Understanding the Importance of Translating Hindi WhatsApp Messages for Legal Matters in Australia

Electronic communications can form part of the material lawyers review in family law, commercial disputes and other legal matters.

For Hindi-speaking clients and witnesses, these communications may be written in Devanagari, Romanised Hindi, English, or a combination of languages.

Translating this material presents different challenges from translating a formal certificate or contract.

Hindi messages are not always written in Hindi script

Hindi speakers frequently use more than one writing system when communicating electronically.

A WhatsApp conversation might contain:

Hindi in Devanagari

नमस्ते, आप कब आएंगे?

Hindi written using English letters

Aap kab aaoge?

Mixed Hindi and English

Main kal office aaunga, but I will call you first.

A translator needs to recognise that these may all represent Hindi communication.

Romanised Hindi can also be inconsistent. Different people may spell the same Hindi word in different ways.

Context matters

A short message can have a meaning that depends heavily on the surrounding conversation.

For example, a single word or phrase may be:

• A response to an earlier question

• Sarcastic

• Informal

• An abbreviation

• A reference to something previously discussed

• A culturally specific expression

For this reason, providing only isolated messages can sometimes make translation more difficult.

Where possible, providing the relevant surrounding conversation gives the translator more context.

Slang and informal expressions

WhatsApp conversations are generally less formal than legal documents.

Hindi speakers may use:

• Slang

• Abbreviations

• Nicknames

• Colloquial expressions

• English words

• Regional expressions

• Emojis

A literal word-for-word translation may not communicate the intended meaning.

The translator should preserve the meaning of the communication without turning informal language into something more formal or more extreme than the original.

Emojis and punctuation

Emojis can sometimes contribute to the tone or meaning of a message.

The same words can have a different communicative effect depending on the surrounding punctuation or emoji.

Where these elements are relevant to the communication, they should not automatically be discarded during transcription or translation.

The appropriate treatment depends on the purpose of the translation.

Screenshots versus exported conversations

Lawyers may receive WhatsApp evidence as screenshots, PDFs or exported chat files.

Screenshots can be useful because they preserve visual information such as:

• Sender names

• Dates

• Times

• Message order

• Emojis

• Images

• Voice-message indicators

However, a large number of screenshots can make translation and document management cumbersome.

Where possible, provide the material in a form that preserves the relevant context and clearly identifies the speakers and chronology.

Voice messages

Voice messages involve two separate tasks:

Transcription: converting spoken words into written text.

Translation: converting the meaning from Hindi into English.

These are not necessarily the same service.

If a legal professional has a Hindi voice recording, it can be useful to specify whether they need:

• A Hindi transcription

• An English translation

• Both

The quality of the recording can also affect the process.

Background noise, multiple speakers and overlapping speech can make transcription more difficult.

Identifying speakers

In a conversation involving several people, speaker identification is important.

If the source material does not clearly identify who is speaking, provide whatever contextual information is available.

A translator should not guess the identity of a speaker where the source material does not establish it.

Offensive or highly colloquial language

Legal communications may contain insults, threats, slang or emotionally charged language.

The translation should accurately represent the source.

It should not deliberately soften language that matters, but it should also not make an ordinary expression sound more extreme than the original.

This is one reason why legal professionals may prefer a translator who is comfortable dealing with informal Hindi as well as formal documents.

What should lawyers send?

For a Hindi WhatsApp translation, consider providing:

1. The original screenshots or exported conversation.

2. Enough surrounding conversation to establish context.

3. Names or identifiers for the participants where appropriate.

4. The date range that matters.

5. The purpose of the translation.

6. Any certification or formatting requirements.

7. The required deadline.

If only certain messages are relevant, clearly identifying them can help manage the scope of the work.

Confidentiality

Messages may contain highly personal information.

Before providing client communications to an external translation provider, law firms should consider their own confidentiality obligations and the provider's document-handling practices.

Translation does not determine evidentiary significance

A translator's role is to translate the communication.

Whether a particular message is relevant, admissible, reliable or significant in a legal proceeding is a separate legal question.

Those issues should be assessed by the relevant legal professional and, where applicable, the court or tribunal.

Conclusion

Hindi electronic communications can present translation challenges that do not arise in conventional documents.

Devanagari, Romanised Hindi, Hinglish, slang, emojis, voice recordings and conversational context can all affect how a communication should be understood.

For lawyers handling Hindi-language communications, providing the original material together with sufficient context gives the translator a better basis for producing an accurate English translation.

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