Kurmanji Interpreter

Prism Language Solutions provides Kurmanji interpreters for asylum and USCIS interviews, court hearings, depositions and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, by phone, by video and in person where a Kurmanji linguist lives within reach. Kurmanji is Northern Kurdish, and we book it as Kurmanji rather than as generic Kurdish, after confirming whether the speaker comes from Turkey, Syria, the Duhok area of Iraq or a Yazidi community.

If your referral just says Kurdish and you are not sure which variety applies, the Kurdish interpreter page explains the split. This page assumes the speaker uses Kurmanji, the Kurdish of southeast Turkey, northern Syria and Duhok, and deals with what that means for the booking.

• 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

Kurmanji Interpreter Matched to Turkey, Syria or Duhok

Inside Kurmanji the distances are shorter. The Behdini of Duhok and the Kurmanji of Turkey and Syria are close enough that one interpreter can usually serve any of them once the variety is named. We still ask for the home region, for two reasons. Loanwords differ, with Turkish on one side of the border and Arabic on the other, and a speaker under stress reaches for them. And place names matter in testimony: an interpreter familiar with the region will recognize a village or a district rather than guess at it.

Tell us the province or town when you book. Diyarbakir, Mardin, Qamishli, Afrin, Kobani, Zakho and Sinjar are all Kurmanji-speaking places, but they produce different vocabularies and different case histories.

Kurmanji Interpreter for Yazidi Families

Lincoln, Nebraska is home to the largest Yazidi community in the country, most of it resettled from Sinjar since 2014, and its language is Kurmanji. The interpreting that follows them is heavy: asylum and refugee follow-to-join interviews, trauma therapy, and medical care for people who survived captivity. Religious and community terms in those accounts are specific, and an interpreter who has not worked with Yazidi clients may flatten them.

Say at booking that the client is Yazidi. For therapy and forensic evaluations we recommend the same interpreter across sessions, so the client is not retelling the worst of it to a new stranger each time.

Kurmanji Asylum Interview Interpreter When Records Are Missing

Some Kurmanji applicants from Syria have no civil records at all. After the 1962 exceptional census in Hasakah province, many Kurds were registered as foreigners or left out of the registry altogether, and the maktumin, the unregistered, were not covered by the 2011 decree that restored citizenship to the others. At an interview that absence has to be explained in the applicant’s own words, and the interpreter’s job is to carry that explanation across exactly, including the parts the applicant is unsure of.

USCIS asks affirmative asylum applicants to supply the interpreter themselves, someone 18 or older, fluent in English and Kurmanji, and neither the attorney nor a witness. We provide one briefed to render and add nothing. The letters, affidavits and UNHCR papers that replace missing records are handled on the Kurmanji translation page. See USCIS interview interpreting for how interview bookings work.

Kurmanji Medical Interpreter for Clinics and Refugee Health

Refugee health screenings, prenatal care, pediatrics and mental health make up most Kurmanji medical requests. A patient may know some medical words only in Turkish or Arabic, the language of the clinic back home, and switch mid-sentence. A good Kurmanji interpreter follows the switch and tells the clinician when it happens, rather than smoothing it over.

Federal rules give the patient a free interpreter at any provider that takes federal financial assistance, and a child or spouse should not be doing that job outside an emergency. Video usually works for routine visits; for intake assessments and psychiatric care we try to place someone in person. See medical interpreting.

Kurmanji Court Interpreter, Rates and Lead Time

For the hearing itself the immigration court brings its own interpreter; private Kurmanji court work is therefore mostly counsel’s preparation sessions, family and criminal matters in state court, and depositions. With no Kurmanji certification exam in any state, the judge qualifies the interpreter on the record, and we send the interpreter’s background ahead. More detail on court interpreting.

Guide pricing: in-person work typically falls between $45 and $95 an hour in the US market, two-hour minimum, while remote sessions are charged by the minute. The written quote you receive within 60 minutes in business hours is binding. Request one on the quote form with the speaker’s home region, or phone +1 (833) 282 8883 for anything urgent, at any hour. Ranges for other work are on the pricing page.

Questions we get asked