Sworn Translation in Adana

The centre of gravity of the translation requests that reach us from Adana is not trade but family law. Civil registry records, marriage and divorce proceedings, custody rulings, inheritance files and citizenship applications make up a clear majority of the work coming from the province. Industrial and agricultural city though it is, that puts Adana in a category of its own in translation terms.

The practical consequence of this profile is that the files are emotionally heavy as well. The person in front of us is not following a consignment for export but the official history of their own family, and has often been turned away several times along the way. That is why what we care about most in files from Adana is stating plainly, and from the outset, what is needed and why.

What is really at stake in civil registry and family law documents

In family law documents, translation is not a matter of carrying words across; it calls for managing the conceptual differences between legal systems. Concepts such as custody, guardianship and trusteeship may have no exact counterpart in every legal order. If the scope of a ruling is wrongly narrowed in a court judgment, the judgment may be refused when it is submitted for recognition. For that reason we treat the operative part of a court judgment with particular care.

The second critical matter is how names and dates are carried over. Where birth records have been drawn up according to a different calendar system, no date conversion is made; the date the record itself bears is given, with a note added where necessary. This is one of the points at which official procedures most often come unstuck.

Why Arabic is needed here

Demand for Arabic in Adana comes both from the continuing trade with countries in the region and from the official business of the population settled in the province. In civil registry and family law files the second of these sources dominates: personal records arrive drawn up in Arabic and are translated into Turkish. English, meanwhile, is the language of agricultural, food and textile exports. We have set out which service a given type of document calls for on the services page.

Procedure	Document	Direction
Entry in the civil register	Birth record, identity document	Arabic into Turkish
Marriage formalities	Certificate of no impediment, marriage record	Both ways
Recognition and enforcement	Foreign court judgment	Foreign language into Turkish
Inheritance	Death record, certificate of inheritance	Both ways
Export	Analysis report, product certificate	Turkish into English

The second stream, from agriculture and food

The province’s agriculture and food industry generates demand of an entirely separate kind from the personal files: product analysis reports, supply contracts, packaging and label texts and, in textiles, technical specifications and sample approval correspondence. The volume on this side is larger, but because the rate of repetition is high it is possible to work from templated documents.

Putting the papers in order for citizenship applications

Some of the files that come from Adana belong to citizenship applications made through a family tie or long-term residence. The documents required for these applications have to set out the person’s history as a whole: the birth record, civil status documents, any judgments relating to earlier marriages, the children’s records and identity documents obtained in the country of origin.

The snag met most often in these files is the same person’s name written differently from one document to the next. In some countries the father’s name is recorded as part of the surname; in others it appears as a separate field. The translation has to preserve that structure while settling on a consistent spelling; we decide on that spelling together with the applicant and apply it throughout the file.

The second snag is the date of the documents. Some may have been obtained years earlier, and it then turns out that a recently issued copy is wanted. Confirming which document has to bear a current date before work begins therefore avoids having a translation done twice.

Not having to visit several offices for one file

The most wearing part of family law files is having to apply to several different authorities for a single procedure. So as not to add the translation and certification stage to that list, we run the process entirely remotely: you send the documents, the translation and, where required, notarisation are completed at the office in Ankara, and the wet-signed copy arrives at your address. We have no branch in the province, though we can say honestly that having one here would not spare you a queue either. You can send us your documents here; let us first work out together which document genuinely requires certification.

The information here is provided for guidance; in a process run remotely the original document may be required. We recommend confirming the position with an official source before you begin.