This week I became a Latin scholar. This was not by choice, but by necessity. The story starts with the tedious application process for the HSMP UK visa I’m applying for and the fact that I needed an accurate Latin translation.
Accurate Latin Translation
The rules state that I have to send in my original university diploma. Easy enough.
However, they also state that if any of my application materials are in a language other than English I have to get them translated by a certified, professional translation service.
Thanks to the good people at Brown University, my university diploma is written in — yes, believe it — LATIN. Wow.
Why a university would print diplomas in a dead language is beyond me (ok, maybe for the sake of “tradition,” but some traditions, including this one, were meant to die upon obsolescence).
Anyway, as per the 41-page (and yet still so vague!) visa application guidebook, I contacted the UK consulate in Los Angeles to find out if they keep a list of certified translation companies.
To my utter amazement, they do not keep a list. This may have something to do with the fact that the US is an English-speaking country (well, that is of course unless you are the creator of the Brown University diploma).
The two-line email I received from the person there suggested I try searching the Internet for a company and assured me that any professional translation service would suffice. Whew.
Latin Translation Services
I contacted several companies based on some very creative Google searching. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone who specializes in translating diplomas from Latin to English.
I guess there’s not much of a market for accurate Latin translation these days. Shocking.
I found one that looked competent and shelled out $85.95 (85.95!!! I could translate the stupid thing myself…it’s really not that hard to figure out what “gradu baccalaureato in artibus” means).
Four days later, they sent me a Latin translation that began thusly:
“To all who will read this Diploma greetings in the name of Gogh Almighty.”
Um, really? Being a lapsed Christian, I’ve heard a lot of names for God. Gogh is not one of them. And that was just the first of many, many errors.
I wasted no time sending a strongly-worded letter (my favorite thing!) to the sales guy. Throughout the course of the next day and a half, I went back and forth 21 times via email and three times via phone to try to get an accurate Latin translation.
In the process I became quite the scholar of a beautiful, lyrical, and yet very much dead language.
The final translation (done by a different translator), which was supposed to be finished yesterday, will now be arriving tomorrow (let’s hope so!).
In the process, I watched in awe as a Latin translator was fired from the translation company and the sales guy I was talking with turned out to also be the owner, president, and most other employee positions.
The only reason I’m not including the name of the company so as to publicly flog them for the nightmare experience I had is that the sales guy/president/owner/whathaveyou was very apologetic and is overnight FedEx-ing the accurate Latin translation to me.
Latin to English
So what did I learn from this eye-opening process? Perhaps kids today should think long and hard before going to a university that insists on printing its diplomas in a dead language.
Oh, and perhaps I should have done a better job looking for a diploma translation company. That too.
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