Gagauz Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions handles Gagauz document work for USCIS filings, courts and attorneys, and the first thing we do is read what you have. A file from Gagauzia normally contains Russian certificates from the Soviet decades, Romanian certificates issued since independence, a Moldovan apostille, and Gagauz only where someone wrote something by hand. We quote each language separately, translate the whole envelope, and sign a Certificate of Translation Accuracy for every document in it.

Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Gagauz is a Turkic language spoken by roughly 115,000 people, almost all of them in the autonomous region of Gagauzia in southern Moldova, around Comrat. It is a real language with a real literature, and it has never been the language of a civil registry. That single fact decides what a translation order from a Gagauz family looks like.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

Which Language Your Gagauz Document Set Is Really In

Sort the file by issue date and the pattern appears on its own. Anything registered before 1991 is in Russian, because that is what the Moldavian SSR registry used. Anything reissued or registered since is in Romanian, printed by Moldova's Public Services Agency, which also holds the national register and can supply an extract. Both are ordinary work and both are cheaper than a rare Turkic language, which is the point of checking first.

Gagauz turns up in the parts of the file that were not issued by anyone: a statement written out by an applicant, a letter from a relative in Comrat or Ceadir-Lunga, a village church note, a recorded phone call an attorney wants transcribed. Those are genuine Gagauz jobs and they are the ones we are actually needed for. The corresponding registry translations sit at Russian translation and Romanian translation.

• Soviet-era birth, marriage and death certificates: Russian
• Certificates and extracts issued by Moldova since independence: Romanian
• Apostille from the Moldovan Ministry of Justice: Romanian, sometimes with English wording on the standard headings
• Applicant statements, family letters, recordings: frequently Gagauz
• Diplomas and work books from the Soviet period: Russian

Certified Gagauz Translation for a USCIS Filing

Where Gagauz text does exist in a petition, the rule is the ordinary one at 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3): a full English translation with the translator's certification that it is complete and accurate. We treat a handwritten Gagauz statement the way we would treat any evidence, which means rendering hesitation, crossings-out and unfinished sentences rather than smoothing them into an affidavit voice. An asylum declaration that reads too well is a problem, not a service.

Everything in the same envelope gets the same treatment. Stamps, the reverse side of an old certificate, the marginal note recording a later marriage, and the apostille itself all get translated, because a partial translation of a Moldovan document is the most reliable way to draw a Request for Evidence. The certificate wording and the file format are described at certified translation, and the per-form document set at USCIS translation.

Gagauz Names Across Cyrillic and Latin Records

Gagauz was given a Cyrillic written standard in 1957 and moved to a Latin alphabet after a 1993 decision of the Moldovan parliament, replaced in 1996 by the thirty-one-letter Turkish-style alphabet in use now. Nobody rewrote the old paperwork to match. So one surname can sit in Russian Cyrillic on a 1974 birth certificate, in Romanian spelling on a 2019 reissue, and in Gagauz Latin in a letter the family wrote last month, and an adjudicator with three spellings in front of him reads three people.

We spell the applicant to the travel document, print every other form exactly as it appears on the page it came from, and attach a short note setting out which spelling belongs to which record and why they differ. That note is a few lines long and it is the single most useful thing on a Gagauz translation. Where a document uses a Russian patronymic that the Romanian reissue has dropped, we say so rather than quietly harmonizing the two.

Apostille and Legalization on Gagauz Family Records

Moldova acceded to the Apostille Convention in June 2006 and it entered into force for the country in March 2007, so a Moldovan certificate can carry an apostille from the Ministry of Justice. Increasingly that apostille arrives as a signed electronic PDF rather than a stamp on the paper, which confuses people who expected a foil sticker. It is valid, and we translate it as part of the document it belongs to.

Order the apostille before the translation, not after. A certificate that comes back from us complete and then acquires a fresh Moldovan stamp is a document with an untranslated element on it, and you will pay twice. See apostille translation, and notarized translation where a receiving body has asked for the translator's signature notarized.

Gagauz Interpreters for Asylum Interviews and Hearings

Interpreting is where Gagauz demand is genuinely in the language, and the choice at intake matters more than the booking. Survey work in the region puts Russian fluency near 96 percent and Romanian near 12, with Gagauz the daily language of a little over half the population. For a routine appointment a Russian interpreter serves most people from Gagauzia perfectly well. For testimony, a trauma history or anything where the exact word is the evidence, book Gagauz.

One shortcut to refuse: a Turkish interpreter offered because the languages are related. The grammar carries over and the vocabulary does not, since everyday Gagauz speech is full of Russian and Bulgarian borrowings that a Turkish speaker will hear as noise. For the setting-by-setting detail see court interpreting and USCIS interview interpreting.

Gagauz Translation Cost and Turnaround

Because most of the file is Russian or Romanian, most of the file is priced at ordinary European-language rates: a short certified certificate from around $24.95 per page as a US market guide, running text by the source word from about $0.10. Genuine Gagauz content is quoted separately and costs more, because the pool of translators is small. Handwriting and audio take longer than anything else, and a recording with two people talking over each other takes longer again. One- and two-page certificates are usually back within a business day. Nothing is charged beyond the written quote you agreed, and the underlying ranges are published on the pricing page.

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