Translate PDF to Tajik
Translate a PDF into Tajik, the Persian of Central Asia written in Cyrillic letters, with the six Tajik-only characters intact and your page layout unchanged. Files up to 1 GB.
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Persian, written in a Russian alphabet
Tajik is Persian. Spoken, it is close enough to the Persian of Iran and the Dari of Afghanistan that speakers follow one another without much difficulty. Written, it is a different world, because Tajikistan writes the language in Cyrillic. That decision was made in stages: the Perso-Arabic script was abandoned in 1928 in favour of a Latin alphabet, and Latin was replaced by Cyrillic in 1940. A further reform in 1998 tidied the alphabet up, removing four letters that Russian needs and Tajik does not, and leaving thirty-five in place.
The consequence is a script barrier running through the middle of one language. A Tajik reader in Dushanbe cannot read an Iranian newspaper, and a Persian reader in Tehran cannot read a Tajik contract, even though neither would have trouble understanding the other in conversation. If your document has to serve both audiences, you are not choosing a font, you are commissioning a second version. This also means that translating between Tajik and Iranian Persian is a real piece of work rather than a mechanical transliteration, since the vocabularies have drifted apart: Tajik absorbed a thick layer of Russian administrative, technical and military terms during the Soviet period, while Persian in Iran took its modern vocabulary from elsewhere and kept the Arabic-derived formal register that Tajik partly shed.
Tajik is also spoken well beyond Tajikistan's borders. The historic cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, now in Uzbekistan, have large Tajik-speaking populations, and the Dari of Afghanistan is the same language again in a third script. Between them these varieties cover a very wide readership, and a document produced for one of them is not automatically usable by the others.
Six letters Russian does not have, and why they break
The Tajik alphabet is the Russian one minus four letters and plus these six. Every one of them lives outside the Cyrillic range that a font built for Russian covers, which is precisely why a Tajik PDF can come back looking 90 percent correct with holes punched through it.
ғ
A Cyrillic г with a crossbar, writing the soft throat-back sound Persian spells with the letter ghayn. Fonts that lack it either show a box or fall back to a plain г, which changes the word.
ӣ
An и carrying a macron, used chiefly at the end of a word to mark a stressed final vowel. Macron characters are among the first casualties of a font substitution, and losing this one changes a word ending.
қ
A к with a descender, for the sound Persian writes with qaf, made further back in the mouth than an ordinary k. It is common in place names and personal names.
ӯ
A у with a macron, marking a vowel distinct from plain у. The second of the two macron letters and, like the first, a reliable indicator of whether a font substitution has damaged the text.
ҳ
An х with a descender, for a breathy h that Russian has no letter for. Substituting the plain Russian х gives a different, harsher sound and a different word.
ҷ
A ч with a descender, writing the j of jam rather than the ch of chair. It appears in the country's own name for itself, so it is not a letter you can afford to lose.
Tajik PDF translation pricing
Send one page through the trial and confirm the six letters render before going further.
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How to get a Tajik PDF
Open an account
Register with an email address to reach the dashboard.
Upload the document
Drag the PDF over or browse for it. Documents up to 1 GB are handled on the paid plans, which is enough for a bound set of records or a technical manual.
Pick Tajik as the target
Set the source language, then choose Tajik rather than Persian. Persian and Dari are written in a different script, so choosing one of those gives you a document a Tajik reader cannot follow.
Search for the macron letters
Download the file and search it for the two letters carrying a bar. If a document of any length contains neither, a font substitution has probably flattened the text into Russian characters.
The paperwork of a migration economy
Tajikistan has one of the highest ratios of remittances to national income in the world, and that single fact shapes almost all of its outbound document traffic. Hundreds of thousands of people work abroad, mostly in Russia, and every one of them needs identity and status documents that a foreign office will accept. Around that core sit education, family law and a smaller flow of commercial material:
- Passports, internal identity documents, work permits, migration cards and registration paperwork
- Birth, marriage and divorce certificates for family reunification, and powers of attorney executed for relatives back home
- School leaving certificates, university diplomas and transcripts, including from the medical institutes that take large numbers of international students
- Employment contracts, wage records and professional qualification certificates for work abroad
- Court judgments, inheritance documents and notarial deeds, frequently drawn up in Russian rather than Tajik
- Medical records and treatment summaries for patients seeking care abroad or returning with a foreign discharge letter
- Development sector reporting, grant documentation and monitoring material from international programmes
- Hydropower, aluminium and agricultural sector documents, the main threads of the domestic economy
One trap specific to Tajik documents is the surname. Soviet registration attached Russian endings to Tajik family names, and legislation since has encouraged Tajik and Persian forms instead, so an older certificate and a current passport can carry visibly different versions of the same name, both genuine. Always follow the passport spelling in a translation and note the variant if the source document differs. For anything filed with an authority, order a certified translation rather than submitting a machine draft.
One language, three countries, three scripts
Persian is spoken across a wide belt of Asia under three names and written in two alphabets. In Iran it is Farsi and is written in Perso-Arabic script, running right to left. In Afghanistan it is Dari, again in Perso-Arabic, with its own vocabulary preferences. In Tajikistan it is Tajik, in Cyrillic, running left to right.
For a document project this is not a footnote. The direction of the text changes, which changes how tables, headers, page numbers and bilingual layouts have to be built. The reader changes: someone literate in one version has no access to the others. And the register changes, because a century of separate development has left each variety with its own terminology for anything modern, from bureaucratic titles to engineering terms.
So decide which country your document is for before anything else. If the answer is more than one, budget for separate versions and separate reviewers rather than expecting a transliteration step to bridge the gap.
Tajik translation questions
Is Tajik the same language as Persian?
Linguistically it is a variety of Persian, and spoken Tajik is largely intelligible to speakers of Iranian Persian and Afghan Dari. What separates them is the writing system and a century of separate vocabulary development. Tajik uses Cyrillic and carries a substantial layer of Russian technical and administrative terms; Persian and Dari use the Perso-Arabic script and drew their modern vocabulary from other sources. Choose Tajik if your readers are in Tajikistan.
Which six letters are specific to the Tajik alphabet?
A g with a crossbar, an i with a macron, a k with a descender, a u with a macron, an h with a descender and a ch with a descender. All six sit outside the character range that fonts built for Russian cover, so they are exactly where a font substitution shows up. The two macron letters are the most fragile, and searching the finished PDF for them is the quickest health check on a Tajik document.
Can I convert a Tajik document into Persian script automatically?
Not reliably, and it should not be treated as a formatting step. Moving between Cyrillic Tajik and Perso-Arabic Persian involves a change of text direction, different conventions for representing vowels, and vocabulary that has genuinely diverged, so the result needs a translator familiar with both. Plan it as a translation job with its own review rather than as a transliteration.
Why do my documents show two different versions of the same surname?
Because the naming conventions changed. Soviet-era registration gave Tajik families Russian-style endings, and legislation since independence has encouraged Tajik and Persian forms in their place, so a birth certificate and a current passport can legitimately carry different versions of one name. Follow the passport spelling in any translation and record the alternative form in a note, because an unexplained difference reads as a discrepancy to a reviewing officer.
Is my document in Tajik or in Russian?
Both languages are in wide use in Tajikistan and a lot of legal and notarial paperwork is drawn up in Russian. The test is the six Tajik-only letters: if the text contains them, it is Tajik; if a long document contains none, it is Russian, or Tajik that has already lost them. Set the source language explicitly rather than leaving it to be detected.
Will stamps, seals and table structure survive?
Yes. The rebuilt PDF keeps images, seals, signature blocks, headers and multi-column layouts in position, and fits the translated text into the space it has. That matters here because Cyrillic Tajik words are often longer than the English equivalents, and Soviet-format certificates leave very little slack in their boxes.
Can it read an old Soviet-era certificate?
You can upload a scan or a photograph. Clean, high-resolution images work best. Documents from that period are typically typed on worn machines, stamped in purple ink across the text and photocopied more than once, which is where recognition struggles. Always have a person verify dates, registration numbers and names against the original.
What are the limits and the price?
Monthly and Annual plans accept up to 1 GB or 5,000 pages. The Monthly plan is $14.99 for 100 pages or 30,000 words, the Annual plan is $135 a year, about $11.25 a month, and AI translation is $0.005 per word. The $2 7-day trial covers 10 pages or 3,000 words, which is enough to check the alphabet renders in your file.
Put your document into Tajik
Upload a PDF and download a Tajik version with the seals, tables and page structure of the original preserved and the full Cyrillic alphabet rendered as it should be. Files up to 1 GB.
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