Tama Translation Services

Tama is spoken in Dar Tama in the Wadi Fira province of eastern Chad and across the border in Darfur. Prism Language Solutions arranges Tama interpreters, usually by phone or video because the pool in the United States is very small, and translates Tama statements and recordings into certified English. The documents themselves are in Arabic or French, so much of the file is an Arabic translation or a French translation, and we will tell you which.

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

Nearly every Tama request we take is an asylum matter, and the person at the center of it has usually come through a camp. Since the Sudan war began in April 2023 hundreds of thousands of people have crossed into Ouaddai, Sila, Wadi Fira and Ennedi Est, and UNHCR figures for 2025 put the total Sudanese refugee population in Chad above 1.3 million. Tama speakers sit on both sides of that border.

• 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

Booking a Tama Interpreter Instead of Arabic

Chadian Arabic is the trade language of much of Chad, so a Tama man who spent years in markets will often handle an intake in Arabic well enough for the scheduler to close the request. The problem appears later. A woman describing what happened in her village, or an older man recounting a sequence of events, is working in Tama and converting under pressure, and the account that reaches the record is thinner than the one he has.

Where the speaker genuinely prefers Arabic in official settings, we book Arabic and say so. Where they do not, we look for Tama and accept that this may mean a video line rather than a person in the room. What we will not do is send a general Arabic speaker and let the file record that the applicant was interpreted for. See USCIS interview interpreting.

Mararit, Miisiirii and Tama on an Interpreting Request

Tama belongs to a small group of related languages, and Mararit and Miisiirii are separate languages rather than dialects of it. Registration staff at a camp or a facility often write Tama for any of them, because it is the name they have heard.

So we check the home area before assigning, not after. Where the only available linguist speaks a neighboring language of the group rather than Tama itself, we say that plainly in advance and let the attorney decide, instead of letting the limit surface halfway through a hearing. No US state runs a certification examination in Tama, so a court works from an interpreter qualified another way; Prism is retained as a private agency and appears on no court's appointed list. See court interpreting.

Certified Translation of Chadian and Sudanese Records for Tama Speakers

Chad works in French and Arabic; Sudan works in Arabic. Neither writes in Tama. A Chadian file may hold an identity card, a school certificate or, very often, a jugement suppletif, the court judgment that stands in where a birth was never declared. A Sudanese file holds Arabic civil registry certificates. Many families hold neither, and what they carry is a UNHCR registration or ration card from a camp in eastern Chad.

We route each item to the right linguist and label it for what it is: a supplementary judgment is translated as a judgment, not as a birth certificate, and a camp card is translated as a camp card. On a bilingual Chadian document we name the language of each part, because a translator working only from the French will pass over an Arabic annotation on the same sheet. See certified translation.

Tama Statements and Affidavits When No Record Exists

For most Tama applicants the honest position is that no civil record was ever created. USCIS provides for that at 8 CFR 103.2(b)(2): produce the document, or show it is unavailable, then secondary evidence, then affidavits from two people with direct personal knowledge of the facts. The State Department Reciprocity Schedule for Chad and for Sudan is the reference an adjudicator uses on what a country does and does not issue.

Tama Interpreting for Clinics, Evaluations and Detention Calls

The rest of the demand is medical and procedural: a refugee health screening, a forensic evaluation supporting an asylum claim, a call from detention, a school meeting. Under 45 CFR 92.201 a provider taking federal health funding owes the patient qualified interpreting at no cost, which is worth saying out loud when a clinic proposes to use a relative.

For an account of gender-based violence, ask for a female interpreter at booking. In a language this small we cannot promise one, and we would rather say no in advance than have an applicant sit down and find out. Remote is usually the realistic option, and for many of these appointments it works well. See video remote interpreting and medical interpreting.

Questions we get asked