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There are some great sites listed below that will help you translate from English to various languages, including Eastern Europe's languages and also various languages to English. These are great sites to find out what a word or a line on an old paper or a photograph means. You now have an arsenal of great web sites to work with - some offer to do a small translation for free - while other sites charge a nominal fee. Good luck! Having the ability to say hello in a number of languages, or to decipher a letter or web site that is in a foreign language is becoming more common. There are now many sites available, but the results can be quite varied. Most returns of a translation will allow you to grasp the general intent of the original text but will not produce a polished translation. Google now allows you to translate various languages into English. Give it a try. Type in the word or words you want to translate -- select the language to/from and it will provide you with the answer To view a map showing language spread around Europe/Russia at the end of the century Accented letters and other characters For a wider variety of accented letters, try http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html For writing in HTML etc. try http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/web/codehtml.html Learn A Language - this BBC site offers you the opportunity to learn many European languages by site and by sound and it is free! Here are the languages available, just click on the one of interest.
A FREE Language Learning Program http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/
Handwriting - a fascinating tutorial on Deciphering Old English Handwriting http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html http://www.firstct.com/fv/oldhand.html "In Their Words - A Genealogist's Translation Guide to Polish, German, Latin and Documents" authored by William Hoffman and Jonathan Shea, is an excellent resource. Ordering information - the most direct way to get info on the books - is to go straight to this Website at "Latin Words" - a Latin word dictionary and grammar aid that translates for a beginning Latin student at "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary"- Dictionaries An index of on-line Dictionaries Dictionary. Com Merriam-Webster/Online The Library of Congress Thesaurus - LOGOS: Multilingual E-Translation Portal - Multi-Lingual Dictionaries along with Translations between European languages and much more can be found at On-line Dictionaries/Thesaurus Over 208 Language Indices and Dictionaries OneLook dictionaries (several languages) - Refdesk.com - Spell Web - "The Ethnologue" - a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. The Ethnologue Name Index lists over 39,000 language names, dialect names, and alternate names. The Ethnologue Language Family Index organizes languages according to language families Ethnologue - a database about languages of the world Free Translation - a very useful site to translate many languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese Translator Directory - a site that offers limited free translators Translator Live - now you type in a sentence or words and translate it to many different languages for FREE! Give it a try - you will love it! Translate Russian to English Transliterating English to Russian in One Step Worldlingo Free Translating Service - up to 150 words Rules for Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex coding Soundex - check the following JewishGen site for doing your own calculation of D-M or Nara Soundex codes. Avotaynu Soundex Search Town Name Translations - "Translation Guide to Nineteenth Century Polish Language Civil Registration Documents" (Birth, Marriage & Death Records) - authored by Judith Franzin - a book by the Jewish Genealogical Society. A good source for translating Polish/Jewish acts in 19th. Century Polish-Language Civil-Registration Documents. It covers births, marriages and deaths with differences noted for pre-1826 and post 1826 documents. She has published a 2nd. edition. There is a Library of Congress Catalog Card (no.89-84516) and ISBN 0-9613512-1-7. Travlang's Translating Dictionaries - Umlauts - as a general rule, there is ambiguity in the transliteration of umlauts (the vowels a, o, u 'with two dots on top'. In central Europe, these are usually transliterated as ae, oe, ue. There is some logic in this because the umlaut characters originally were ligatures of these letters, like in the French word oeuvre. In North America, the preferred transliteration is a, o, u -- just omit the dots. Another character with ambiguous transcription is the "esszet" character which looks like a Greek beta. It is often replaced by a double s, sometimes 'sz' (the original ligature, now obsolete) and maybe others. Some Scandinavian characters pose similar transcription challenges. From a posting by Juergen Stockburger. Your Dictionary. com - General Language Just for the fun of it! Here's a weird one, a site that analyzes prose and guesses at the gender of the author. Strangely enough, it really works. I tried it with a bunch of documents , and it guessed correctly in every instance. If you have a document (works only in English, I believe) you might want to determine if a male or a female wrote it. Try it yourself right here - it's very believable. Afgan Language - there is no specific language. The country has two major languages -- Pashto and the local Persian dialect known as Dari. Baltic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Prussian* Languages - http://www.slavophilia.net/language.htm * indicates extinct languages Baltic & Slavic Languages - translating assistance from/to English from: Click2 Translate - a commercial service that offers help in translating foreign languages
Dictionary of Many Languages (Aussie, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finish and many more) - a Dictionary for Addict Spell Check made freely available to all users of Addictive Software's Addict Spell Check and Thesaurus - version 3 and higher DOROT Genealogy Center - located at Beth Hatefutsoth in Tel Aviv e-mail bhgnlgy@post.tau.ac.il DOROT Software East Slavic, Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian - Free2Professional Translation - great site and easy to use Fonts, software and keyboard labels for multilingual computing including Cyrillic Jewish Language Research Website - wow, what a site! Here you will find:
Ladino Language - also known as Judeo-Spanish, dates back to the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, when it became a specifically Jewish language. Several dialects are still spoken in the Balkans. Ladino is a mixture of many languages and is coined from the Spanish word ladinar, which means to translate the Torah from Hebrew into Spanish. Ladino was a language of the Diaspora, much like Yiddish, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Spain is known in Ladino as Sefarad and is derived from medieval Castilian Spanish. Not only Salonikan Jews spoke Ladino, but also Turkish Jews, Bulgarian Jews In Spanish, the word for shirt is camisa. In Ladino it is camiza. Parnas = President of a Spanish and/or Portuguese Synagogue Language - Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Grammar/Style and quotations - http://www.refdesk.com Languages - Baltic and Slavic Languages Language Guides - The Yamada WWW Language guides - a definitive guide to language resources on the World Wide Web. In the Guides, you will find pointers to: The Yamada Font Archive; links to the annotated list of language-related news groups and links to language related mailing lists. They contain information on 115 languages and there are 112 fonts for 40 languages - all offered by the University of Oregon at Languages of the World - links to language page sites - the ultimate source of authentic and reliable information about the Languages of the world on the net. The links in this directory will guide you to the official sites of the languages that you are looking for. Languages for use while traveling. Some quick and necessary words. Multilingo - a commercial translation site that offers translations in many languages. Letter Writing to Archives - "Felicia Zieff requested the help composing a short letter in Polish (to go to the Lublin Archives). Rashi - the greatest Jewish commentator, Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, was an outstanding community leader and decisor who schooled his two daughters because he had no sons. A video, featuring Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Rashi and distributed by Destiny Films is available at Spelling - "Each program (and website) has whatever conventions its authors gave it. In Windows there is a 'Character Map' which will allow you to enter unusual characters in a document-that usually will allow your home genealogy program to take things like a u mit umlaut. P.S. The character map is found in the program list under Accessories/System Tools. Of course, it may need to be installed from the Windows CD. Translating AIM - a translating program can be downloaded from PC World's download site for free. It requires Windows 9.x. After choosing the languages that you wish to converse in, you click an arrow to determine what you're transferring from and to. The program supports English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish Babelfish Translator - a resource where you can immediately translate (up to 150 words) from French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish to English and vice versus Babylon - Babylon-Pro is a dictionary tool that instantly delivers a world of information to users’ fingertips. Babylon provides translation, conversion and relevant information about any word or value that you click on. With a single click online or offline, this tool allows users to access information from thousands of glossaries and dictionaries, convert currencies, measurements, and time zones, and--through a text-to-speech system--hear the proper pronunciations of words (you must download and install the Babylon 'Say-it' plug-in from the Babylon Web site to enable the speech capabilities). Babylon also translates to English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, and Swedish. A free Demo web site is offered at Click2Translate - a fee-based site that will translate an entire page for a reasonable fee.  LingvoSoft Dictionary software English <-> Yiddish for Windows - 400,000 wordsWith this LingvoSoft smart dictionary software on your computer, you can easily switch between English and Yiddish, (an many other languages) for prompt translations of 400,000 words both ways! Download Free Trial now Cyrillic Language alphabet Free Translation - an easy-to-use site for rapid translations where you can get the 'gist' of foreign language text and web pages Genealogy.net Translation Service - at this site trans@genealogienetz.de you can request a translation be made in these supported languages at no charge: CZEch, ENGlish, DUTch, FREnch, GERman and POLish. The site requests that you use the three-letter abbreviation as indicated in bold face and your request should have a maximum length of 40 lines. The translations are done by a volunteer team, so before you use their services, I would suggest you read their instructions carefully which are spelled out in both German and English. And as with any request to help you in your research, please make sure you send a 'Thank You' note. German < > English Dictionary - Translation From English to German or vice versa A New Feature Site ... now search specific Languages (you name it, Google offers it and believe me, you will be amazed) or Countries at this Google site Lavrentiy Krupnak (Laurence Krupnak) offers his services in translating Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Hungarian, Yiddish, German, etc. Translating is done on a fee basis. Information available at Ling98 - a commercial service located in Montreal, Canada with partners all over the world Lingo - multilingual solutions - at this site you can upload your document and get an instant price quote on a professional human translation. Memo Ware - even if you don't have a PDA ( Personal Digital Assistant - a general term used to encompass electronic organizers and handheld computers) you can use Memo Ware's document files on my personal computer. Once you have opened up this web site, you will have many choices - some of them can be also used with a PC or a MAC. You will be required to download the program you are interested in and you will find many translation programs including translating from Dutch to English Mendez iTranslator™ a commercial translating service. The site offers FREE on-line language translations and also offers a human translator service. Multi-Lingual Dictionaries along with Translations between European languages and much more can be found at Poltran - English to Polish and Polish to English free translation site Prompt Online - just click on image below
Quick Fix - essential holiday phrases for the following languages: Russian Language - learn Russian words and meanings, Russian Dictionary, Russian Translations Rustran.com - you can enter a word or a sentence in Russian or in English and receive Systran - a professional human translation service Translating Services - Genealogy.net offers to do translations for free at http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/misc/translation.html Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged. Translations/Translation Services: Russian Transliteration System http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~taies/lc.html Translator Web Guide A possible source for having a document translated is your local college or university - perhaps a professor or a student would be willing to do a translation. A Language School may also be of assistance. Library of Congress Transliteration Table http://www.brama.com/computer/enclode.html Worldlingo Free Translating Service - up to 150 words Slavic Cataloging Manual Transliteration Tables - click on any link below
Web Translation Service for FREE. InterTran™ can translate single words, phrases, sentences and entire web pages between 767 language pairs You don't need a site to get most foreign characters on your computer. First, go to Add/Remove Programs, Then Windows Setup. Next Add Multilanguage support for Cyrillic or Central (Polish etc.) European Languages, or whatever language you want. You may also need to Add the Character Map, if that is not in your program list under Applications/System Tools. It is in Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup, System Tools. With both of these installed, open the character map and look at the different fonts available, for example, in Windows 98, there are several CE (Central European) fonts, like Ariel CE. There is Cyrillic. When you choose the font, you will see all the strange characters available. Choose one, copy, go back to your document, and paste it in. you can also set up hot keys if you use them repeatedly. You can also change your keyboard, but it is not recommended. For Hebrew, you need Hebrew fonts and the capability from Microsoft. This information obtained from a JewishGen Digest of 12/8/00 submitted by Sally Bruckheimer. You can also download the necessary Internet Hebrew fonts from World AltaVista - (same as Babelfish) can translate passages of text or entire web pages among nine languages, or they can translate your page into their language of choice.
Belarus Meschane - means petty bourgeois Bosnia & Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, OCS* Languages * indicates extinct languages Bosnian and Herzegovina Language Help Bulgaria Bulgarian Language Help Chinese The Beijing Expert Translation Co., Ltd. is based in Beijing, China, providing high quality translation services in most of the world’s commercially significant languages. In addition to considerable expertise English translations, we offer translation services in the following languages-pairs: French-Chinese, Chinese-French, German-Chinese, Chinese-German, Japanese-Chinese, Chinese-Japanese, Russian-Chinese, Chinese-Russian, Korean-Chinese, and Chinese-Korean. English to Chinese Croatia Croatian Language Help Czech Republic Czech is a difficult language, although if you know Slovak or Slovene, you should be able to pick it up quite easily.
Czech, Slovak, Polish, Polabian*, Kashubian, Upper/Lower Sorbian Languages - * indicates extinct languages Czechoslovakian Language Help French 'Polonais" is French for "Polish man"
Note: See also my Yiddish page The German language is a very variable one. In German-speaking areas of Switzerland, for example, the local dialect is different enough that high-school students study standard German as a foreign language. Yiddish is also called "Judeo-German". From a posting to soc.genealogy.jewish by Stan Goodman 1/29/2004
Translating Services Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged. "In the early 19th century in Germany (before there was much of an exodus to the USA from eastern Europe), groups of young Jews from one town would band together, exchange information, and eventually proceed as a group, on foot, for the ports, often settling down together in the same town when they arrived in the USA. These were probably the original Fusegangers." "By 1850 Western and Central Europe had an effective railroad network. It had reached well into Russia by the end of the century. There were up to four different 'classes' and prices; the 4th class with hard wooden benches and no frills was for the working poor. I doubt very much that it would have been commonly cheaper to walk long distances than to ride by train, factoring in the cost of shoe leather and food. Certainly it would have severely limited how much of one's possession one could take into the new world. There was also a good chance that one might get robbed on the roads and lose the money for the trans-Atlantic ticket." "I suspect the term Fussgaenger came into more general meaning among Jews to perhaps mean emigrants in general (possibly limited to those going as a group). In the late 19th century there were passenger ships sailing out of the Baltic and Black Sea ports; it would have made little sense for a Jew to walk from the Pale to Bremen if he could take a train (or, if necessary walk) to Koenigsberg or Danzig and get on a ship there." "We should always remember that both hardships and pleasures tend to grow in intensity as their history is remembered over the years and handed down through the generations." From a posting on JewishGen by Michael Bernet mBernet@aol.com on November 20, 2002 Umlaut - "It's always acceptable in German to write the umlauted letters as plain letters followed by an e. Back in the hardware-only (typewriter) days, a good many documents were written like that in German, even in Germany. And ignoring the umlaut is *not* a good idea. Can lead to some dreadful embarrassments, too. Finally, have you tried using alt-nnn typing to enter special characters? Try this when you're entering data: --turn on the caps-lock key --hold down the ALT key --on the numeric keypad on the right-hand side of your keyboard, type 129. If that gets you a u-umlaut, congratulations, and my apologies to the software manufacturer. 132 is a-umlaut, and 148 is o-umlaut. The sharp S (or ess-zett) is 225." From a posting on JewishGen by Roger Lustig on 1/27/04 English to German and German to English "It's always acceptable in German to write the umlauted letters as plain letters followed by an e. Back in the hardware-only (typewriter) days, a good many documents were written like that in German, even in Germany. And ignoring the umlaut is *not* a good idea. Can lead to some dreadful embarrassments, too. Finally, have you tried using alt-nnn typing to enter special characters? Try this when you're entering data: --turn on the caps-lock key --hold down the ALT key --on the numeric keypad on the right-hand side of your keyboard, type 129. If that gets you a u-umlaut, congratulations, and my apologies to the software manufacturer. 132 is a-umlaut, and 148 is o-umlaut. The sharp S (or ess-zett) is 225." From a posting on JewishGen by Roger Lustig on 1/27/04 Hoch Deutsche or High German Greek Language Help to learn Greek at Hebrew Language
The ability to read Hebrew - even just to decipher the letters - is a great asset to anyone engaged in Jewish genealogy. The National Jewish Outreach Program teaches Hebrew reading in four or five sessions.
Shorashon© is a lexicon containing nearly 4000 Hebraic roots and has an innovating method of classification. The lexicon is accompanied by instructions, which also act as gloss of morphology of the Hebraic language according to a particularly original approach. Shorashon© can be freely downloaded (Acrobat®Reader or Palm OS format). Shorashon©'s instructions and translation of Hebraic roots are available in French only. Dealing with Hebrew Characters - Frequently Asked Questions "<< The double-vav followed by an ayin suggests Hebrew rather than Yiddish. "In 1968 The Hebrew Language Academy posted rules for adding Vavs and Yods
Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages - The Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar Ilan University, 52900 Ramat-Gan, Israel E-mail Attn: Zvi Betzer betzez@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il Phone +972.3.531.7334 Fax: +872.3.535.1233 Dictionary - Review of the Oxford English Hebrew Dictionary Ger is a Hebrew word for stranger or foreigner Guide to 19th Century Russian and Yiddish/Hebrew Cursive Records - some pages may take a long time to load but very interesting "Hebrew and Aramaic Words in the Yiddish Language - their Phonetic Spelling and Translation into English and Russian" - authored by Dr. Moisey Wolf. The dictionary is available for $12 from the Jewish Federation of Portland, Oregon (503) 245 6219 http://www.jewishportland.org/index2.html "Hebrew Inscriptions and their Translations" - published by The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Index of Jewish Art. It contains a list of frequently used inscriptions with their English translation as well as help in deciphering abbreviations and initials and the listing of literary sources.. Their address is Hebrew Translator - translator and interpreter. Mrs. Circolone provides fast and accurate bilateral translations (English-Hebrew), for the private and public sectors. Michal has a working knowledge of French and a university degree (BA) in Psychology and Communications. She is an Israeli citizen based in the United States (Phoenix, AZ). Hebrew is her native language. There is also a wonderful commercial site that offers CDs and a learning Hebrew information at http://www.hebrewresources.com/discus/messages/10/200.html "Learn Hebrew Today" - authored by Paul Michael Yedwab with Howard I. Bogot and published in New York by UAHC Press in 1992 - 61 pages ISBN 0-8074-0483-7 Hebrew Language Learning Resource - this web site has both written and audio pronunciation guides, alphabet charts including cursive, boldface and Rashi script, as well as links to other topics relating to the Hebrew language Additional information concerning Rashi
Hebrew Language Training System for Adults (PC) A commercial site http://www.jewishsoftware.com/ My Hebrew Picture Dictionary - an on-line resource to learn Hebrew words. Each word in the dictionary has a photograph of the item along with English/Hebrew translation and transliteration. SIL Hebrew Font System - a free (with some restrictions) Hebrew font package for Windows and Macintosh that displays and prints Biblical Hebrew text. E-mail sil_fonts@sil.org Hebrew Words of Genealogical Value Avinu HaYakar - Our dear father Bachur - unmarried man Chotev = wood cutter (also Kotzetz and Chotekh meaning chopper/cutter) Moh'r -usually a prefix for a rabbi VeBa'ali He'Ahuv - And my beloved husband Sahbak.com - If you want to write Hebrew e-mail even from computers that do not support Hebrew, the solution may be Sahbak. Sahbak means (in Hebrew slang) a good friend. Sahbak will do most of the work for you. Sahbak will install Hebrew fonts and add a right to left direction. It will also supply a virtual Hebrew keyboard if you need one and its all free to download. It won't work on MAC computers, however "Teitsch" - Yiddish written as Hebrew Hungarian On-line Hungarian Dictionary http://dict.sztaki.hu/english-hungarian A Useful English-Hungarian Dictionary
Hungarian Accented Characters - and their spelling Magyar - Prior to 1910, when the Hungarian language orthography was modernized, the cs consonant combination was eliminated. It was replaced with ch and ts. 'ch' is pronounced like ch in CHeap and 'ts' is pronounced like 'ts' in iTS. Ts is pronounced like the 27th letter of the Ukrainian alphabet. The Ukrainian word 'tsehla' means brick or tile. A tsehl'nik is a brick-maker. A guide to pronunciation for the main language of Hungary (Magyar) Italian Italian to English and English to Italian Nonna means grandmother Latin Latin Words - find out what many of the Latin words on Birth and Death Certificates mean by using this site Lithuanian Language Spoken living languages in Lithuania - Karaim, Lithuanian, Romani Baltic Macedonia Macedonia Language Help - Maltese The language of natives of the Isle of Malta is based on Arabic but using Latin alphabet. Most people seem to be trilingual:- Maltese, English and Italian.
Polish Language Note that to write to the Archives, you can write in English. To a registry office, local official, etc., write in Polish. Writing in the language of the person that you are writing to is always best ... it exhibits respect and courtesy. Make it as easy as possible if you want the quickest response. Six to eight months for a reply, is not uncommon. English to Polish Dictionary "Hebrew and Aramaic Words in the Yiddish Language - Their Phonetic Spelling and Translation into English and Russian" - authored by Dr. Moisey Wolf. The dictionary is available for $12 from the Jewish Federation of Portland, Oregon (503) 245 6219 "In Their Words" - a 400-page book designed to help specifically with Polish documents. Here's the direct link to info on that book: The Polish language does have a "Y" in its alphabet. It is in the Russian language that a "I" or "J" becomes a "Y". Example: the Polish Marja or Maria becomes Marya in Russian "Polish language definitely have "y", and use to have a 'x' (instead of 'ks' combination) in the old transcripts, even at the beginning of the words. The Polish letter "C" is pronounced "ts" like the Hebrew tzadi. In the Polish language records, it often replaces the German "Z" or "tz". The problem of the Polish "C" is an important piece of general knowledge for those researching ancestors with Polish names. It seems to have been "lost" even by gentile Polish-Americans, who routinely pronounce names ending in "icki" as though they rhymed with "sticky" - when in fact they should be pronounced "Itsky". "W" in Polish is pronounced as the sound "V" (the Polish alphabet has no letter "V"). "Polish, as the other Slavic and Baltic languages, use declensions. Seven forms of Polish declensions are responsible for the changes that occur at the word ends. For example, in translation from English "Town Bobrka" to Polish "Miasto Bobrka", the Nominative declension is used and no change in word "Bobrka" occurs. But when translating from English "Born in Bobrka" to Polish: "Urodzony w Bobrce", the Genitive declension changes "Bobrka" to Bo |
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