Yoruba Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Yoruba material into English for USCIS petitions, courts, attorneys and universities, and English into Yoruba where an organization needs it, each certified job carrying a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. Yoruba is written with tone marks and underdots that no passport office prints, which is why most Yoruba files fail on a name rather than on a sentence. That problem is the one we spend the most time on.

Last reviewed September 11, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Yoruba is spoken by tens of millions of people in south-western Nigeria, in southern Benin and across the border in Togo. In the United States it belongs to a community that works in English, so the request that reaches us is never for a whole file. It is for one page, one recording, or one name that has come back from an officer with a question attached.

Nigeria writes its records in English; Benin writes its records in French. Neither writes them in Yoruba. Say that out loud at the start of a case and half the confusion disappears, because the client who says they have Yoruba documents usually has English ones with Yoruba names on them, and the fix they need is a translator’s note rather than a translation.

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

Yoruba Name Spelling and Tone Marks on a Certified Translation

Written Yoruba settled into its present form in the nineteenth century and uses 25 letters, an underdot on Ẹ, Ọ and Ṣ, and tone marks on the vowels: an acute for high, a grave for low, nothing for mid. A Nigerian passport strips all of it. So do most school registers, and most people typing their own name into a US form. The result is that Ṣọlá and Sola, or Ẹniolá and Eniola, are the same person on paper only if somebody says so.

There is a second, quieter version of the same problem. The underdot on those letters gets encoded several different ways depending on the keyboard and the decade, so two documents that look identical on screen do not match when a system compares them character by character. Our rule is simple. The translation spells the name exactly as the travel document spells it, the source spelling is reproduced with its marks as printed, and every variant in the bundle is listed in a translator’s note. We never restore marks on one page and drop them on the next.

Certified Yoruba Translation for USCIS and Family Petitions

8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) sets the standard: a complete English translation of anything not in English, certified by someone competent in both languages. For a Yoruba applicant the list is short and specific, which is why we read the bundle before quoting instead of charging by the inch. Details of the certificate and delivery are on the certified translation page, and the per-form document set is covered under USCIS translation.

Affidavits and family declarations given in Yoruba
Church and mission registers with Yoruba entries, including naming ceremony records
Letters from a family head or a community leader supporting a relationship
Birth records and marriage certificates issued in Benin in French
Recordings, voice notes and message threads filed as evidence

Nigerian Civil Records Behind a Yoruba Translation Request

Most of what arrives from Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta or Ilorin is already in English and needs no translator. The National Population Commission issues the birth certificate, a state High Court issues the sworn declaration of age that older applicants rely on, and both print in English. We will tell you when nothing on the page needs us.

The Yoruba text turns up around the edges. A naming ceremony entry in a church register, the compound and family name written the old way, an elder’s letter, a marginal note added years later by a parish clerk. Those we translate in full, keeping the office and the signatory as printed and describing each document by the title it actually carries.

Yoruba Speakers in Benin and Their French Civil Status Records

The Yoruba-speaking areas of southern Benin are the part of this language that surprises attorneys. Benin runs its civil status in French, so a Yoruba speaker from Porto-Novo or Ketou holds an acte de naissance, an acte de mariage or a court judgment establishing a birth that was never registered at the time. None of that is in Yoruba, and a Yoruba translator is not who you need for it.

We translate the French record as a French record, keep the commune and the registrar as printed, and flag where a judgment rather than a register entry is the source of a date of birth. The Yoruba linguist comes in afterwards, for the spoken material and for the names.

Yoruba Transcription and Translation of Recordings for Attorneys

Yoruba evidence work is mostly audio now. Custody disputes, fraud matters and asylum files all arrive with voice notes attached, and the speech in them switches between Yoruba, English and Nigerian Pidgin inside a single sentence. A transcriber who flattens that into plain English has already lost information a court may care about.

We transcribe in Yoruba first, set the English beside it, time-stamp the passages, mark inaudible stretches rather than filling them, and show where the speaker changes language. Proverbs are rendered for what they say, with a note on the sense, because a proverb tidied into a yes or a no is a changed answer. See transcription and legal translation.

Nigeria, Benin and the Apostille Question for Yoruba Documents

Nigeria and Benin both sit outside the 1961 Hague Convention that created the apostille, so no apostille exists for a record issued in either country. For a US immigration filing that does not matter: what is required is a full certified English translation, not an authenticated original. For a foreign university or a receiving authority that does demand legalization, the route runs through the issuing ministries and the relevant mission, and it happens at source. Get it done before the document reaches us so the stamps form part of the translated set. See apostille translation.

Yoruba Translation Turnaround and Guide Prices

A one- or two-page Yoruba affidavit or church entry is normally delivered within 24 hours of a confirmed quote. Audio is quoted on recording length and takes longer, and a French civil record from Benin is priced as French rather than Yoruba, which usually works in your favor. Certified pages start from around $24.95 as a US market guide, with running text quoted by the source word. The pricing page sets out the ranges, and same-day work is described under rush translation.

Ready to start? Send the document or the booking details through the quote form, call +1 (833) 282 8883, or email info@prismlinguistics.com. You get a fixed written price within 60 minutes during business hours.

Questions we get asked

Should the tone marks be restored on my name in the translation?

Only where the original prints them. We follow the travel document for the spelling used in the translation and reproduce the marked form exactly as the source shows it, with both recorded in a note. Adding marks the original does not have creates the mismatch you are trying to avoid.

My Nigerian documents are in English. Why was I told to get a Yoruba translation?

Usually because a Yoruba name or a handwritten entry appears somewhere on the page and whoever asked could not read it. Send us the pages. If the record itself is in English we will say so and quote only for the Yoruba parts, or tell you that nothing needs translating.

Do you translate documents from Benin for Yoruba-speaking clients?

Yes, though they are French documents rather than Yoruba ones. Beninese birth and marriage records are issued in French by the commune, and we translate them as such, noting where a court judgment rather than a contemporaneous register entry established the date of birth.

Can you transcribe a Yoruba voice note that keeps switching into English?

Yes, and we show the switches rather than hiding them. The Yoruba transcript sits beside the English translation with time stamps, language changes marked, and anything inaudible flagged instead of guessed. Nigerian Pidgin passages are handled the same way.