Latin Translation Services

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.

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.