Latin language translator in Tbilisi

Last reviewed: 13 November 2026 · facts checked against official sources

We translate from Latin into Georgian and from Georgian into Latin: Latin-language diplomas, church certificates of baptism and marriage, documents of the Vatican and of dioceses, medical diagnoses and prescriptions, legal texts and archival manuscripts, and we compose Latin mottos and inscriptions. We have the translation certified by a notary: the notary confirms the authenticity of the signature of the translator working in the Latin-Georgian pair, while the translator answers for the accuracy of the translation. A diploma or certificate is translated in 1 working day as standard, and a notarised translation received during working hours can be ready in 1-2 hours in express mode; the turnaround for archival and scholarly texts depends on their volume. The key rule is this: the certification of a Latin document depends not on the language but on the issuing country, so an American or European diploma needs the apostille of the issuing country, while a Vatican document needs consular legalisation, because the Holy See is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention. Upload a scan or a clear photo of the document on the website, tell us which authority it is for, and before the order we will tell you which certification route applies to it. Latin is the only language on our list that no country speaks and that still regularly lands on our desk, because it never left official documents: the diplomas of old universities, the papers of the Catholic Church, medical diagnoses, legal maxims and the nomenclature of botany, pharmacy and veterinary medicine are Latin to this day. To this are added the Latin sources of Georgian history, from the letters of the popes in the 13th century to the records of the missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries.

A Latin document has no country, but its apostille does

The first thing we clarify for a Georgian client: one and the same Latin text can reach Georgia in three different ways. A Latin diploma from Harvard, Yale or Princeton is an American document and receives its apostille at the office of the Secretary of State of the relevant state; a diploma from Oxford, Cambridge or Trinity College Dublin needs a British or Irish apostille. A Vatican document is a separate case: no apostille is issued on documents of the offices of the Holy See, the dicasteries, the Roman Rota and the Secretariat of State, and they are legalised through the consular route: as a rule, the competent Vatican office first confirms the signature, and the document is then legalised by the diplomatic mission of Georgia. We clarify the exact chain before the order with the relevant mission of Georgia or with the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This procedure is slower than an apostille, so we advise requesting the legalisation as soon as you request the Vatican document, otherwise the document will have to go back to Rome. The general rules of legalisation are on the legalisation page.

The Latin diploma: from Harvard to Tartu

The Latin diploma is our most frequent Latin order, and the difficulty lies in the details. American universities write the degree with a traditional formula (ad gradum Baccalaurei in Artibus, Artium Magister, Iuris Doctor, Medicinae Doctor), and the graduate's name is often Latinised: Georgius means George, Iohannes John, and Mariae is a case form of Maria. A Georgian authority that compares the diploma with the passport sees Georgius and Giorgi as two different people, so we write the name in its passport form, leave the Latin in brackets and explain the Latinisation rule in a note. British diplomas often begin with the name of the college, while the diplomas of the old universities of Europe (Bologna, Krakow, Leiden, Uppsala, Tartu) carry the Latin text together with the national language, and both are translated. The date is often written in Roman numerals with a traditional formula (anno Domini MMXXII, die decimo mensis Iunii), and in the translation it becomes an ordinary date, with the original form in brackets. The honours (cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude) are explained, and the legend of the seal and the university motto are translated as part of the document. We confirm in a note how the Latin name of the degree corresponds to the Georgian bachelor, master or doctor, because this completeness is exactly what the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement needs, as it requires a notarised Georgian translation of any foreign-language document (see diploma recognition).

Notarised translation from and into Latin

The Georgian notary and the Latin pair

When certifying a translation, a Georgian notary confirms the authenticity of the translator's signature, not the content of the translation: the notary does not read the Latin text, and the translator answers for its accuracy. For Latin, the translator's qualification is usually confirmed by a diploma in classical philology, theology or a related field. The translation is bound to the original or its copy and certified with the notary's seal and register number, and in this form it is accepted by Georgian authorities, courts, the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement and the Public Registry. A notary cannot certify the translation of someone who simply knows Latin well, for example a doctor or a lawyer, if that person's qualification has not been presented to the notary, and a Latin-Italian translation by a sworn translator abroad, for example in Italy, needs a separate Georgian translation and certification in Georgia. You do not need to attend the notary in person.

The Latin documents certified most often

• Testimonium Baptismi and Testimonium Matrimonii: church certificates of baptism and marriage for civil and church procedures, citizenship and genealogy cases;
• Sententia definitiva and Decretum: decisions of a diocesan tribunal or the Roman Rota on the nullity of a marriage;
• Litterae testimoniales, Celebret, Decretum incardinationis: documents on the status of a cleric and his belonging to a diocese, submitted in Georgia for residence on the ground of religious activity;
• Diploma and Testimonium gradus academici: a Latin-language diploma and a certificate of academic degree;
• Dispensatio and Licentia: permissions of a bishop, for example for a mixed marriage;
• extracts from parish registers and certificates from diocesan archives;
• the Latin parts of Georgian medical documents for a court, an insurer or an expert examination.

A church document from an apostille country

The dioceses and parishes of Italy, Poland, Germany and Spain are in states party to the Hague Convention, but their documents are church documents, not public ones, and an apostille is placed on public documents. So a Testimonium Baptismi issued by a parish in Milan cannot receive an apostille directly: first an Italian notary certifies the priest's signature or a copy of the document, then the prosecutor's office or the prefecture places an apostille on the notary's signature, and only after that is the document translated in Georgia. In some countries, for example Poland, the diocesan curia adds its own certification to the parish document, which simplifies the notary step. We establish the right chain for each country before the order and give you written advice on the steps needed in the issuing country.

Georgian documents in Latin for a diocese

A diocese, order or seminary abroad often needs Latin documents from a Georgian candidate: a baptism certificate, a certificate of free status (status liber), or a Georgian civil marriage certificate for a canonical marriage. The order is this: the apostille is placed on the Georgian civil original, for example the marriage certificate or the certificate of no impediment to marriage, then the document is translated into Latin together with the apostille, and the notary certifies the authenticity of the translator's signature. In Georgia no apostille is placed on the notarised translation itself: under the rules of the Public Service Development Agency, the notarial certification of a copy or of a translation is not subject to apostille or legalisation. Nor are documents of legal entities of private law apostilled, other than medical and educational institutions, so as a rule no apostille is placed on a certificate of a Georgian parish. If the recipient asks for additional confirmation of the translation, the routes are: the Agency itself translates a document that it apostilles and places the apostille on its own translation, or the translation is certified by a sworn translator, the curia or the consulate of the receiving country. So check the requirements with the recipient before the order; details are on the document route and apostille pages.

Dates, names, seals and mixed languages

The date of a Latin document can be given in the Roman system, by the year of a pontificate or with Latin months, and in a certified translation it is converted to the modern format, with the original formula in brackets. Latinised names (Georgius, Maria Theresia, Ioannes Paulus) are written in the form the person has in their personal documents, so we ask for a copy of the passport before translating. Seal legends, signature formulas (L.S., Locus Sigilli, Concordat cum originali), abbreviations and marginal notes are rendered in full, because an authority looks precisely for the element that was left out. A church document is rarely Latin only: the form is in Latin, the entries in Italian or Polish, the covering letter of the curia in English, and the translation covers every layer, each in the corresponding pair. With archival documents the client often has no original at all, and the translation relies on a copy or extract certified by the archive.

Why Latin translations get rejected

• a Vatican document has not gone through the legalisation chain, because the client was looking for an apostille that does not exist;
• the apostille was attached to a parish certificate without the notary step;
• a Latinised name in a diploma was left without comparison with the passport, or a name in a case form (Mariae, Davidis) was not returned to the nominative;
• a date written in Roman numerals was misread;
• the seal legend and the motto were left out;
• only the Latin part of a mixed document was translated, without the Italian entries;
• the anatomical localisation (dexter, sinister) in a medical diagnosis was omitted or confused.

In each case we first establish the specific reason and fix exactly that gap, and with a legalisation error we give you precise instructions on the steps needed in the issuing country.

Translation in both directions

In the Latin-Georgian pair the two directions are two different crafts. Translating from Latin into Georgian is philological work: recognising the period and the register, expanding abbreviations, interpreting constructions. Translating from Georgian into Latin means creating a text in a language that has no native readers but does have a norm two thousand years old, whose violation every classicist notices at once.

From Latin into Georgian: first, which Latin

Latin is an inflected language with six cases, five declensions, four conjugations and free word order, so a word-by-word reading with a dictionary or machine translation almost always goes wrong. The translation starts with a diagnosis: a classical author or a medieval charter, a Vatican decree or a parish register entry, a diagnosis or a botanical description. Each layer has its own vocabulary: in a classical text religio is a religious duty, in a church text a monastic order; in Cicero dispensatio is management, in canon law a permission to depart from the law; in a medical record status is a condition, in a church document a canonical status. Typical grammatical traps are the ablativus absolutus (Rege mortuo can mean both after the king's death and because the king died), the gerundive that expresses obligation (solvendum est is an obligation to pay), and homonymous forms such as rosae, which is both genitive singular and nominative plural.

Archival Latin, Georgian history and genealogy

Latin sources on Georgia begin with ancient geographers and continue with the letters of Popes Honorius III and Gregory IX to Queen Rusudan, missionary reports, the records of the Theatines and Capuchins and the registers of the 19th-century Catholic parishes in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Akhaltsikhe. Such a translation requires palaeography (reading the manuscript and expanding the abbreviations), knowledge of the Latin of the period (spelling variations e/ae, ci/ti, u/v, the indiction and pontifical years) and commentary; at the client's request we prepare a transcription, the translation, notes and an index of names. When Polish, Italian or Lithuanian citizenship is obtained by descent, these parish records are often the only evidence of an ancestor: the extract certified by the National Archives is first apostilled, then translated from Latin together with the apostille and notarised, and the Latinised names (Stanislaus, Casimirus, Hedvigis) are linked to their modern forms. Some receiving authorities have the translation done by their own sworn translator, so check this in advance.

From Georgian into Latin: mottos, inscriptions and diplomas

A text written in Latin often stays for decades on stone, bronze, a seal or a diploma: a university motto, a doctor honoris causa diploma, a memorial plaque, a heraldic motto, an epitaph. A motto is a genre: laconic, often without a verb, in the tradition of classical models (Veritas, Lux et Veritas, Per aspera ad astra), so the Georgian knowledge is power becomes Bacon's formula, Scientia potentia est, and not a new construction. Georgian names are Latinised in their traditional forms (Georgius, Thamar, David), place names in their historical forms (Tbilisium, Iberia, Colchis), and modern concepts on the basis of the Vatican's Neo-Latin dictionary (Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis), not with an invented word. When translating from Georgian into Latin, the ergative construction (the Georgian he wrote with an ergative subject needs a nominative in Latin) and the sequence of tenses (consecutio temporum) need special attention. Such a text is checked by two philologists, we offer the client two or three versions with an explanation of style, following the classical or the church norm, and we check the final layout for the stonemason or the printer once more before it is made.

Botany, veterinary medicine and wine

Botanical, zoological and microbiological names are Latin under the international codes and are not translated, but they need a spelling check and pairing with the Georgian equivalent. In Georgian wine exports, the Georgian varieties of Vitis vinifera appear in export certificates and phytosanitary documents with both the Latin species name and the Georgian variety name, in veterinary certificates the Latin names of diseases and pathogens are mandatory, and in cosmetics the ingredients are written in the INCI nomenclature. One wrong letter moves a certificate to a different species, so this part is checked by a separate editor. For Georgian botanists who describe Caucasian endemics, we also compose the short Latin diagnosis of a new species (diagnosis latina) following the conventions of botanical Latin.

Legal and medical translation

Latin maxims and Roman law

In contracts, court decisions and texts of international law, Latin formulas are technical terms: vis maior, pacta sunt servanda, bona fide, ex aequo et bono, mutatis mutandis, res judicata, ultra vires, in dubio pro reo, ne bis in idem. In a Georgian text they sometimes stay in Latin and are sometimes translated, and the choice depends on the addressee and on Georgian legal practice; it must be consistent in both language versions. A word-for-word translation loses the sense, and ex aequo et bono turns into from equality and goodness. Confusing ex nunc and ex tunc changes the temporal effect of a decision. Georgian civil law is an heir of the continental tradition, and we translate fragments of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, the Institutes of Gaius and the Digest with academic precision, where possessio is possession and not ownership (dominium), and usucapio is acquisition of ownership by prescription.

Canon law: marriage, nullity, clergy

The law of the Catholic Church rests on the 1983 Code of Canon Law, whose authentic text is Latin. A Georgian who marries a Catholic in church goes through the diocesan procedure: status liber, the baptism certificate, the permission for a mixed marriage (licentia pro matrimonio mixto) or a dispensation in case of disparity of worship (dispensatio ab impedimento disparitatis cultus). A decision on the nullity of a marriage (sententia de nullitate matrimonii) runs to dozens of pages: the facts (in facto), the law (in iure), the ground of nullity (caput nullitatis). The Georgian civil registry and courts recognise only a document with civil effect, so if in the issuing country, for example Italy, a canonical decision was given civil effect on the basis of a concordat, the civil court's act of recognition is translated together with the church decision, each with its own legalisation chain (see court decisions). In the documents of Catholic clergy serving in Georgia, incardinatio, ordinarius and facultates are rendered with an explanation for the Georgian authority.

Medical Latin: a diagnosis in two languages

A Georgian medical document, a discharge summary, a form 100 or an operation record, traditionally writes the diagnosis in Latin: Diagnosis clinica: Pneumonia lobaris dextra. This creates a problem for three readers of the document: the patient, who does not understand the diagnosis; a doctor abroad, who does not use Latin phraseology; and a Georgian court or insurer, which asks for a document in Georgian. Fractura colli femoris sinistri is a specific clinical entity with a corresponding ICD code, so in the translation we keep the Latin diagnosis and add the clinical equivalent in the target language and the ICD-10 code, while the anatomical localisation (dextra/sinistra, proximalis/distalis), the nature of the process (acuta/chronica) and the stage are rendered in full. Georgian-specific classifications, for example the stages and risk groups of hypertension, receive an explanation. In a court dispute about medical error, compensation for damage or incapacity for work, the Georgian translation of the Latin parts is notarised so that it enters the case as an official document.

Prescriptions, pathology and causa mortis

The formulas of a prescription, Rp., D.t.d., D.S. and the abbreviations for the mode of taking (b.i.d., t.i.d., a.c., p.o., i.m.), are fully expanded in the translation, with the international non-proprietary name of the medicine and, where needed, the ATC code added. In pathology reports and forensic medical examination reports, ambiguity is most dangerous: carcinoma in situ and carcinoma invasivum are completely different prognoses, while vulnus contusum and vulnus incisum are different mechanisms that change the qualification in a criminal case; the chain of causa mortis (causa immediata, causa intermedia, causa fundamentalis) is translated with particular care. Such a translation is prepared by a translator who knows medical Latin, and at the client's request a doctor-editor checks it too. We do not change the diagnosis or correct the doctor's Latin: if a diagnosis is ambiguous, we give both readings and advise you to ask the issuing doctor for clarification.

Simultaneous and consecutive interpreting

Where Latin is heard aloud

Latin is almost never spoken in conversation: it is read, sung, pronounced in ceremonies or translated on the spot from a document. So the work of a Latin interpreter covers three formats: the translation of prepared texts at liturgical, academic and protocol events; the oral sight translation of a document (a prima vista) at a notary, in court, in an archive or at a doctor's; and meetings of spoken Latin, where the participants really do talk in Latin. In Tbilisi these are events of the Apostolic Nunciature and the Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus, solemn masses and ordinations, university ceremonies with a Latin laudatio, classical philology conferences, choral concerts and film shoots.

Liturgy, ceremonies and pronunciation

At a solemn mass, an ordination or an honorary doctorate ceremony (Honoris causa doctorem creamus et renuntiamus), the Latin texts exist in advance, and the interpreter works through them beforehand and at the event interprets them simultaneously, in a whisper or consecutively. The translation of liturgical Latin follows the established Georgian liturgical vocabulary of the Catholic Church in Georgia. Church pronunciation, in which caelum sounds like chelum, and restored classical pronunciation, kaelum, differ, and the interpreter must know both, because a Vatican representative and a German professor read the same text differently. Protocol titles (Excellentissimus ac Reverendissimus, Eminentissimus) and Latinised names (Franciscus, Ioannes Paulus) are fixed in advance in the ceremony script together with their traditional Georgian forms. For Georgian choirs with a Latin repertoire, we also offer a translation of the text and pronunciation coaching at rehearsals.

Sight translation at the notary, in court, in the archive and at the clinic

The most frequent Latin interpreting order is not on stage but at the notary's desk: when a client presents a Latin document or a foreign cleric signs a document whose Latin part he must understand, the interpreter translates the document on the spot and signs, and a written translation is usually prepared in advance. In court the interpreter translates the Latin evidence orally and is recorded in the minutes. In an archive a philologist reads the manuscript on the spot together with the researcher to establish which document is worth a full translation. At the doctor's the interpreter explains the Latin diagnosis and prescription in an understandable language in the doctor's presence; this is not a medical consultation, and the clinical explanation is the doctor's job.

Booking and preparation

For a liturgical, academic or television event, book the interpreter at least two weeks ahead, because preparing the texts takes time; for sight translation at a notary, in court or at a clinic, a few days ahead, and in an urgent case we look for a solution on the same day too. Simultaneous interpreting from a booth with two interpreters is used only at large liturgical or academic events; otherwise one philologist-interpreter is enough. Before the event we need:

• the Latin texts: liturgical formulas, the laudatio, the letter or decree to be read, the choral text, because Latin simultaneous interpreting without a prepared text is practically impossible;
• the pronunciation tradition: church or classical;
• a copy of the document to be presented at the notary or in court;
• a description of the audience: who listens in Georgian, who in Italian or English;
• details of the hall, the equipment or the online platform.

Official sources

• Public Service Development Agency: apostille and legalisation: which Georgian documents can be apostilled, which cannot, and within what time
• Hague Conference: states party to the Apostille Convention: the current list of countries: apostille or consular legalisation

Frequently asked questions

Whether you need a Latin diploma, church certificate, diagnosis or motto translated, upload a scan or photo, tell us where you will submit it, and we will tell you which country's apostille or legalisation the document needs and when the translation will be ready; the full list of other languages is on the translation page.