Lithuanian Translation Services

Where Lithuanian is spoken and where your translation is accepted

Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania and, since Lithuania joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, an official language of the Union. It is also spoken by Lithuanian communities in Poland, Latvia and Belarus, and it has nearly 3 million speakers. From the end of the 19th century many families emigrated to the United States, above all to Chicago and Pennsylvania, and after 2004 many more moved to the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway. Their children and grandchildren still need Lithuanian records translated, for immigration and for Lithuanian citizenship. The destination decides the type of translation.

Lithuanian translation services: diacritics, surnames and the personal code

Lithuanian is written in the Latin alphabet, but with letters, grammar and names that work in a way of their own. A good translation reads every mark of the original, writes every name the way the passport does and keeps every number of the original.

• Standard and dialects: standard Lithuanian is based on the western Aukštaitian dialects, and the Samogitian dialects of the northwest of the country sound very different. Official documents use the standard language, but old letters and family records can carry dialect words and spellings, and the translation reads them in context.
• Alphabet: Lithuanian has 32 letters, nine of them with diacritics, ą, č, ę, ė, į, š, ų, ū and ž. In the United States the marks are often dropped, so Šimkus can appear as Simkus or Shimkus. The translation follows the spelling of your passport, so tell us the form used in your US documents when you order.
• Surnames: women’s surnames change with marital status. In the Petrauskas family, the wife is Petrauskienė and the unmarried daughter is Petrauskaitė, and a translation that treats them as three different names breaks the family link. The translation keeps each form exactly as in the original, so forms in the United States can connect parents and children.
• Dates and numbers: dates are written year, month and day, so 2026-10-03 is October 3, 2026, or in words as 2026 m. spalio 3 d., where m. stands for year and d. for day, and the months have their own names, so spalis is October. Names change with the seven grammatical cases, so Jonas becomes Jono, and the translation uses the form of the passport. Decimals use a comma and thousands a space, so 1 500,00 is one thousand five hundred.
• Documents from Lithuania: the birth record extract (gimimo įrašo išrašas), the marriage record extract (santuokos įrašo išrašas), the ID card (asmens tapatybės kortelė), the diploma with its supplement (diplomo priedėlis) and the archive certificates (archyvinė pažyma) used in citizenship cases. Most of them carry the personal code (asmens kodas), with 11 digits, the first one for sex and century of birth and the next six for the date of birth. The translation reproduces every stamp, seal and note.