Interpreting for Ugandan and South Sudanese Acholi speakers at asylum interviews, hearings and clinics nationwide, and certified translation of the statements that carry their cases.
Prism Linguistics provides Acholi interpreters for asylum and refugee interviews, immigration and state court hearings, and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, together with certified English translation of Acholi letters, statements and affidavits and the Ugandan and South Sudanese records filed with them.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Acholi is a language almost no provider carries, and the assignments that reach us reflect that: an asylum office that has postponed twice for want of an interpreter, an immigration judge in a refugee matter, a resettlement clinic with a patient nobody on staff can talk to. Our office is in New York and our Acholi interpreters are based around the country, so an in-person booking goes to someone near the venue and a phone or video session is usually possible the same day.
Acholi speakers came to the United States mainly through refugee resettlement and asylum, from northern Uganda around Gulu, Kitgum and Pader and from Eastern Equatoria in South Sudan. Nobody knows how many there are, because the Census counts Acholi inside a general African-language category, but the South Sudanese communities of Nebraska, Arizona and Maine include Acholi families, and Ugandan Acholi households are scattered among them. Demand is small, concentrated, and almost entirely legal and medical.
Close is not the same. Lango and Alur are Luo languages that share most of their words with Acholi, and a Lango interpreter will follow an Acholi speaker through a routine appointment. Put that speaker on the stand or in front of an asylum officer and the near-match starts to cost. We book an Acholi interpreter for an Acholi speaker. For someone from South Sudan we also ask whether Juba Arabic is the language they are more at ease in, because for many it is.
Asylum interviews and refugee-status matters are the bulk of our Acholi interpreting, and they turn on an account of events in the north that has to be rendered as it was told. An interpreter who softens a description of violence, or supplies a more coherent version than the applicant gave, has handed the officer a different story and put the case at risk. We brief every Acholi interpreter to render each answer exactly, to leave hesitations where they fall, and to say when a word is unclear rather than guess. Where possible the same interpreter follows the case from the asylum office to the immigration judge.
No state offers a court certification exam in Acholi, so a bench that needs one relies on a qualified interpreter it can vet, and that is exactly the request a rare-language agency exists for. Give us the court, the county and the case type and we confirm in advance what the court will accept and who we can put forward. Most of this work is in immigration court, with occasional family and criminal matters in state court. We take assignments from courts, attorneys and law firms directly, and we are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
A resettlement clinic or hospital that receives federal funds must provide an Acholi interpreter at no cost, and in the first months after arrival the family will not know to ask. What they get instead is a caseworker who speaks Lango or a child who interprets and edits. Many Acholi adults carry the physical and psychological after-effects of the northern conflict and years in displacement camps, and a mental health assessment in a near-language is not an assessment. We send an Acholi speaker in person for those, and use video for routine follow-ups and medication reviews where speed matters more than presence.
An Acholi immigration file is unlike a file from almost anywhere else, because there are so few certificates in it. Uganda's official language is English, so a Ugandan birth certificate from NIRA arrives already in English and needs no translation. The difficulty is that many Acholi adults born during the conflict or in a camp were never registered, and their case is assembled instead from UNHCR registration papers, camp records, school reports and sworn statements. South Sudanese Acholi applicants often have less still. What actually needs an Acholi translator is the material written in Acholi by the people who know the applicant: a letter from a clan elder or a pastor, a handwritten account of what happened, an affidavit from a relative who never learned English. Spelling follows the writer, not the dictionary. Acholi has a standard Latin orthography, but a relative's letter uses their own, and one person may appear under an Acholi name, a Christian name and a nickname across the same file. We translate the letter as written, match names to the UNHCR record or passport, note each variant, and sign a Certificate of Translation Accuracy on every document. The service is described at certified translation.
Tell us the date, the city and the setting, or send a clear scan of the document. We reply with a fixed price and, for interpreting, a named linguist. Call +1 (833) 282 8883, email info@prismlinguistics.com, or use the quote form and you will hear back within 60 minutes during business hours.
Our only office is in New York, and our Acholi interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Acholi work is concentrated; the full list of 288 cities is below it.
Prism Linguistics is rated 4.6 out of 5 across 67 client reviews for its interpreting and translation work in the United States. That is the company-wide figure; we do not publish a separate rating per language because there is no honest way to measure one. If an Acholi assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.