Is the Syriac document translator free?

You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.

Can it read scanned Syriac editions, manuscripts and photos?

Yes for scans in general: upload a JPG, PNG or HEIC photo or a scanned PDF and the text is recognized before translation. Cleanly printed Estrangela, Serto or East Syriac type from a modern edition is the input most likely to come through well. Older printings with worn type, unvocalized text in a small face, and manuscript hands are much less certain: the dot that separates dālath from rēsh, the syāmē and the vowel signs are small and easily lost, and a lost dot changes the word. Photographs of inscriptions are not a reliable input. Where the document matters, compare the English against the Syriac line by line and expect to correct some readings.

How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?

Fast gives a quick readable version, useful for finding your place in a long text. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the right choice for study, teaching and anything you will cite: it is the tier for unvocalized text, for the theological vocabulary of the fathers, and for the compressed style of liturgical poetry. Syriac is a low-resource language, so even Advanced should be read as a careful aid rather than an authority; a CSCO translation volume, a facing-page edition, or a lexicon such as Payne Smith or Sokoloff remains the reference. English into Syriac is composition rather than translation into a living language: fine for a short phrase or an exercise, and to be reviewed by a trained reader before it is inscribed, printed or sung.

Will the translation keep my document's original layout?

The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. Right-to-left text, two-column pages and marginal notes are part of the layout; English runs longer than unvocalized Syriac, so expect adjusted type size or line breaks.

Which script and dialect does it handle: Estrangela, Serto, East Syriac, West or East pronunciation?

All three scripts are the same Unicode Syriac letters in different shapes, so Estrangela, Serto and Madnhaya are read by the same engine and translate the same way. East and West Syriac differ in vowel signs and pronunciation (the East keeps ā where the West says ō, for instance), which affects how a name or a title is transliterated in the English but not what the sentence means. This page is for Classical Syriac. Jewish and Biblical Aramaic in the square Hebrew script belong to the Aramaic page, and the modern Neo-Aramaic vernaculars are a different case, as noted above.

Does it handle Garshuni (Arabic written in Syriac script)?

Treat it as unsupported and check the result. Garshuni pages are Arabic in language and Syriac only in their letters, and they are common in Maronite and Syriac Orthodox manuscripts and in some printed prayer books. The engine may recognize the Arabic underneath and may not, and a Syriac reading of an Arabic page is meaningless. If a document turns out to be Garshuni, the dependable route is to transcribe it into Arabic script and translate it as Arabic. The same applies to Malayalam written in Syriac letters in Kerala.

What file types can I upload?

PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel) and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned pages as JPG, PNG or HEIC. Unicode Syriac in the text layer is the ideal input; scans and photos get text recognition first. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters.

Syriac PDF & Document Translator — English ↔ Syriac

Translate English to Syriac or Syriac to English while preserving your document’s layout. Upload your file, choose the target language, and get a natural translation that keeps the meaning of the original.

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See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

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A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places. — Original — A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places.

An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions. — Original — An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Original — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Translation — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Original — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Translation — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Original — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Translation — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Original — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Translation — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

How Syriac documents come out

Upload a PDF, Word file or photographed page of Syriac and read it in English: a Peshitta chapter, a hymn of Ephrem from a CSCO volume, a page of the Ḥudra or the Fenqitho, a digitized manuscript, a colophon, or a parish prayer booklet. Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac (Madnhaya) all pass through the same engine, vocalized or not, and the translation comes back in the layout of the page. English into Syriac works for short texts and should be reviewed before any liturgical use.

Classical Syriac, the Aramaic of Edessa, is written right to left in an alphabet of twenty-two letters that join as Arabic letters do, in three script styles. Estrangela is the oldest, used in early manuscripts, in many modern scholarly editions and for headings. Serto is the West Syriac hand of the Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic and Maronite traditions. Madnhaya, the East Syriac script, is used by the Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Church. The vowel systems differ too: West Syriac marks vowels with small Greek-derived signs above or below the line, East Syriac with patterns of dots, and much printed Estrangela carries no vowels at all. Other marks carry meaning: syāmē, the two dots that mark a plural; the single dot that alone distinguishes dālath from rēsh; the dots that harden or soften b, g, d, k, p and t; and the linea occultans, a small line marking a silent letter. Editions add verse numbers and marginal variants, and in the CSCO series the translation is published as a separate volume. Manuscripts end in colophons dated by the Seleucid era, the 'year of the Greeks', which runs 311 or 312 years ahead of the Common Era depending on the month. Right-to-left text and columns are part of the layout the translation is fitted into.

Translate your document and keep its structure

The translator keeps your file’s structure while translating the text in context. The downloaded format depends on the source file.

PDFs and scanned pages: The translated PDF follows the page visually, with translated pages rendered as images. Selectable PDF text and identical fonts are not guaranteed.
Word documents and PowerPoint presentations: Start with DOCX or PPTX when you have it. Native paragraphs, table text and slide text can stay editable in the corresponding file format. Translated text inside pictures remains image content; review text wrapping and font changes in your editor.
Excel workbooks and EPUB books: Use the original XLSX or unprotected EPUB for a translated workbook or ebook. Review formulas, numbers and text cells in a workbook; check chapter order, navigation and text flow in your ebook reader.

What people translate to and from Syriac

Peshitta and biblical study

The Peshitta is the Bible of every Syriac church, and its readings matter to anyone comparing the Syriac Old Testament with the Hebrew or the Syriac Gospels with the Greek. Students upload a chapter from the Leiden Peshitta, the British and Foreign Bible Society New Testament, the Mosul or Urmia editions in East Syriac script, or a facing-page volume of the Antioch Bible, along with the Old Syriac Gospels and the Harklean version for text-critical work. The translation is a reading aid beside the Syriac, useful for checking a verse or working through an unfamiliar chapter; it is not a critical edition, and where the Syriac is ambiguous it will choose one reading rather than show the alternatives.

Fathers, hymns and scholarly editions

Syriac literature runs from Aphrahat's Demonstrations and the madrāshē of Ephrem through Jacob of Serugh, Narsai, Philoxenus, Isaac of Nineveh and Bar Hebraeus to chronicles and saints' lives. Much of it exists only in a CSCO, Patrologia Orientalis or Gorgias Press edition, or in a manuscript digitized by a library or the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, and a good deal has no English translation at all. Researchers upload the text volume or a facsimile and read it in English to find the passage they need, then work from the Syriac. Printed editions in any of the three scripts are the reliable input; manuscript hands vary, and results from a facsimile should be checked line by line.

Liturgy, clergy and parish use

Classical Syriac is still the liturgical language of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic churches, the Maronite Church for parts of its rite, and, alongside Malayalam, the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara churches of Kerala. Seminarians, choirs and parish staff upload the Qurbana or Qurbono, the Ḥudra, the Fenqitho, the Shḥimo, the Beth Gazo, or a booklet for a feast or a funeral, to understand what is being sung or to prepare an English facing text. For anything that will be printed in a service book or read aloud in church, treat the output as a draft: liturgical Syriac is compressed and allusive, and the translation should be reviewed by someone trained in the tradition.

Manuscripts, colophons and family heritage

Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac families in the diaspora hold prayer books, Gospel books, family manuscripts, church certificates and letters that nobody at home can now read, often in a mixture of Classical Syriac and the vernacular. Colophons record the scribe, the village, the church and a date in the Seleucid era that has to be converted. Some pages turn out to be Garshuni, Arabic written in Syriac letters, which is a separate problem described in the FAQ. Modern Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (Sureth) and Turoyo, the spoken languages written in the same scripts, are not Classical Syriac; a page in the vernacular will come through unevenly, and this page is built for the classical language of scripture and liturgy.

What to watch for in Syriac document translation

Most of what goes wrong with Syriac documents goes wrong before translation. Unvocalized text is the norm, so a consonantal skeleton may be read as the wrong word; the dot that distinguishes dālath from rēsh, the syāmē that mark a plural and the vowel signs are tiny and vanish in a poor scan; and letters of similar shape in Serto or East Syriac type merge at small sizes. Then the language: Syriac theology has its own vocabulary, in which ܩܢܘܡܐ (qnōmā) has been argued over for fifteen centuries and should not be flattened to 'person' without thought, and hymnody is compressed and allusive, packing a biblical reference into a word or two. Names are the next trap, since the same name can be transliterated by East or West pronunciation (Ephrem and Aphrem, Qurbana and Qurbono), and a translation should keep one convention. Colophon dates in the year of the Greeks need 311 or 312 subtracted, depending on the month, to give a Common Era date. Garshuni pages read as gibberish if taken for Syriac, and a page in Sureth or Turoyo is not Classical Syriac at all. And translating English into Syriac produces a classical-style composition that may be grammatical without being idiomatic; for a liturgical text or an inscription, a reviewer trained in the tradition is not optional.

Syriac document translation FAQ

Is the Syriac document translator free?: You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.
Can it read scanned Syriac editions, manuscripts and photos?: Yes for scans in general: upload a JPG, PNG or HEIC photo or a scanned PDF and the text is recognized before translation. Cleanly printed Estrangela, Serto or East Syriac type from a modern edition is the input most likely to come through well. Older printings with worn type, unvocalized text in a small face, and manuscript hands are much less certain: the dot that separates dālath from rēsh, the syāmē and the vowel signs are small and easily lost, and a lost dot changes the word. Photographs of inscriptions are not a reliable input. Where the document matters, compare the English against the Syriac line by line and expect to correct some readings.
How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?: Fast gives a quick readable version, useful for finding your place in a long text. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the right choice for study, teaching and anything you will cite: it is the tier for unvocalized text, for the theological vocabulary of the fathers, and for the compressed style of liturgical poetry. Syriac is a low-resource language, so even Advanced should be read as a careful aid rather than an authority; a CSCO translation volume, a facing-page edition, or a lexicon such as Payne Smith or Sokoloff remains the reference. English into Syriac is composition rather than translation into a living language: fine for a short phrase or an exercise, and to be reviewed by a trained reader before it is inscribed, printed or sung.
Will the translation keep my document's original layout?: The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. Right-to-left text, two-column pages and marginal notes are part of the layout; English runs longer than unvocalized Syriac, so expect adjusted type size or line breaks.
Which script and dialect does it handle: Estrangela, Serto, East Syriac, West or East pronunciation?: All three scripts are the same Unicode Syriac letters in different shapes, so Estrangela, Serto and Madnhaya are read by the same engine and translate the same way. East and West Syriac differ in vowel signs and pronunciation (the East keeps ā where the West says ō, for instance), which affects how a name or a title is transliterated in the English but not what the sentence means. This page is for Classical Syriac. Jewish and Biblical Aramaic in the square Hebrew script belong to the Aramaic page, and the modern Neo-Aramaic vernaculars are a different case, as noted above.
Does it handle Garshuni (Arabic written in Syriac script)?: Treat it as unsupported and check the result. Garshuni pages are Arabic in language and Syriac only in their letters, and they are common in Maronite and Syriac Orthodox manuscripts and in some printed prayer books. The engine may recognize the Arabic underneath and may not, and a Syriac reading of an Arabic page is meaningless. If a document turns out to be Garshuni, the dependable route is to transcribe it into Arabic script and translate it as Arabic. The same applies to Malayalam written in Syriac letters in Kerala.
What file types can I upload?: PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel) and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned pages as JPG, PNG or HEIC. Unicode Syriac in the text layer is the ideal input; scans and photos get text recognition first. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters.

See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

1 / 6

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