notary
noun · Notar
The notary is the Notar, and the word is right while the office behind it differs sharply. The German Notar is an independent holder of a public office for preventive justice, § 1 BNotO, a fully qualified lawyer who advises, drafts and records; the common-law notary public essentially verifies identity and signatures. Reading the one office into the other misjudges what a German form requirement demands.
Which translation, when
Why
The notary translates as Notar, and no pair in this field carries a larger gap between matching words and diverging institutions. The German Notar holds a public office: § 1 BNotO appoints Notare as independent holders of a public office for the recording of legal transactions and other tasks of preventive justice. The office is served full-time for life or, in some districts, by Anwaltsnotare alongside legal practice; the Notar carries an official seal, the profession is expressly no trade, and the officeholder acts as the impartial adviser of all parties, with the drafting of instruments and the counselling of the participants belonging to the office itself, § 24 BNotO. The common-law notary public is a different creature: in essence a verifier of identity and signatures, often without legal training, without the advisory and drafting role and without the impartial-office architecture. The translation risk runs both ways. Rendering notary public as Notar dresses a signature verifier in a public office; reading a German Notar as a notary public strips the office down to a stamp. The gap becomes legal where German form requirements are in play: where the law demands notarial recording, the guarantee lies in the office and its procedure, so whether a recording made abroad satisfies the requirement is a question of the equivalence of office and procedure, disputed in its details, and never settled by the bare title; for the lower tier of certifying a signature, a foreign notarial certificate is accepted far more readily, with apostille or legalisation carrying the cross-border proof. So the safe rendering keeps Notar, and where the source means the common-law figure, it says notary public and leaves the German office out of it.
Typical mistakes
- The German Notar holds a public office of preventive justice, § 1 BNotO, advising all parties impartially, so rendering the common-law notary public simply as Notar imports an office the source figure does not hold.
- Where German law demands notarial recording, the office and its procedure carry the form, so the equivalence of a foreign recording is a disputed question of substance, not of the title notary.
- For the lower tier of signature certification a foreign notarial certificate travels readily, so the two tiers must not be merged when judging what a notary abroad can supply.
What matters
Rendering a text about notaries, the translation should use Notar for the German office, keep notary public visible as the common-law figure where the source means it, and treat the question whether a foreign notarial act satisfies a German form requirement as one of equivalence rather than of the title.
What the machine misses
Machine output renders notary as Notar, which is right as a word, but it flattens the offices into one. It loses that the German Notar is an independent holder of a public office of preventive justice under § 1 BNotO, an impartial legal adviser who drafts and records, while the common-law notary public essentially verifies identity and signatures. The rendering makes a signature verifier look like a public office or a public office look like a stamp.
Examples
| recorded by a notary | von einem Notar beurkundet |
| the notary certifies the signature | der Notar beglaubigt die Unterschrift |
| an independent holder of a public office | ein unabhängiger Träger eines öffentlichen Amtes |
| before a notary | vor einem Notar |