Persian to English Translation

This direction is used when a Persian document has to be submitted to an English-speaking country. The typical applicant is someone applying with documents issued in Iran or Afghanistan to a university, an employer or an immigration authority in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. The document is written in the Perso-Arabic alphabet and runs from right to left, while the authority that will read it assesses it according to the Latin-script, left-to-right Anglo-Saxon order.

Concrete examples make the direction clear: the student applying for a master’s programme in the United States with an Iranian diploma, the family submitting an asylum or immigration file to Canada, the civil registry and education documents of someone arriving from Afghanistan. What they have in common is that the document is meaningful within its own system but cannot be read directly by the receiving side because of its calendar, its alphabet and its direction of writing.

Immigration and student files account for the greater part of demand. In these files birth, marriage, education and employment documents are submitted together, and the timeline of the file is expected to appear free of contradiction.

The common difficulty with these documents is that Iranian and Afghan administrative reality is not directly recognisable to an English-speaking authority; beyond the conversion of calendar and alphabet, the translation ties two administrative cultures together.

Although the source language is the same, Iranian and Afghan documents rest on different administrative traditions; Iran’s civil registry and education systems and Afghanistan’s are separate structures, and the names of institutions are rendered by function accordingly. Which country the document comes from is established at the outset.

The Iranian civil registry document (shenasnameh) takes the form of a booklet updated throughout a person’s life; marriage, children and divorce are all recorded in the same document. All of these entries and their dates are transferred in full in the translation, with accurate calendar conversion, because it is from this document that the English-speaking authority reads the person’s marital history.

Because short vowels are usually not written in the Perso-Arabic script, more than one reading is possible when a name is transliterated; the form in the passport is taken as the basis and maintained throughout the file. A single Latin spelling is used across the documents of the same person.

The official seals and stamps on the documents are described in their position; these elements form part of the verification on Iranian and Afghan documents and are not omitted in the translation.

Technical matters specific to Persian into English

The most conspicuous problem peculiar to this pair is calendar conversion: Iranian documents use the Solar Hijri (Jalali) calendar, and when dates are carried into English they are converted accurately to their Gregorian equivalents, because the difference in years runs to centuries and a wrong conversion renders the document unusable. Similar calendar usage is also found in Afghan documents.

The second problem is the change of alphabet: personal and place names are carried into Latin letters in transliteration and the spelling in the passport is taken as the basis; since the same name can have more than one Latin spelling, a single form is maintained throughout the file. As the text is written from right to left, the page layout and the tables are rebuilt.

The father’s name is a separate field on Persian documents and is not removed in the English translation but carried across as a separate line. The names of institutions and documents are rendered according to their function; registration numbers are not translated but given with a reference to the record concerned.

The official seal and registration details on the document are preserved in their position. Carrying out the calendar conversion consistently for every date of birth, marriage and graduation is critical if the timeline in the file is to appear free of contradiction.

Which documents call for this direction

• Diplomas, the rizname (mark sheet) and course descriptions
• Birth, marriage and civil registry (shenasnameh) records
• Employment, service and criminal record documents
• Bank and income documents; immigration file documents
• Powers of attorney and court documents

In immigration files the consistency of the timeline across documents is decisive; calendar conversion and name transliteration are carried out to the same standard in every document. In education files a breakdown of the courses is required.

In family and civil registry documents the family relationships and the father’s name are transferred clearly. Across documents belonging to the same person the name is given in a single Latin spelling.

The chain of certification

Because the target is an English-speaking country, the sworn translator system does not come into play: the United States and the United Kingdom ask for a signed statement of accuracy, Canada for a translator registered with a provincial association or an affidavit, and Australia for NAATI accreditation. Since Iran is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, the source document usually follows the route of consular legalisation; this detail should be checked in advance.

For these differing expectations, see the certification regime of the target country and the requirements for the document type. Tell us the spelling of the name in the passport and the target institution before you send the document.

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