Kazakh Translation

The first fact you meet in Kazakh translation is this: a sizeable share of the official documents coming out of Kazakhstan are drawn up not in Kazakh but in Russian, and a further share is prepared bilingually, in two columns side by side. It has to be settled when the file comes in which column will be taken as the basis, because the two columns do not always carry exactly the same information and small differences can appear in dates and in the spelling of names.

The change of alphabet continues and documents arrive mixed

Kazakh has long been written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and a programme is under way for the move to the Latin alphabet. The practical result is that the documents in your hands may have been drawn up in different writing systems: a diploma obtained years ago may reach you in Cyrillic, while a newly issued document comes in a different script. In translation we take the writing of the source document as our basis and prepare the target text in the form the receiving institution expects. Where Latin spelling is asked for, we fix which letter equivalents will be used at the outset, because there is no single settled tradition on this.

The Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet contains a set of extra letters that Russian does not have; these carry the contrast between front and back vowels. When a translator who knows Russian overlooks them, the word turns into another word. That is the reason we keep Kazakh and Russian in separate pools.

Frequent mistakes in translation from Turkish into Kazakh

• Trusting the shared Turkic vocabulary. The two languages hold a great many words from the same root in common, but their fields of meaning have drifted apart; in an official text, the word that looks familiar usually stands for a different concept.
• Turkicising administrative terms of Russian origin. Kazakhstan’s administrative and legal vocabulary settled by way of Russian; a term coined by analogy is not recognised by the institution.
• Writing place names in their old Russian forms. The names of many cities and administrative units have changed; whichever appears on the document governs, and the current equivalent goes in only as a note.
• Translating only one column of a bilingual document and skipping the other. The institution wants to see that the whole of the document has been translated.

Which documents come in

Document	Context
Diploma, academic transcript, recognition letters	Students studying in Türkiye
Civil registry, birth and marriage records	Residence permits and mixed marriages
Mining and energy contracts	Investment and contracting work
Customs declaration and transport documents	Freight traffic over the Middle Corridor
Employment record book and service statement	Social security and pensions

Student paperwork and contracting paperwork are the two heaviest items in this language. In contracting files the progress payment and tender papers are dense with numerical data; here the layout of the tables has to be kept and the unit and quantity columns carried across in the order the source has them. Once the table layout breaks down, even a technically correct translation becomes unusable.

Transliteration of names: three traditions at once

Surnames can appear in Kazakhstani records in three separate shapes: the Russian-suffixed form, a form inflected separately for women, and a form with the local suffix meaning “son of / daughter of”. Members of one family may carry different shapes, and a single person may have received documents in different shapes in different years. We do not convert these forms into one another in translation. The spelling we take as our basis is the Latin-script field of the passport; where the source carries another form, it is shown in a translator’s note.

The father’s name is a field of its own on Kazakhstani documents and may carry a suffix following Russian usage. We translate that field as it stands and do not move its content into the surname box; how it is entered into the records system in Türkiye is the institution’s decision, not the translator’s.

Turnaround and sending your file

Kazakh is a language with a mid-sized translator pool in Türkiye; typical work such as student paperwork comes out within the standard time, while long technical contracts may make us ask for extra time. Notarisation is required for most documents going to Kazakhstan; for paperwork issued in Türkiye an apostille also comes into play, and the apostille has to be affixed to the original document before the translation is made.

When you send the document, write which language it is in, which institution it will be submitted to, and whether an apostille is needed. If you add the identity page of the passport as well, we can fix the spelling of the name correctly from the first page onwards. For the fee and the delivery date, upload your document; you can see unit rates on our price page.

The figures here rest on the current tariff; in rarer languages the availability of a translator may lengthen the turnaround. We suggest following the practice in force through the official announcements.