Asylum, immigration court and hospital interpreting across the US for Togolese and Ghanaian Ewe speakers, plus certified translation of Ewe statements and French records from Togo.
Prism Linguistics provides Ewe interpreters for asylum interviews, immigration court hearings, medical appointments and family cases anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, matched to the speaker's side of the Ghana-Togo border, together with certified English translation of Ewe-language statements and the French civil records that Togolese applicants file.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Ewe is an immigration language in the US before it is anything else. The calls come from asylum attorneys with a Togolese client, from immigration courts that have run out of options, and from clinics that discovered too late that the patient's French was thin. Our office is in New York and our Ewe interpreters work across the country, so for an in-person hearing we assign one based near you and for phone or video we can usually connect the same day. Not many agencies can supply Ewe at all, which is the plain reason courts have called us.
Ewe straddles a border, and the border shapes the assignment. Speakers from Ghana's Volta Region grew up with English as the official language; speakers from southern Togo grew up with French. Both call the language Ewe, but a Togolese speaker from around Lomé may actually mean Gen, also called Mina, which sits at the edge of the Ewe continuum and is not quite the same thing. The central varieties understand each other without trouble. Mina and inland Ewe take more effort, and effort is what a witness under cross-examination does not have to spare.
Tell us the town, not just the country. That one detail lets us assign an Ewe interpreter from the same side of the border and, where it matters, the same variety. It also tells us whether the person's second language is French or English, which decides how the documents are handled and which colleague joins the case if a French record needs reading aloud in a hearing.
Most Ewe interpreting in the US is asylum work for Togolese applicants, at the asylum office and in immigration court. The interview is a credibility test, and the officer is listening for the exact words, the sequence and the hesitations. An Ewe interpreter who condenses a long answer, or who adds a clarifying phrase the applicant never said, has changed the evidence. Ours are briefed to render and nothing else. We do not accept a relative, a church elder or a friend from the community as the interpreter, because the officer will not either.
No state certifies court interpreters in Ewe. A judge appoints a qualified interpreter, and finding one on a hearing date is often the clerk's problem, which is where we come in. Immigration courts see Ewe in removal and merits hearings; state courts see it rarely, in family or criminal matters involving Togolese or Ghanaian families. Tell us the court, the hearing type and the speaker's hometown and we confirm who we can send and when. Attorneys book us directly, and we say plainly that we are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
A Togolese patient will often be handed a French interpreter, and a Ghanaian one left to manage in English, and both arrangements fall apart the moment the conversation turns to symptoms, pain or a diagnosis. Any provider that takes federal funding must supply an Ewe interpreter at no cost to the patient, in person or by phone. Phone works for a routine visit; for a consent conversation, a mental health assessment after persecution, or an older patient, we send someone in person.
Ewe translation at Prism is mostly evidence, not certificates. Togo keeps its civil records in French, so the acte de naissance, the marriage record and the jugement supplétif that stands in for a late-registered birth need French to English certified translation, which we provide in the same package. Ghana's Births and Deaths Registry issues certificates in English, and USCIS takes them as they are. What arrives written in Ewe is the supporting material of an asylum claim: letters from home, church and family statements, WhatsApp threads, recorded calls and handwritten declarations. Spelling is where it goes wrong. Ewe uses letters English does not have, informal writers spell by ear, and the same person can carry a French spelling on a Togolese record and an English one on a Ghanaian passport. We translate the Ewe in full, keep names to the passport with the variant noted, and sign a Certificate of Translation Accuracy for each document. 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 Ewe interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Ewe 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 Ewe assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.