Arabic Translation Services

Where Arabic is spoken and where your translation is accepted

Arabic is an official language in more than 20 countries, from Morocco on the Atlantic to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen in the Gulf, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq in the Levant, and Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in Africa. It has more than 300 million speakers and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. An Arabic document can be needed almost anywhere, and the destination decides the type of translation.

Arabic translation services for the Middle East and North Africa

Arabic is one written language with many spoken dialects. Official documents are written in Modern Standard Arabic in every Arab country, but names, dates and numbers follow local customs, and a good translation handles each of them with care.

• Standard and dialects: Modern Standard Arabic is the language of documents, the press and schools, while the spoken dialects, Egyptian, Levantine (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine), Gulf and Maghrebi (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), change vocabulary and pronunciation and show up in letters, messages and recordings.
• Script: Arabic is written from right to left, in 28 letters that change shape according to their place in the word, with no capital letters and usually without the short vowels. A translation into Arabic needs a right-to-left layout, and a translation from Arabic keeps the order of tables, stamps and signatures.
• Names: the same name can be written in Latin letters in several ways, such as Mohammed, Muhammad or Mohamed, and full names often carry the father’s name with bin, ibn or bint. The translation keeps every name as it is in the original and, for the Latin spelling, uses the one you tell us when you order, such as the spelling in the passport, so every document of the same person matches.
• Dates and numbers: many documents, especially from Saudi Arabia, carry the date in the Hijri (Islamic) calendar next to the Gregorian date, and the Middle East writes the Eastern Arabic numerals (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩), while the Maghreb uses the same digits as English. The translation reproduces each date exactly as it is in the original.
• Documents: a marriage is recorded in a marriage contract (aqd al-zawaj), the Emirates issue a family book (khulasat al-qaid), and civil records from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia often come in Arabic and French. The translation reproduces every stamp, seal and note.