Asylum, court and hospital interpreting across the US for Azeri speakers from northwest Iran, assigned from the Iranian side rather than from Baku, plus certified translation of the Persian records they hold.
Prism Linguistics provides Azeri interpreters for asylum interviews, immigration court hearings, attorney meetings and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, usually by phone or video and in person where an Azeri linguist is based nearby, together with certified English translation of the shenasnameh, marriage contracts and school records that Azeri-speaking families from Iran bring to a filing.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Azeri, as we use the word on this page, means the Turkic language of Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil and Zanjan: the language of Iran's northwest, which its own speakers usually just call Turki. It is close kin to the language of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and we still treat the two as separate assignments, because the vocabulary, the script and the paperwork all come from Iran. Our office is in New York. Azeri linguists from the Iranian side are thin on the ground here, so most of this work runs by phone or video.
Somewhere between fourteen and seventeen million people in Iran speak Azeri, and nearly all of them also speak Persian, which is the trap. An Iranian Azeri at a routine appointment will get by in Farsi, so the office books a Farsi interpreter and moves on. Then the asylum interview arrives, and the applicant is asked to describe an arrest in a village outside Tabriz, or a grandmother in a hospital is asked when the pain started, and the answers come out in Azeri because that is the language the memory is stored in.
Iranian Azeri, not Baku Azerbaijani. A speaker from Tabriz uses Persian and Arabic loanwords and Persian turns of phrase that an interpreter raised in Baku has never heard, and reads the language in Perso-Arabic script rather than Latin letters. So we assign from the Iranian side, and we do not swap in a Farsi interpreter unless the person asks for one. Iranian communities are largest around Los Angeles, the Washington suburbs, New York, Houston, Dallas and the Bay Area, and that is where the requests come from.
The asylum office and immigration court are where Azeri demand is heaviest. An applicant from Iran's northwest is often describing political activity, a detention or a family dispute with religious edges, and the officer is comparing every spoken detail against the written declaration. Told to answer in Persian, the applicant hesitates, simplifies and loses the thread, and hesitation reads as evasion. We connect an Azeri interpreter from the Iranian side, brief them to render each answer exactly as given with nothing softened or explained, and never seat a relative or a community friend in that role.
No state offers a court certification exam in Azeri, so a judge works with a qualified Azeri interpreter and decides on the record whether that person is acceptable; we supply what we know of the interpreter's background beforehand so that finding takes minutes rather than a continuance. Azeri is one of the rare languages courts have come to Prism for when nobody on their list could supply it. Tell us the court, the case type and the speaker's home city in Iran, and we say what can be staffed in person against what joins by video. We are a private agency rather than a court-appointed vendor.
A hospital that takes federal funds must give an Azeri-speaking patient an interpreter at no charge, and what the ward usually offers is Farsi from a phone line. For a younger Iranian that may be enough. For a parent visiting from Ardabil it is not: a symptom history, a consent discussion and a discharge plan in a second language come back half understood, and the bilingual son at the bedside will edit the prognosis to protect his mother. Video puts an Azeri interpreter in the room within the hour in most cities, and we send one in person only where a linguist lives close enough to attend.
Ask an Azeri-speaking family for their documents and what arrives is in Persian, because Iran registers its citizens in Persian whatever they speak at home. The central record is the shenasnameh, the identity booklet from Sabt-e Ahval that opens with the holder's birth and then collects each marriage, divorce and child on the pages that follow, which is why USCIS needs the entire booklet translated and not the first page alone. Older booklets are red-covered and handwritten; newer ones are brown, printed and carry a photograph. Around it sit the marriage contract, school records, and for asylum cases the papers written in Azeri itself: a letter from home, a witness statement, the transcript of a recording. Azeri on paper is Perso-Arabic script, not the Latin alphabet used in Azerbaijan, and a translator whose experience is Baku documents will misread it, so we use translators from the Iranian side for both the Persian and the Azeri. Names in that script take several Latin spellings and the passport settles on one; we follow the passport and note every variant. The full 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 Azeri interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Azeri 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 Azeri assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.