Discripta OÜ has been operating on the Estonian translation market already since 1992. While at first the core staff of the translation bureau included only Germanists graduated from the Humboldt University of Berlin and thus the main focus was on translating from and into German, also experts on other languages joined the bureau as the time passed and the range of services expanded. During the course of everyday work, as translated texts became more and more specific, it however became clear that it was not sufficient to have only linguistic knowledge. It was necessary to employ experts of various areas, including lawyers, language editors, technical specialists and others. Combined efforts of these people gave us the possibility to provide translation services in many different areas – especially in law, but also in economy, technology, etc.
Year 2004 – when Estonia joined the European Union – was a breaking point also for the Discripta OÜ. Our contractual relationship with institutions of the European Union, especially with the European Commission, European Court of Justice and the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, commenced at that year. At present, orders from the institutions account for the majority of the Discripta OÜ’s translation volume.
This strange name Discripta includes a range of notions that help to characterize and differentiate our bureau. The word discripta consists of two parts, the first of which – the prefix di – refers to the Greek word dis, which means two times, and the second part refers to the Latin word scriptum, which means a letter, something that has been written or a book. The name Discripta could be translated as two letters, because we always work with two texts – the source text and the translation – that do not always carry the same meaning in different languages. Our translation bureau employs linguists and lawyers, and thus the number two has also a symbolic meaning. Legal texts account for the majority of our work. Number two plays an important role also in legal area: complainant – defendant, complaint – defence, charge – defence.
Thus, our name combines various aspects of our activities and also different languages – especially Greek and Latin that shaped the European space for culture.