Who is the patron saint of translators?

The Patron Saint of translators is generally recognised as St. Jerome. Although patron saints' connections to the field of their patronage can sometimes be a tad tenuous, in Jerome's case there is a strong and logical link. He translated the Bible (to this day the world's most translated work) into the vernacular Latin of the day, leading to his translation being known as the "Vulgate", which has a linguistic link to our word "vulgar", but implies the widely used and understood form of the language, rather than indicating coarseness.

Jerome was born in 347 CE at a small town on the Adriatic called Sidonius. His native tongue was the local dialect, known as Ilyrian, but he plainly had a great gift for languages and soon became fluent in Latin and Greek.

An early convert to Christianity, he tried the monastic life, but appeared to spend it in a curious mixture of Bacchanalian visions of dancing maidens and periods of extreme fasting and flagellation to try to curb such things. Probably wisely, he realised that the monastic life was not for him, and turned his attention to translating the Bible. By this time he was also fluent in Hebrew.

He served as secretary to Pope Damascus I and also gave religious instruction to high-ranking Roman ladies.

It should be noted that his translation was not the first, but is generally accepted as being superior to all its predecessors.