s existing frame would produce the wrong reading), highest first.

1. δικαιόω in James 2:21,24,25 rendered “Xaq lagu caddeeyay” (Critical) — The single highest-stakes decision in the curriculum. The identical Somali phrase now must carry both Paul’s forensic sense (Romans) and James’s demonstrative sense (James), and a Somali Muslim reader’s default works-and-mercy judgment framework will make James 2:24 (“a person is justified by works”) read as confirming that framework unless every occurrence carries an explicit chronological/theological teaching note anchoring it to 2:23’s prior imputed righteousness. Mandatory theologian review before release (per Core Glossary §C).

2. σῴζω physical-healing sense in James 5:15 (Critical) — A single Greek root spans both eternal salvation and physical healing; any slip toward reusing “Badbaado” would teach that physical healing is as unconditionally guaranteed as eternal salvation, or conversely could cheapen the doctrine of salvation into a health-and-wealth-adjacent claim. The fence (a distinct descriptive phrase, never Badbaado) must be checked at every occurrence, not just this one.

3. παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου in James 5:7-8 (Critical) — Silent absorption into the pre-existing, widely known hadith-based Isa/Mahdi return narrative is the likely default reading if the teaching note is thin. This is not a vocabulary problem alone but a narrative-competition problem: the Somali reader already has a detailed, different “second coming of Isa” story pre-loaded.

4. πνεῦμα in James 4:5 (“the spirit he caused to dwell in us”) (Critical, pending) — Textually and exegetically disputed even among English commentators (Holy Spirit? human spirit? lost OT citation?). Rendering it prematurely with “Ruuxa Quduuska ah” risks either manufacturing a spurious additional Holy Spirit prooftext or, if wrong, undermining confidence in translation reliability once corrected — compounded by the already-Critical Jibriil-collision risk fixed in the Romans baseline. No rendering should ship without theologian resolution first.

5. ἔργα (“works”) rendered Shuqullada vs the available loanword Camalka (Critical) — Although the decision is made, the risk is one of drift: any lapse into Camalka by a future translator or reviewer unfamiliar with this analysis would silently reintroduce the Islamic merit-ledger framework into the core passage. Requires validation-layer enforcement (see Doctrine Risk Registry escalation rules), not just a one-time glossary entry.

6. δαιμόνια in James 2:19 (High) — “Jinniyada” unqualified would import the broader, morally mixed Islamic jinn category (including neutral or even believing jinn per some folk traditions); losing the “Sharka ah” (“evil”) qualifier at any point breaks the illustration’s logic, which depends on these beings having correct theology yet no saving faith.

7. ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ + πρεσβύτεροι in James 5:14 (High) — The oil-and-elder-prayer combination sits unusually close to observable Sufi devotional practice (blessed oil/water, sheekh-mediated blessing at a tomb or gathering); without explicit teaching that the Lord, not the substance or the office-holder’s spiritual potency, effects healing, the passage risks being absorbed wholesale into an existing ritual-efficacy framework.

8. θρησκεία (“religion”) in James 1:26-27 (High, unresolved) — This is the one term in the entire glossary still without a final decision (Diinta with gloss vs Cibaadada). Diinta’s totalizing socio-legal-identity connotation in ordinary Somali usage is broader than James’s narrower “outward practice of devotion,” and the wrong choice here shapes how the whole letter’s ethical material is framed for the reader.

9. ἐξομολογεῖσθε ἀλλήλοις τὰς ἁμαρτίας in James 5:16 (High) — Horizontal, mutual confession has no existing devotional-practice analogue in mainstream Somali Islamic piety (where tawba is vertical, direct to Allah); readers may either reject the practice as foreign/uncomfortable or, in the opposite failure mode, assimilate it to shafeeco-style mediated forgiveness, which the Romans baseline already treats as contested ground.

10. καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν in James 5:20 (High) — “Cover a multitude of sins” sits dangerously close to the semantic space of kaffara (expiation), risking a reading in which loving correction of a straying believer functions as an independent atoning act rather than a restorative fruit flowing from Christ’s finished work.

11. καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν θεοῦ in James 3:9 (High) — Direct collision with Qur’anic tanzīh (God’s categorical unlikeness to creation); “u ekaanshaha Ilaah” is a coinage with no cultural scaffolding at all in this specific direction (most tanzīh-related conversation runs the other way, denying resemblance), so first-use teaching bears the full weight of the concept alone.

12. μακροθυμέω (“Samir”) in James 5:7,8,10 (High) — The term’s very success as a natural-sounding, high-resonance choice is also its risk: readers may import the full weight of Islamic sabr theology (patient submission to an inscrutable divine decree) rather than James’s specific, hope-filled waiting for a named, promised, personal return of Christ.

13. ἐὰν ὁ κύριος θελήσῃ in James 4:15 (Medium, monitored) — Lower risk than the above because the overlap with insha’Allah is genuinely a feature, not a bug — but requires monitoring that “Rabbiga” is never quietly generalized to “Ilaah,” which would erase the passage’s specifically christological anchoring.

14. φίλος θεοῦ in James 2:23 (Medium, monitored) — A positive bridge to Khalīl Allāh, but risk runs in the direction of the term being left as a bare shared honorific without James’s specific covenantal/faith content being taught alongside it, squandering rather than exploiting the resonance.

15. ὀμνύετε in James 5:12 (Medium, low residual risk) — Included for completeness: the overlap with common Somali oath-swearing speech and with Qur’an 5:89’s own oath caution is unusually clean common ground, making this one of the lowest-risk items on this list despite touching everyday speech directly.

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5. Summary and Recommendations for Phase 2

• Two open decisions must be closed before Phase 2 translation begins: (1) θρησκεία — Diinta vs Cibaadada (§1.6, §4 rank 8); (2) the Somali form of the book’s author name “James” — proposed Yakoob, pending confirmation (§3).
• Five items require mandatory human theologian sign-off before any segment touching them is finalized: James 2:21/24/25 (δικαιόω), James 4:5 (disputed πνεῦμα), James 5:7-8 (Parousia teaching note), James 5:14 (oil/elders pastoral framing), James 5:16 (confession pastoral framing) — carried forward unchanged from Core Glossary Section C.
• No new Critical/High risk term in this analysis contradicts the Romans baseline. Every fence erected here (Camalka/Shuqullada, Sharciga/Qaanuunka, Nuur/Iftiinka, Badbaado exclusion in 5:15, Jibriil exclusion pending 4:5 resolution) extends an existing baseline fence rather than opening a new doctrinal front.
• The crowded-neighborhood problem is structurally worse than the missing-vocabulary problem for this letter: missing vocabulary can be solved once, by coinage, with a predictable teaching cost (glossing on first use). Crowded neighborhoods carry an ongoing drift risk across every future translator, reviewer, and lesson-writer who touches this material, and should be enforced at the automated-validation layer (per the Romans baseline’s Forbidden Substitution List pattern), not merely documented once here.