Certified Translation

Mis­sis­sip­pi, Mis­sisippi or maybe Mis­sis­sipi?

In or­der for a trans­lation to be of­fi­cial­ly rec­og­nized by public au­thor­i­ties, the trans­lation must be cer­ti­fied. On­ly court-ap­point­ed and sworn trans­lators are au­thor­ized to cer­ti­fy these types of do­cu­ments. Just like the o­rig­i­nal do­cu­ment it is based on, a cer­ti­fied trans­lation is an of­fi­cial do­cu­ment that may be used in le­gal pro­ceed­ings with all le­gal con­se­quenc­es. There­fore, a trans­lator who is entitled to cer­ti­fy the cor­rect­ness of a trans­lation does not on­ly need to have lin­guis­tic com­pe­tences but also pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­ten­ces in the le­gal sec­tor. In con­trast to re­gular trans­la­tions, cer­ti­fied trans­lations re­quire spe­cial atten­tion to cer­tain par­ti­cu­la­ri­ties. For ex­am­ple, the trans­lator must point out in­cor­rect spell­ings, in­con­sis­ten­cies and emp­ty fields without chang­ing the ori­gi­nal. But what if your name or your re­si­dence has been misspell­ed in your ori­gi­nal do­cu­ment? Ima­gine that your state of re­si­dence has been spell­ed in two dif­fer­ent ways in one and the same le­gal do­cu­ment. How do you think the trans­lator should pro­ceed: cor­rect the mis­spelled name or just leave it as it is? Cor­rect­ing the mis­spell­ed state would fal­si­fy the ori­gi­nal do­cu­ment, leav­ing it as it is could cause further issues with the au­thor­i­ty. The trans­lator may do both, adjust the spell­ing or leave it mis­spelled. It is im­por­tant though, that the trans­lator points out – e. g. by means of an ex­pla­na­to­ry note in square brackets – any adjust­ments made to the trans­lation or adop­ted mis­spell­ings re­sul­ting from the ori­gi­nal.