Afghan Persian is Dari. This page is about the paperwork: the tazkira, the marriage record and the school certificates behind SIV, asylum and family petitions, with Dari interpreters where a case needs one.
Prism Linguistics provides certified English translation of Afghan Persian documents, the paper tazkira and e-Tazkira, the nikah khat, degree certificates and transcripts, for SIV, asylum, adjustment and family petitions anywhere in the United States, together with Afghan Persian (Dari) interpreters for USCIS interviews, court hearings and medical appointments, in person, by phone or by video.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Afghan Persian is the label a US form, an older reference book or a consular checklist gives to Dari, the Persian spoken in Afghanistan. It is not a separate language and we do not treat it as one; our Dari interpreter page covers the spoken side in depth. Where the Afghan Persian label earns its own page is the document work: since the 2021 evacuation the volume of Afghan paperwork reaching USCIS, the State Department and US employers has been unlike anything before it. Our office is in New York, our linguists work nationwide, and most of what we handle under this name is a certified translation with a deadline attached.
Interpreting under the Afghan Persian heading is Dari interpreting, and the first decision is whether Dari is even the right call. Many Afghan arrivals speak Pashto first, and a person who wrote Afghan Persian on a form may have meant only that they are from Afghanistan. So we ask which language the speaker prefers and which province they come from before anyone is assigned.
An Iranian Farsi interpreter is not the same booking. The written language is shared, but the everyday words and the specific vocabulary of a military base or a resettlement case are where an Iranian-trained interpreter starts to guess. For anything on the record we send an interpreter who grew up with Afghan Persian.
SIV, asylum and adjustment interviews are the bulk of Afghan Persian interpreting in the US. The officer checks the spoken account against the tazkira, the employment letters and the declaration, and any gap between the interpreter's rendering and the written file becomes a question the applicant has to answer. The interpreter's job is to be invisible: no paraphrase, no cultural gloss, no softening of a hard answer. We brief every Afghan Persian interpreter that way, and we do not accept a relative or a former colleague in the role.
No state offers a court interpreter certification exam in Dari or Afghan Persian, so a court works with a registered or otherwise qualified interpreter and the judge makes a finding on the record. The work runs from immigration court and family court to the occasional lease or employment dispute. Tell us the court, the case type and the speaker's province, and we confirm what that bench will accept. We work for courts, attorneys and law firms directly; we are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
Any provider that takes federal funding must supply an Afghan Persian interpreter at no cost to the patient, and resettled Afghan families meet the US health system early and often: health screenings, prenatal care, pediatrics and mental health follow-up. Video handles most routine visits well. A trauma assessment, a serious diagnosis or an older patient who has never used a screen calls for someone in the room, and we assign an in-person interpreter based near the hospital where one is available.
Every Afghan file starts with the tazkira. The older paper version is handwritten in Dari and Pashto, stamped, and often folded to pieces; the e-Tazkira card issued since 2018 by the National Statistics and Information Authority prints the same information. Both record a given name, a father's name and a grandfather's name, and neither carries a surname. That is the single point where Afghan Persian translations go wrong: a translator who manufactures a family name to satisfy a US form creates a discrepancy across the tazkira, the passport and the I-94 that the applicant will be asked to explain at interview. We render the names exactly as the document has them, spelled to match the passport, and let the attorney decide how the form is completed.
The marriage record is read more closely than people expect. A nikah khat may be issued by a court or an Afghan embassy years after the ceremony, records witnesses rather than a registrar, and often shows a ceremony date and an issue date that differ. USCIS weighs those details on a spouse petition, so we translate every line and stamp and add a translator's note where a handwritten entry cannot be read. For SIV applicants the State Department asks for a scanned tazkira with a certified translation or the passport data page, beside the employer's HR letter and the supervisor's recommendation; degrees and transcripts follow for credential evaluation. Each translation carries a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. 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 Afghan Persian interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Afghan Persian 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 Afghan Persian assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.