A rare Horn of Africa language that courts and asylum attorneys struggle to source. We cover it nationwide, usually by phone or video, and translate the records that come with the case.
Prism Linguistics provides Afar interpreters for asylum interviews, immigration court hearings, attorney meetings and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, in person where a linguist is within reach and otherwise by phone or video, together with certified English translation of the Amharic, French and Afar-language documents that Afar speakers from Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea bring to a filing.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Nobody books an Afar interpreter by accident. The request comes from an asylum attorney, a judge's clerk or a hospital social worker who has already tried Amharic and Somali and found that the person in front of them is following neither. Afar is the language of the Danakil lowlands, split between Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea, and it is exactly the kind of language courts come to Prism for when the usual providers have nothing. Our office is in New York; our Afar linguists are few and spread out, so most assignments run by phone or video.
Around 2.6 million people speak Afar, and the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Djiboutian varieties understand one another without trouble. The complication is not dialect. It is the second language the speaker carries: Amharic on the Ethiopian side, French or Somali in Djibouti, Tigrinya or Arabic in Eritrea. That second language is often good enough for buying groceries and nowhere near good enough for a credible-fear interview.
Book Afar, not the language on the passport stamp. The answers that decide a case are given in the language a person thinks in. At intake we ask which country the speaker comes from, what else they speak and how well, and whether the matter is a hearing, an interview or a clinic visit, then assign the Afar interpreter that setting calls for.
No state court system certifies interpreters in Afar, so a judge works with a qualified Afar interpreter and rules on the record whether that person is acceptable. Most Afar court work in the US is immigration court, where the interpreter joins by phone or video and the judge, the respondent and the attorney all depend on a single voice. We tell the court what we know about the interpreter's background before the hearing so the judge can make that finding without delay. We work for courts, attorneys and law firms directly, and we are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
A hospital that receives federal funding owes an Afar-speaking patient an interpreter at no charge, and a bilingual cousin who speaks Amharic does not discharge that duty. Newly arrived Afar families often meet the US health system through a refugee health screening or an emergency room. Video works well for a screening, a consent discussion or a medication review. For a mental health assessment, or an elderly patient who has never used a screen, we look for an in-person Afar interpreter and tell you honestly when the nearest one is a flight away.
The asylum office is where Afar demand is heaviest and where the interpreter's discipline matters most. Officers listen for consistency between the written declaration and the spoken account, and an interpreter who tidies a rambling answer or supplies a missing place name has quietly changed the testimony. We brief every Afar interpreter to render the answer exactly as given, hesitations and all, and we never seat a relative or a friend in that chair.
The odd truth about certified Afar translation is how little of the paperwork is in Afar. Ethiopia registers births in Amharic and has done so formally only since 2008, so an older Afar applicant may hold a kebele identity card and a hospital or baptismal note rather than a birth certificate at all. Djibouti issues the acte de naissance in French, from the commune in the capital and from the regional prefet elsewhere. Eritrean Afar carry Tigrinya or Arabic records. The Afar itself shows up in the margins of the case: a letter from home, a clan elder's statement confirming a birth or a marriage, an affidavit standing in where the state never issued a certificate. We translate the Amharic or French document in full and the Afar material beside it, each with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. Expect the name to disagree with itself. One person's name can appear in Amharic script, French spelling and Latin Qafar Feera letters across three documents, and USCIS notices. We spell to the passport and footnote every variant. The full document service is 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 Afar interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Afar 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 Afar assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.