Siraiki work splits cleanly at Prism Language Solutions. Pakistan issues nothing in Siraiki, so the certified translation on a southern Punjab file is Urdu into English, done by a translator who can also read the Siraiki behind the names. The spoken side is the part clients underestimate: a Siraiki speaker handed a Punjabi interpreter will appear to be understood, right up to the point where an asylum officer or a cross-examiner asks for detail. Every certified item carries a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy.
Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions
Siraiki, also spelled Saraiki, belongs to the belt of southern Punjab around Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan. Pakistan's 2023 census counted close to 29 million speakers, which makes it one of the largest languages in the world with almost no presence in US language-access planning. The people who reach us are rarely the applicant. They are the applicant's mother on a visitor visa, the father at a cardiology clinic, the uncle who has to give a statement about a family property.
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Certified Siraiki Translation of Urdu Civil Records
Before anything is quoted we want to see the scans, because the phrase Siraiki translation almost always describes an Urdu document held by a Siraiki family. Pakistan registers births through the Union Council and then through NADRA, and neither issues in Siraiki. A nikah nama comes in Urdu, frequently handwritten by the registrar. School certificates from Multan or Bahawalpur are Urdu or English. The Siraiki content in a file, when there is any, is a letter or a sworn statement written by hand.
Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) every foreign-language document in a USCIS filing needs a full English version certified as complete and accurate, and that is what we produce for the Urdu pages. One habit is worth adopting: NADRA forms print Urdu and English side by side, and the two sides disagree more often than anyone expects, usually on a date or on a father's name. Our translators read both and flag the discrepancy on the face of the translation instead of choosing the tidier version. More at certified translation and USCIS translation.
Siraiki Names in Shahmukhi on a Certified Document
Here is the part that is genuinely about the language rather than about Urdu. Siraiki is written in an extended Shahmukhi alphabet with additional letters for its implosive consonants, sounds that Urdu simply has no signs for. A Siraiki name is therefore flattened once when a clerk writes it in ordinary Urdu spelling, and flattened again when a passport office romanizes it. By the time the name reaches a US form it has passed through two lossy conversions and can look nothing like the family's own pronunciation.
The practical consequence is variant spellings that an officer may read as different people. We spell to the passport controlling the filing, reproduce the source spelling exactly as printed, and record the variants in a translator's note. Where a name uses one of the implosive letters we say so, so that a reviewer looking at two apparently different surnames can see they are one name written in two systems.Siraiki or Punjabi: Which Interpreter a Southern Punjab Speaker Needs
Booking Punjabi for a Siraiki speaker is the standing error, and it is easy to see why. The two share a great deal of vocabulary, and in a five-minute clinic conversation nothing appears to be wrong. Put the same speaker in front of an asylum officer, or into a deposition about a land dispute, and the interpreter from Lahore starts reconstructing rather than rendering.
If no Siraiki interpreter is free, ask for Urdu rather than Punjabi. Most working-age Siraiki speakers were schooled in Urdu and carry it well, so an Urdu interpreter covers more ground and, more usefully, both parties know they are working across a language boundary. The person who cannot fall back on Urdu is the elderly speaker or the one who left school early, and that is exactly who our Siraiki assignments are for.Siraiki Medical and USCIS Interpreting for Visiting Parents
A visiting parent on a family visa generates most of our Siraiki interpreting. The clinic hands the appointment to the adult child, who compresses a diagnosis into something tolerable, and nobody records what the physician actually said. Any provider taking federal funding owes the patient an interpreter at no cost under 45 CFR 92.201, which almost no family from southern Punjab has been told. Video suits a consultation or a specialist review; we push for someone in the room for a mental-health assessment or a discharge conversation with an older patient.
At USCIS the work is naturalization and adjustment interviews, with occasional protection claims. The officer is weighing the applicant's own wording, so an interpreter who rounds a Siraiki idiom into Urdu changes the record. We brief each linguist to render and stop, and a bilingual relative never takes that seat. No state runs a certification exam in Siraiki, so a court qualifies the interpreter on the record; we set out in writing what ours holds. Prism works for courts and firms as a private agency and has never been appointed to any court's vendor list. See medical interpreting and USCIS interview interpreting.
Siraiki Translation Rates and Delivery Times
Short certified certificates run from about $24.95 per page as a US market guide, longer Urdu text is priced by the source word, and interpreting typically sits between $45 and $95 an hour with a two-hour minimum on site. A one-page Union Council certificate is normally back inside a business day. Handwritten nikah namas and older affidavits take longer, because a careful reader will not be hurried through a registrar's handwriting. Where the file proves to be largely English we requote downward and explain the change. Ranges are on the pricing page.
Ready to start? Send the document or the booking details through the quote form, call +1 (833) 282 8883, or email info@prismlinguistics.com. You get a fixed written price within 60 minutes during business hours.
Questions we get asked
Do I need a Siraiki translation of my birth certificate or nikah nama?
The hospital has offered a Punjabi interpreter. Is that close enough for Siraiki?
Why does my surname look different on my passport and my old school certificate?
Can you place a Siraiki interpreter outside New York?
Sources for this page
- 8 CFR § 103.2(b)(3): a complete English translation certified as accurate is required for foreign-language documents
- Saraiki language: extended Shahmukhi alphabet with additional letters for implosive consonants; 2023 census speaker count
- US Department of State reciprocity schedule, Pakistan: Union Councils and NADRA as issuing authorities for civil documents
- 45 CFR § 92.201: language assistance services required of recipients of federal health funding