Acholi Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Acholi material into English for asylum and immigration files and supplies Acholi interpreters for asylum interviews, immigration court and refugee health appointments nationwide. Uganda issues its records in English, so an Acholi file is rarely about certificates. It is about the letters and sworn statements that stand in for records the war destroyed or never created.

Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Acholi is a Luo language of northern Uganda, around Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, and of Eastern Equatoria in South Sudan. Most Acholi speakers in the United States arrived through refugee resettlement or asylum, and there is no reliable count of them because the Census folds Acholi into a general African-language category.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

Acholi Document Translation When the Birth Record Does Not Exist

This is the part of the job that decides cases, and it is a documented procedure rather than improvisation. Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(2), an applicant who cannot produce a required record shows that it does not exist or cannot be obtained, ideally with a written statement from the responsible authority, then files secondary evidence: a baptism entry, a mission school register, a UNHCR registration record, a camp clinic card. Where secondary evidence is also unavailable, the file rests on two or more affidavits sworn by people with direct personal knowledge who are not parties to the petition.

Most of those affidavits arrive in Acholi, written by a clan elder, a catechist or an aunt, and that is the translation we are actually being asked for. We render each one in full and describe it accurately in the certification, so an officer sees an affidavit presented as an affidavit. See certified translation.

Ugandan and South Sudanese Records in an Acholi Translation File

Uganda works in English. The National Identification and Registration Authority issues birth certificates in English, and school results, the national ID and police records follow, so none of that goes to an Acholi translator. Uganda’s cabinet adopted Kiswahili as an official language in 2022, but the registry has not changed language and Ugandan certificates continue to arrive in English; where a Swahili document does turn up, see Swahili.

South Sudanese Acholi applicants usually hold less again, and what they hold may be in Arabic or English depending on when and where it was issued. UNHCR registration papers are normally in English already. Send us the whole bundle and we will mark which pages need a translator and which do not, rather than quoting per page sight unseen.

Certified Acholi Translation of Handwritten Letters and Statements

Acholi has a standard Latin orthography. A letter from a relative does not use it. Spelling follows whatever the writer learned, often at a camp school, and one page can hold two spellings of the same village. Our rule is to translate what is written rather than what was probably meant, to mark an unreadable word as unreadable, and to keep crossings-out and insertions visible in the English.

Acholi, Lango or Alur: Choosing the Right Interpreting Assignment

Acholi, Lango and Alur share most of their vocabulary, and a Lango interpreter will carry an Acholi speaker through a routine clinic visit without visible trouble. Put the same pairing in an asylum interview and the near-match starts to cost, because the differences show up precisely in the detail an officer is weighing. We book Acholi for an Acholi speaker and say so plainly when a resettlement agency has offered otherwise.

Two further checks go on the intake sheet. A clerk searching the word Luo may be offered a Kenyan Dholuo interpreter, a different language entirely; see Luo for that distinction. And for a South Sudanese Acholi speaker we ask whether Juba Arabic is the language they are genuinely more at ease in, because for many of them it is.

Acholi Interpreters for Asylum Interviews, Court and Refugee Clinics

Asylum and refugee matters are the bulk of Acholi interpreting, and they turn on an account of the north that has to reach the record as it was told. An interpreter who supplies a more coherent version than the applicant gave has handed the officer a different story. The applicant supplies the interpreter at an affirmative asylum interview, an adult fluent in both languages who is neither the attorney nor a witness: see USCIS interview interpreting.

No state offers a court certification exam in Acholi, so an immigration judge works from a qualified interpreter whose experience is stated in advance; Prism supplies that as a private agency, without any court appointment. See court interpreting. In resettlement clinics the obligation under 45 CFR 92.201 puts the cost of the interpreter on the provider, not the family. Many Acholi adults carry the physical and psychological consequences of the conflict and of camp years, and a mental health assessment conducted in a neighbouring language is not an assessment: see medical interpreting.

Questions we get asked