Greek Translation

An older layer of the language, still alive in legal texts

The official and legal texts of this language bear the traces of an archaic written tradition set apart from everyday speech. Court judgments, notarial deeds and administrative correspondence still show inflected forms nobody speaks today, along with old prepositions and fossilised participial constructions. The translator’s task is not to modernise that layer but to find its counterpart in the formal register of the target text; simplifying it strips the document of its gravity.

Sentence structure rests on long periods as well. The length that Turkish achieves by piling up suffixes is achieved here through chains of participles and relative clauses. Since neither kind of length converts directly into the other, the provision has to be taken apart and rebuilt – and while that is done, which condition attaches to which obligation must be preserved with care.

Names and the problem of the transliteration standard

When names are carried into this language and out of it, the country’s own transliteration standard applies, and passports are issued in accordance with it. The difficulty is that the same name may have been written under different rules in different periods; an old diploma and a recent identity document can show one and the same person under two different spellings.

Going from Turkish into this language demands the same rigour: the name is transferred on the basis of the passport spelling, not on how it sounds, and the same form is kept across every document in the file. Accent marks are obligatory; a word written without them counts as misspelled and will not pass muster in an official text.

Field	Frequent error	Consequence
Accent marks	Dropping them in headings set in capitals	The text is judged careless
Father’s name	Merging it with the surname	Identity matching breaks down
Island and place names	Using the international form	The registry search returns nothing
Measures and currency	Converting the amount	The document becomes open to challenge

Where the demand comes from

Recognition of higher education comes first. Diplomas, academic transcripts and course descriptions are read course by course in a recognition review, so a summary translation will not be accepted. The second area is property and inheritance: title deed records, certificates of inheritance and powers of attorney are in constant demand because of the deep-rooted family ties between the two countries.

The third area is shipping. Vessel documents, seafarer certificates, classification reports and insurance policies generate steady volume; references to international conventions in these texts are carried over unaltered. The fourth is tourism and property investment, which brings lease agreements, operating licences and tax documents.

In healthcare, the discharge summaries and test results of patients who travel for treatment are translated for follow-up once they return home. Giving drug names by their active substance is standard practice in these texts.

Names of institutions, titles and degrees

The names of Turkish universities, ministries and courts are not translated; the original name is kept and the institution’s function briefly defined beside it. Borrowing the name of a comparable body from this country’s administrative structure leads the official reading the document to assume the wrong sphere of competence.

With academic degrees and titles the method is description rather than equivalence: the length of the degree, its credit load and the programme that awarded it are written out. The unit conducting the recognition review looks at those measurable details far more than at any word-for-word rendering. The same principle holds for public sector titles; because the scope of titles such as director and chief varies from one institution to another, no single fixed equivalent can serve.

Dates and identity fields

In official records the father’s name is a mandatory field that distinguishes one person from another, and it is expected in the genitive. The father’s name on Turkish documents is moved into that field and never presented as a middle name. The mother’s name is likewise kept separate.

Dates are written day, month, year, separated by obliques; when the month is spelled out it takes the genitive, so the base form cannot be copied straight across. Tax numbers and social security numbers are recorded separately, and confusing the two holds the application up.

Before you send your document, tell us the receiving institution and, if there is one, the spelling of the name used on older documents. To see the timing and the amount, request a quote now; for a line-by-line breakdown, have a look at the pricing page.

The information here is general in nature; the level of attestation required in this language varies with the destination country. Ask the competent authority to confirm the position before you file.