Kurdish interpreting for speakers from Duhok across the US, assigned as Behdini rather than generic Kurdish, with certified translation of the Iraqi records behind the case.
Prism Linguistics provides Behdini interpreters, the Badini Kurmanji of Duhok province in Iraqi Kurdistan, for asylum interviews, immigration court hearings and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, together with certified English translation of the Arabic-language Iraqi civil records that Behdini-speaking families file with USCIS.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
A booking that just says Kurdish is a booking we have to phone back about. Behdini, also spelled Badini, is the Kurmanji spoken in and around Duhok in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and it is the variety most Iraqi Kurdish refugees in this country grew up in. We keep a general Kurdish interpreter page for Sorani and the Kurmanji of Turkey and Syria; this page is for the Duhok speaker. Our office is in New York, our Behdini interpreters are spread around the country, and we assign one based near you for in-person work or connect by phone or video for the rest.
Three names come up on a Kurdish booking and they are not interchangeable. Behdini and the Kurmanji of Turkey and Syria understand each other well, but Behdini has its own vocabulary, its own verb endings and a heavier layer of Arabic and Sorani loanwords picked up from life in Iraq, and it is written in an Arabic-based script rather than the Latin letters of Kurmanji further north. Sorani, the Kurdish of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, is a different case entirely: it dropped the grammatical gender and the noun cases that Behdini still uses, and a Sorani interpreter put in front of a Duhok witness will follow the gist and lose the detail.
The detail is the case. So at intake we ask where the person is from, and we tell you which we are sending: a Behdini interpreter, or a Kurmanji interpreter with a track record among Duhok speakers. We do not send Sorani for Behdini and call it Kurdish.
Asylum is where most Behdini requests begin. The applicant is describing what happened in a village outside Duhok or in a camp, and the officer is listening for consistency between the answer today and the statement filed months ago. An interpreter working across a dialect gap fills the gap with guesses, and a guess that lands wrong reads as a contradiction. Our Behdini interpreters render each answer as it was spoken, hesitation and all, and do not explain or improve it. A cousin who speaks good English is the wrong person for this chair.
No state runs a court interpreter certification exam in Behdini, or in any Kurdish variety, so an immigration judge or a state court that needs the language works with a qualified Behdini interpreter and notes the basis of qualification. We supply that on request. Behdini is a language courts come to us for after the usual roster has come up empty. We are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor. Tell us the court, the date and where the respondent is from, and we come back with a named interpreter.
A Behdini-speaking patient is entitled to an interpreter at no cost from any hospital or clinic that takes federal funding, and the family should ask for Behdini or Kurmanji by name, because a provider's default is often an Arabic interpreter on the assumption that an Iraqi patient speaks Arabic. Many do, to a point; a woman who spent her life in a village near Duhok may not. Video handles a consultation or a specialist review, and we send someone in person for a mental health assessment, a birth or a discharge conversation where a Behdini linguist is based within reach.
The paperwork is Iraqi, and Iraqi paperwork is in Arabic. What a Behdini-speaking family puts in front of USCIS is the civil status identity card and the nationality certificate, or the unified national card that has replaced both for anyone issued a document inside Iraq since 1 March 2024, plus the passport and any marriage or birth record from the civil status registry. We translate the Arabic in full, every stamp and margin included. The Behdini part of the job is the names: a Kurdish name written in Arabic script gets romanised one way by the Iraqi passport office and another by UNHCR or a resettlement agency, and the two versions then meet in one USCIS file. We spell to the passport and note each variant so the officer can see they are the same person.
A letter or a statement written in Behdini itself, in its Arabic-based script, is translated by a Behdini translator and filed alongside the Arabic records. Every document carries a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy; 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 Behdini interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Behdini 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 Behdini assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.