Definition
Translation carries three distinct legal meanings, each operative in a different context.
1. Linguistic rendering. The conversion of a document, statement, or record from one language into another for legal purposes. This is the most frequently encountered legal meaning and governs the admissibility of foreign-language evidence, the pleading of foreign-language instruments, and the use of court interpreters.
2. Transfer of property. An archaic usage denoting the conveyance or transfer of an estate or interest from one person to another. Rarely employed in modern practice but present in older common law sources.
3. Ecclesiastical. The formal removal of a bishop from one diocese or see to another, effected by papal or ecclesiastical authority rather than by the bishop's own initiative.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The conversion of text from one language to another; more broadly, the conversion of something from one form or medium to another.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of translating, removing, or transferring; also, that which is obtained by translating something — a version, as of the Scriptures.
The common and legal meanings overlap substantially on linguistic rendering, but the gap emerges elsewhere. In ordinary English, "translation" is primarily about language conversion; its sense of physical removal or transfer is metaphorical or archaic. In legal sources — especially pre-twentieth century — "translation" as property transfer was a genuine operative term, not a metaphor, and researchers who encounter it in older instruments without recognizing this risk misreading the document entirely.
Common Confusion
Translation and interpretation are frequently conflated in non-specialist use and in older legal sources that did not consistently distinguish them. In modern evidence and court procedure, the distinction is technically significant: translation applies to written text; interpretation applies to spoken language rendered in real time. Anderson's entry reflects the older, blended usage in which a court "interpreter" translates both sworn oaths and witness testimony — a practice that modern procedural frameworks have rationalized but not entirely unified. Researchers working with court records should not assume that "interpreter" and "translator" were used with precision in historical sources.
Why It Matters in Research
The three-meaning structure creates real research hazards. A researcher scanning deed records, wills, or conveyancing treatises from the seventeenth or eighteenth century who encounters "translation of estates" should not read it as referring to a foreign-language problem — it signals a transfer of title. Burrill makes this usage explicit, tracing it directly to the Roman law translatio and citing Hale's Analysis; Black's confirms the property-transfer sense while noting it is seldom used even by his time. By the late nineteenth century, the property-transfer meaning was receding from active use, meaning it appears in older sources but largely disappears from modern ones. Corpus researchers tracking the term across centuries must account for this semantic contraction.
For evidence and procedure research, the linguistic-rendering meaning is the productive one. Bouvier's entry on pleading is particularly useful: when a foreign-language instrument must be averred in pleading, both the original and a translation are required. This rule has direct implications for historical litigation records — a complaint or declaration involving a foreign contract should contain both, and the absence of a translation in the record may itself be legally significant.
The ecclesiastical meaning is narrow but can appear without warning in records touching church property, endowments, or the legal status of clergy. Researchers in ecclesiastical law or in jurisdictions where church-state entanglement was historically significant (colonial records, English common law materials) should be alert to it.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on all three meanings but weight them differently, reflecting their eras. Black's presents all three with roughly equal treatment. Bouvier focuses on the pleading rule for foreign-language instruments and adds a pointed remark about the interpretive difficulty of translation — noting that finding dictionary equivalents does not resolve the legal meaning of a foreign-language contract. This is more than a linguistic observation; it anticipates modern questions about the legal effect of translation errors and the standard of fidelity required. Burrill, characteristically, traces the term to Roman law origins and quotes Hale and Blackstone to anchor the property-transfer sense historically. Anderson's is most practically oriented, addressing the mechanics of court interpretation and the pleading requirements for defamatory statements made in a foreign language.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry as reproduced is fragmentary and appears to have been corrupted or excerpted from a passage on transhipment and transfer; it does not contribute reliable definitional content for this term.
What the historical dictionaries largely miss is any treatment of the quality or standard of translation — the question of what makes a translation legally adequate. Bouvier gestures at this but does not resolve it. Modern practice has addressed the issue through certification requirements, sworn-interpreter rules, and evidentiary standards, none of which are anticipated in the older sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Court interpreter and translation requirements vary significantly by jurisdiction, particularly regarding whether a party has a constitutional or statutory right to interpretation in civil proceedings (as opposed to criminal). Federal courts and most state courts have formalized certification requirements for court interpreters that did not exist when the historical dictionaries were written. Researchers should not rely on historical sources to describe the modern procedural framework.