Dinka Interpreter

Prism Language Solutions supplies Dinka interpreters for criminal, family and juvenile court, depositions and attorney meetings, hospital and clinic care, and USCIS interviews throughout the United States, in person where an interpreter is near and by phone or video everywhere else. Dinka is a chain of related dialects rather than one uniform language, so the first thing we ask is where in South Sudan the speaker grew up.

Dinka arrived in American courtrooms and clinics through refugee resettlement. In late 2000 the State Department began moving young Sudanese refugees out of Kakuma camp in Kenya, some 3,800 of them, the group the press called the Lost Boys, and families followed over the next two decades. South Sudanese communities are now settled in Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Diego and elsewhere.

• 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

Matching a Dinka Interpreter: Rek, Agar, Twic, Bor or Padang

Dinka is spoken across Bahr el Ghazal, the Lakes region, Jonglei and Upper Nile, and it changes along the way. Neighboring varieties understand each other; the ends of the chain do not reliably. A Rek speaker from Aweil and a Padang speaker from near Renk can find each other hard to follow, and a court record is no place to discover that.

Rek is the variety used for most written Dinka, so agencies tend to treat it as the default. We ask for the home town or county, or at least the region, and assign an interpreter from the same cluster or a neighboring one. Families who are unsure what to call their dialect can usually name the town their parents came from, and that settles it.

Dinka Court Interpreter for Criminal, Family and Juvenile Cases

Dinka has no court interpreter certification exam in any state, so the court swears in a qualified interpreter for the case. When the local roster has no Dinka speaker, the clerk calls an agency, and a short-notice arraignment or a juvenile detention hearing in a smaller county is typical of what reaches us. Video is often the quickest way to cover it.

Family court and child welfare cases are where the stakes feel highest to the family: custody, protective orders, a parenting plan. A parent in those hearings needs the interpreter to render the judge’s conditions exactly, because they will be held to them. Before the hearing, the court receives the interpreter’s background from us, and counsel confirms the dialect. See court interpreting.

Dinka Interpreter for Depositions and Attorney Interviews

A deposition in Dinka takes longer than the same deposition in English, and the court reporter records only what the interpreter says. Plan for it. Long answers that bring in family, place and history are part of how the witness is telling the story, and an interpreter who trims them to keep pace has changed the testimony.

We book the same interpreter for the preparation meeting and the deposition where we can, so the witness is used to the voice and the attorney knows how that interpreter handles terms that have no neat Dinka equivalent. Tell us the case type in advance; a workplace injury deposition and a custody evaluation call for different preparation.

Dinka Medical Interpreter for Clinics and Hospitals

Any provider receiving federal funds must supply a Dinka interpreter at no cost to the patient, and a teenage son is not the interpreter the rule has in mind. The medical requests we see most are prenatal and maternity care, chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, pediatrics and mental health.

Plenty of clinical vocabulary has no settled Dinka term. A capable Dinka medical interpreter explains the concept, and tells the clinician when there is no direct match, rather than inventing a word the patient has never heard. Video works for routine appointments. For a consent discussion, psychiatric care or discharge planning, we send someone in person where one is within reach. See medical interpreting.

Dinka Interpreter for USCIS and Asylum Interviews

Our USCIS work in Dinka is mostly adjustment of status and naturalization interviews for applicants with an English exemption, family reunification cases, and a smaller number of asylum interviews. USCIS puts the burden of finding an interpreter for an affirmative asylum interview on the applicant, and neither a relative who is a witness nor the attorney can fill that role.

The interpreter renders each answer in full and in the first person. A long answer with genealogy in it is still the answer. Where a document in the file carries a date of birth of 1 January, a common refugee registration convention, the interpreter translates what the applicant says about it and does not explain it on their behalf. See USCIS interview interpreting.

Dinka Interpreter Cost and Booking

In-person interpreting follows the typical US market range of $45 to $95 an hour with a two-hour minimum, and remote sessions are billed in shorter increments. The pricing page has the guide ranges. For a hearing or a planned procedure, a few days’ notice gives us the best chance of a dialect match in person; same-day requests are usually handled by video or phone.

Pricing starts with four details, the city, the date, the setting and where the speaker grew up, sent through the quote form or given by phone on +1 (833) 282 8883. We answer in writing within 60 minutes during business hours, and that quote is fixed. The UNHCR cards, nationality certificates and affidavits that stand in for South Sudanese birth records are covered on the Dinka translation services page.

Questions we get asked