Semantic Analysis

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

Narrower-than-English terms

• گناہ (sin): covers individual wrongdoing but, within Islamic theology’s frame (which shapes this term’s connotation even for many non-Muslim Urdu speakers), does not carry inherited Adamic guilt or total depravity — Islamic theology holds humans are born in a state of natural purity (fitrah). Romans’ claim that all humanity inherits a sin-nature from Adam, not merely commits individual sins, must be taught as an additional claim گناہ alone does not carry.
• مقدس لوگ (saints): must be used for all believers corporately (Romans 1:7), never for the elevated Sufi wali (friend of God) category associated with shrine veneration.

Broader-than-English or differently-grounded terms

• ایمان (faith): broader than English “faith” in one sense (it names assent to a full six-article creedal list in Islamic usage) and narrower in another (it does not by default specify personal trust in a particular mediator); every occurrence in this curriculum must make the object of faith explicit.
• نجات (salvation) and روح القدس (Holy Spirit): these are not cases of narrower or broader range so much as the same word sitting over two different underlying doctrines entirely (see Comparative Theology) — a linguistic situation distinct from ordinary semantic-range mismatch, requiring contrastive teaching rather than range-narrowing notes.
• شریعت (law): broader than “the Law of Moses” specifically, since it names the entire body of Islamic religious law in ordinary usage; توریت is available and preferred where the narrower Mosaic-Law sense specifically needs to be unambiguous.

Implication

Where an Urdu term’s semantic range or underlying doctrine differs from its English source, the glossary’s notes field (see translation_memory.json) exists specifically to flag the mismatch for translators, distinguishing cases that need only a narrowing note from cases (najat, Ruh al-Qudus) that need full contrastive doctrinal teaching.