A coastal Swahili language from the Somali islands that Somali and Swahili interpreters cannot stand in for. We cover it nationwide, usually by phone or video, and translate the refugee paperwork.
Prism Linguistics provides Bajuni interpreters for asylum interviews, immigration court hearings, attorney meetings and refugee medical screening anywhere in the United States, by phone or video and in person where a Bajuni linguist is within reach, together with certified English translation of the UNHCR registration papers, Kenyan camp records and Bajuni-language statements that Bajuni families hold in place of civil documents.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
A Bajuni request usually arrives after two wrong interpreters have already been tried. The applicant's file says Somalia, so a Somali interpreter was booked and the applicant could not follow; someone then read that Bajuni is a kind of Swahili and booked a Swahili interpreter, and the applicant answered haltingly while an officer watched. By the time an attorney calls us, the credibility damage is often done. Our office is in New York and Bajuni speakers who interpret are very few in this country, so nearly all of this work is by phone or video.
Kibajuni is the language of the islands and coast running south from Kismayu in Somalia to the Lamu archipelago in Kenya, spoken by perhaps a hundred thousand people. Linguists file it as a northern dialect of Swahili, which is true on paper and misleading in a hearing room: mainland Swahili speakers find it hard going, and most Bajuni from the islands never learned Somali at all. The community scattered after the Somali state fell in 1991, through Kenyan coastal camps that closed in 1997 and on to Kakuma, and from there to the US resettlement cities: Minneapolis and St Paul, Columbus, Seattle, San Diego and Nashville.
Book a Bajuni speaker, not a Somali national. The nationality on the passport and the language in the applicant's head are different facts, and only the second one decides who we send. Where the applicant also has strong Swahili we say so and let the attorney decide, rather than quietly substituting.
Asylum and family reunification interviews are where Bajuni matters most, because Bajuni identity is often the claim itself. The applicant is asked about island life, clan and lineage, fishing, the events of 1991, and an officer listens for the fluency and detail a genuine islander would have. Made to answer through Somali or mainland Swahili, that same applicant sounds uncertain; British cases have been criticised for language analysis done by Swahili speakers who did not know Bajuni, and the same mistake is easy to make here. We brief the Bajuni interpreter to render every answer as given, and we never seat a relative or a community elder in that role.
No state certifies court interpreters in Bajuni, so an immigration judge works with a qualified Bajuni interpreter and rules on the record whether that person will do; we send what we know of the interpreter's background ahead of the hearing so the finding takes minutes. Bajuni is exactly the kind of rare language courts have come to Prism for after their own lists ran out, and nearly all of it is immigration court by video or phone. Tell us the court, the hearing type and the applicant's island of origin, and we say honestly whether anyone can attend in person. We are a private agency rather than a court-appointed vendor.
A newly resettled Bajuni family meets the US health system through a refugee health screening, and the clinic that runs it, like any provider taking federal funds, owes them an interpreter at no cost. The phone line will offer Somali, and the family will accept it out of politeness. A vaccination history or a question about pregnancy answered through a language the mother half understands is a poor start. We connect a Bajuni interpreter by video, usually within a day, and in person only where a linguist lives near the clinic, which is rare.
The first job in a Bajuni file is explaining what is not in it. A family that left the Somali coast in the early 1990s almost never holds a birth certificate, and USCIS accepts secondary evidence when the gap is explained and the substitute documents are translated in full. What the family does hold is the trail of displacement: a UNHCR registration document, Kenyan camp paperwork from the coast or from Kakuma, records from the resettlement interviews, sometimes a Kenyan document issued to a relative. These come in English or Swahili, and we translate the Swahili complete with every stamp and handwritten entry. The Bajuni itself is in the margins of the case: a letter from a relative supporting a reunification petition, a recorded statement for an asylum claim, an elder's declaration confirming a birth or a marriage. Bajuni is written in Latin letters when it is written at all, and those items go to a Bajuni speaker rather than a Swahili one. A name is often spelled one way at UNHCR registration and another on a later record; we keep each spelling as printed, note the variants, and certify every document. 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 Bajuni interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Bajuni 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 a Bajuni assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.