# Latin Translation Services

> Latin translation services for baptism and marriage records, parish registers and old diplomas, by human translators. Certified for USCIS, notarized.

https://roxotranslations.com/latin-translation/

Roxo Translations offers Latin translation services for baptism and marriage records, parish registers, old university diplomas and other historical documents, to and from English, Italian, Russian and Arabic. Every translation is done by a human translator, native in the target language, and reviewed by a second one, never by machine translation.

Send a photo or scan of the document, see the price and the deadline instantly, and receive the translation as a PDF. For the United States it comes certified and accepted by USCIS, with the signed statement and notarization included.

- Parish records, baptism certificates and old diplomas in Latin
- Certified for USCIS, with notarization included
- Instant online quote and fast delivery

## Where Latin is used and where your translation is accepted

Latin is no longer the native language of any country, but it is still the official language of the Holy See, and the Catholic Church still publishes its official documents in it. For centuries it was the written language of the Church, the universities and the law in Europe, so it fills old parish registers, baptism and marriage records, university diplomas and notarial deeds. Today these documents are asked for in citizenship by descent, such as Italian or Portuguese citizenship, in immigration cases and in degree evaluations. The destination decides the type of translation.

| Where | What you need |
|---|---|
| United States: USCIS, courts, universities and employers | [Certified translation](https://roxotranslations.com/certified-translation/) into English, with the signed statement of accuracy and notarization included |
| Brazil: notary offices, universities and public agencies | [Sworn translation](https://roxotranslations.com/pt/traducao-juramentada/) into Portuguese, signed by a public sworn translator and valid nationwide. For Latin, we confirm before quoting whether it goes through English |
| Italy, Portugal and other countries | Ask the receiving authority which format it accepts: we tell you the options before quoting, including the [Hague apostille](https://roxotranslations.com/apostille/) when it applies |
| Consulates, citizenship by descent and immigration processes | The translation into the language the authority asks for, such as Italian or English, with the apostille on the original when it is required |

## Latin language pairs we translate

These are the language pairs with Latin that we translate today, in both directions.

- [Latin to Arabic](https://roxotranslations.com/arabic-translation/)
- [Latin to English](https://roxotranslations.com/english-translation/)
- [Latin to Italian](https://roxotranslations.com/italian-translation/)
- [Latin to Russian](https://roxotranslations.com/russian-translation/)
- [Arabic to Latin](https://roxotranslations.com/arabic-translation/)
- [English to Latin](https://roxotranslations.com/english-translation/)
- [Italian to Latin](https://roxotranslations.com/italian-translation/)
- [Russian to Latin](https://roxotranslations.com/russian-translation/)

Need a pair that is not on the list? Talk to us: we answer within one hour, 7 days a week.

## Latin translation services for parish records, diplomas and citizenship

The Latin of documents is not only the Latin of school books. Parish registers were written by hand, by priests who used abbreviations, local words and their own spelling, and diplomas follow formulas of their own. A good translation reads the original as it was written, keeps every name and date and reads naturally to whoever receives it.

- Classical and Church Latin: the Latin of Cicero and Virgil is not the Latin of the Church and of old registers, which spell words their own way, so ecclesiae can appear as ecclesie, and mix in words from the local language. The translation follows the meaning of the record, not a school dictionary.
- Handwriting and abbreviations: registers use short forms, such as bapt. for baptizatus (baptized), fil. for filius or filia (son or daughter) and q. or qm for quondam (the late). Handwritten documents are accepted, and any part that cannot be read is marked as illegible.
- Names: first names were written in Latin, so Giovanni or João appears as Ioannes or Joannes and Giuseppe or José as Iosephus, and the ending changes with grammatical case, so Ioannes becomes Ioannis in filius Ioannis (son of John). The translation keeps every name as written in the original, so tell us the form used in your other documents when you order.
- Dates and numbers: dates are often written in words, such as die tertia mensis Octobris (on the third day of October), and years can come in Roman numerals, so MDCCCLXXV is 1875. September to December keep the names of the old Roman calendar, in which they were the seventh to the tenth months.
- Typical documents: the book of baptisms (liber baptizatorum), of marriages (liber matrimoniorum) and of deaths (liber defunctorum), baptism and marriage certificates issued by the parish, Church dispensations, notarial deeds and university diplomas. The translation reproduces every stamp, seal and margin note.

## The history of the Latin language

Latin is an Italic language of the Indo-European family, born in Latium, the region around Rome that gave it its name. One of its oldest inscriptions is on the Lapis Niger, a stone in the Roman Forum from the 6th century BC. As Rome grew from a city into an empire, Latin spread around the Mediterranean and western Europe, and in the 1st century BC Cicero, Caesar and Virgil wrote the classical Latin still read in schools.

Spoken Latin changed from region to region and gave rise to the Romance languages, among them Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian. Written Latin lived on: at the end of the 4th century, Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, in the version known as the Vulgate, and for more than a thousand years Latin was the language of the Church, the universities, the law and science, the language in which Isaac Newton published his Principia in 1687. In 1563, the Council of Trent required Catholic parishes to keep registers of baptisms and marriages, and many of them were written in Latin for centuries.

After the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965, Mass began to be said in local languages, but Latin remains the official language of the Holy See. It lives on in the scientific names of plants and animals, in legal terms, in mottos and on diplomas, and it is still taught in schools around the world. It is no one’s native language today, and that is why its documents ask for a translator who knows the old registers.

## We also translate other languages

- [Turkish translation](https://roxotranslations.com/turkish-translation/)
- [Swedish translation](https://roxotranslations.com/swedish-translation/)
- [Bulgarian translation](https://roxotranslations.com/bulgarian-translation/)
- Lithuanian translation
- Danish translation