Tuvaluan Translation Services

Tuvalu has around eleven thousand people across nine atolls, and the number of Tuvaluan speakers in the whole United States runs to a few hundred at most. Prism Language Solutions translates Tuvaluan statutory declarations, island council letters and church records into certified English for USCIS and other agencies, and arranges Tuvaluan interpreters, mostly by video. Unlike its Micronesian neighbors, Tuvalu has no Compact with the United States, so ordinary immigration petitions apply.

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

That last point is the one most callers have not been told, and it changes everything about the paperwork. A Marshallese or Micronesian family can live and work here without a petition. A Tuvaluan family cannot. Immigration status is applied for in the ordinary way, which means a full evidentiary file, which means every Tuvaluan-language page in it needs a certified English translation under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3).

• 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

Tuvaluan Statutory Declarations and Kaupule Letters

Births on the outer islands frequently went unregistered, and the file that reaches a US officer is built out of what the family and the island could produce afterwards. A statutory declaration sworn in Tuvaluan by a parent or an older relative. A letter from the kaupule, the island council, confirming residence, parentage or a family relationship. A baptism or marriage record from the Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu, which for many families predates any civil entry.

Each of those is a real document with a real author, and the translation should make that visible. We name the declarant, the office and the church exactly as they appear, translate signature blocks and stamps rather than summarizing them, and describe a declaration as a declaration. 8 CFR 103.2(b)(2) contemplates precisely this situation: secondary evidence and affidavits from people with direct personal knowledge, used where the primary record cannot be obtained. A translation that quietly upgrades a village letter into something official does the applicant no favors.

Customary Adoption in a Tuvaluan Document Translation

Tuvaluan families raise children across households in arrangements that have no clean English word. A paper may say a child was given to an aunt, or raised by grandparents, in terms that carry a settled social meaning on the island and land in English as the single flat word adopted, which is a legal term of art in a US filing and means something quite specific.

We translate the Tuvaluan wording as it stands and add a translator's note explaining what the phrase describes, leaving the legal characterization to the attorney and the adjudicator. That restraint matters. An adoption for immigration purposes has statutory requirements, and a translator who reaches for the convenient English word has effectively made a legal claim on the applicant's behalf. See adoption document translation.

Why a Samoan Interpreter Is Not a Tuvaluan One

Tuvaluan is Polynesian, a cousin of Samoan and Tokelauan, which makes the substitution tempting and wrong. A busy charge nurse hears that a Samoan interpreter is free and that the languages are related. The Samoan speaker will catch a good deal of what a Tuvaluan elder says, miss the rest, and have no way of knowing which is which. For a dosage, a consent discussion or sworn testimony, a Tuvaluan speaker on a video link beats a Samoan speaker in the room.

There is one dialect question worth ten seconds at intake. The northern and southern atolls differ a little in sounds and vocabulary, with the Funafuti and Vaitupu form serving as the standard everyone follows, so that rarely changes an assignment. Nui is the exception: its home language is a Gilbertese variety rather than Tuvaluan. If the family is from Nui, we ask what the speaker is genuinely most comfortable in before assigning anyone.

Tuvaluan Interpreters for Hospitals, Courts and USCIS Interviews

Hospital work is the bulk of it: a grandmother at a dialysis unit or a cardiology follow-up, a discharge briefing, a consent conversation before surgery. A provider receiving federal health funding must supply the interpreter at no cost to the patient under 45 CFR 92.201, and a family that has been getting by through a grandchild is entitled to ask for one. Where we can keep the same interpreter across a course of treatment, we do.

Courts and USCIS are the other two settings. Tuvaluan has no certification exam in any state, so a court uses a qualified interpreter and the judge decides; that is a conversation to have with the clerk when the date is set rather than on the morning. For an immigration interview, book well ahead and confirm the field office will accept an interpreter joining by telephone. As a private agency we sit on no court's roster and say so. See court interpreting, medical interpreting and USCIS interview interpreting.

Tuvaluan Translation Cost and Turnaround

Short certified Tuvaluan pages are quoted from around $24.95 as a US market guide, running text by the source word, and English into Tuvaluan per project. A typed declaration is usually back within a business day or two. Handwritten church registers take longer. Interpreting is billed in the usual US band of roughly $45 to $95 an hour with a two-hour minimum, and because the linguist may be in Hawaii while the appointment is in Oregon, we schedule rather than promise an instant connection. Guide figures are set out on the pricing page.

Questions we get asked