Kazakh Translation Services

Kazakhstan is changing the alphabet its state language is written in, and an American immigration or academic file can now hold Kazakh in Cyrillic, Kazakh in Latin letters and Russian from the Soviet period, all describing one family. Prism Language Solutions translates every column of a Kazakh record, holds each name to the passport spelling and explains the variants in a note, with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy on each document.

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

Kazakh is a Turkic language and Kazakhstan is genuinely bilingual. At the 2021 census 80.1 percent of the population reported Kazakh and 83.7 percent reported Russian, which is why a file from Almaty looks nothing like a file from a rural oblast, and why the first question on a Kazakh order is often whether Kazakh is the language you need at all.

• 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

Kazakh and Russian Columns on a ZAGS Certificate Translation

Birth, marriage, divorce and death records in Kazakhstan come from the ZAGS civil registry, now applied for at a public service center or through the egov.kz portal. A current form is bilingual, Kazakh and Russian on one sheet under one seal. A Soviet-era certificate is Russian only, and a family filing for several relatives will commonly hold both kinds.

Both columns of a bilingual record get translated, rather than just the Russian one because it is easier to staff. That is not pedantry: the Kazakh column occasionally carries a name form or a place name the Russian does not, and a certified translation that omits half a document is not the complete translation the certifying statement describes. The Russian-only records are handled as Russian work; see Russian translation.

Kazakh Names and Patronymics on a Certified Translation

This is where Kazakh files actually go wrong, and it is worth reading before you send anything. Kazakh Cyrillic carries nine letters that Russian Cyrillic does not, so a name built on one of them has already been romanized once, by the passport office, using its own conventions. Whatever that office produced is the form USCIS will compare every other document against.

Kazakh Diplomas and Transcripts for Credential Evaluation

Academic files are the second stream of Kazakh work, driven by Bolashak scholarship graduates, medical and engineering applicants, and employment-based petitions. A Kazakhstani diploma and its appendix arrive bilingually, with the grading scale, the hours and the specialty printed in both languages.

The degree name and the specialty are rendered as written rather than converted into an American label, and the grading scale carries a translator’s note explaining what it is, which is what evaluators such as WES want. Deciding the US equivalence is their job. A translation that helpfully calls a five-year specialist degree a master’s has made that decision for them and made the file harder to assess. See diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

Apostille on Kazakhstan Documents Before Certified Kazakh Translation

Kazakhstan acceded to the Apostille Convention and it entered into force there on 30 January 2001, so a Kazakhstani civil record or diploma can carry an apostille where the receiving body asks for one. For USCIS it is not required, and 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) asks only for a complete English translation certified as accurate. The bodies that usually want one are universities, licensing boards and foreign authorities.

The sequencing matters and people get it the wrong way round. Obtain the apostille first, then send the document, so the apostille certificate is translated along with everything else it is attached to. See apostille translation.

Kazakh or Russian Interpreter for a Hearing or Medical Appointment

We would rather ask than assume, and we will sometimes talk you out of the rarer language. A working-age professional from Almaty or Astana often gives evidence more precisely in Russian and will say so if asked. An older parent from a rural oblast, or anyone whose account is rooted in a Kazakh-speaking childhood, needs a Kazakh interpreter and will lose detail through a Russian one.

Court certification exams in Kazakh do not exist in any state, so a court works from an interpreter it qualifies on the record, and in-person Kazakh linguists are thin on the ground outside a handful of metros, which is why most hearings and appointments run by video. Tell us the city, the setting and the speaker’s background and we will tell you what is realistic. See court interpreting and video remote interpreting.

Kazakh Translation Cost and Turnaround

A bilingual ZAGS certificate is one certified page, from around $24.95 as a US market guide, and normally back inside a business day. Diplomas with a multi-page appendix are priced per page or per source word depending on density, and Soviet-era handwritten entries take longer because reading them is the work. Where a document turns out to be entirely Russian we quote it as Russian, which is usually cheaper. Ranges sit on the pricing page.

Questions we get asked