Asylum, immigration court and hospital interpreting across the US for speakers of Georgian, the language of the Caucasus, plus certified translation of Public Service Hall and Soviet-era records.
Prism Linguistics provides Georgian interpreters, for the language of the Republic of Georgia, at asylum interviews, immigration court hearings, depositions and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, together with certified English translation of Georgian civil records, diplomas, police clearances and court papers.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
The word Georgian causes confusion on this side of the Atlantic, so to be clear: this page is about the Kartvelian language written in its own curling Mkhedruli script and spoken in the Caucasus, not about the US state. Our office is in New York, which is also where most of the Georgian-speaking community lives, and our interpreters work nationwide, in person from nearby or by phone and video the same day.
This is a small language with a steep recent rise in demand. About 16,000 people spoke Georgian at home on the 2017-2021 American Community Survey, and the Georgia-born population stood near 30,000 on 2018-2022 figures, concentrated in the New York metropolitan area with smaller groups around Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. What drives the calls now is asylum, and there are very few Georgian interpreters to meet it.
Ask whether the speaker's first language is actually Georgian. Someone from Samegrelo may have grown up in Mingrelian, which a Georgian speaker cannot follow, and a highlander from Svaneti in Svan, which is further away again. Both groups were schooled in Georgian and most will testify in it, but a frightened applicant or an elderly witness may slip. We raise the question at intake. We are also asked to substitute Russian, which older Georgians speak well; for testimony we advise against it.
Asylum interviews and immigration court are the bulk of our Georgian work. The interpreter's task in that room is narrow and hard: carry the applicant's account across in full, with its dates, place names and pauses, and add nothing. An interpreter who explains a Georgian place name or rounds an answer toward what the officer seems to want has changed the evidence. Ours are briefed on that before every assignment, and we never seat a relative of the applicant in the chair.
No state runs a certification exam in Georgian, so there is no certified Georgian court interpreter in the country and a court that needs one appoints a qualified interpreter on the strength of experience. Courts come to a private agency for languages like this one, and we tell them straight that Prism is a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor. Beyond immigration court the assignments are depositions and family matters, mostly in New York and New Jersey, and we confirm with the clerk what the bench will accept before the date.
Hospitals see the older generation: a parent brought over to join adult children, unable to follow a consent conversation or a discharge plan in English. Any provider that takes federal money has to supply a Georgian interpreter at no cost to the patient, and most families are never told. In the New York area we can often send someone in person; elsewhere video reaches the bedside within minutes, with an in-person interpreter reserved for a psychiatric evaluation or a long family meeting.
A Georgian applicant's civil records come in two generations. The recent ones are issued by the Public Service Development Agency under the Ministry of Justice, through the Public Service Hall branches or online, and a duplicate birth certificate ordered last year carries that agency's name even for a birth in 1975. The originals from before independence are Soviet-era forms in Georgian and Russian with an issuing authority that no longer exists. We translate both language fields of the older record and keep every authority as printed.
Georgian script has no capital letters, and there is more than one way to write a Georgian name in Latin script. The 2002 national romanisation is what sits behind the passport; an older US record, a Russian-issued document or a relative's affidavit may carry a Russian-mediated form of the same name, so Giorgi and Georgiy are one person. We spell to the passport and note the variant. Apostilled diplomas, police clearances and the court judgments and police reports that support an asylum claim make up the rest of the work. The 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 Georgian interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Georgian 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 Georgian assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.