Silozi interpreters for USCIS interviews, courts and hospitals across the US, usually by phone or video, plus certified translation of the Zambian and Namibian records Lozi families hold.
Prism Linguistics provides Lozi, or Silozi, interpreters for USCIS interviews, court hearings and medical appointments anywhere in the United States, usually by phone or video, together with certified English translation of the Zambian and Namibian records that Lozi speakers carry.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Lozi, or Silozi, is a rare language here, spoken mainly in the Barotseland floodplain of Zambia's Western Province and across the border in Namibia's Zambezi Region. Few Lozi speakers in the United States carry anything written in Lozi, and most of working age handle English, so the person who needs a Lozi interpreter is usually an older parent, or a witness describing life in a floodplain village. Our office is in New York and Lozi linguists are few and widely spread, so we work from a nationwide network and reach most jobs by phone or video.
Not just any Zambian interpreter. Lozi belongs to the Sotho-Tswana branch of Bantu, a different family from Bemba or Nyanja, so a Bemba or Nyanja interpreter cannot cover a Lozi speaker no matter how fluent. It is one of Zambia's seven official regional languages, taught in early primary school and carried on ZNBC radio, and spoken by around six percent of Zambians, mostly in the west; in Namibia it is a recognised national language of the Zambezi Region. We book a Lozi interpreter, never whichever Zambian linguist is free, and Lozi is the kind of language courts come to us for because no one else has it.
For a naturalization or asylum interview the Lozi interpreter renders each answer exactly as the applicant gives it, dates, places and hesitations kept in. Many of these speakers are elderly and giving evidence about a rural home in Western Province or the Zambezi, which is precisely where a Bemba or Nyanja stand-in would come unstuck. We assign a genuine Lozi speaker, confirm it at intake, and keep bilingual relatives out of the interpreter's seat.
No state runs a court certification exam in Lozi, so a court works from a qualified Lozi interpreter rather than a certified one, and the session is usually held by phone or video because so few Lozi linguists are based in the country. Tell us the court and the case type and we confirm what the bench will accept beforehand. Prism is a private agency and holds no court appointment or approved-vendor listing; the value we add is a language most providers cannot field at all.
A hospital or clinic that takes federal funding must provide a Lozi interpreter at no cost to the patient, and most Lozi-speaking families never learn this is their right. Because in-person Lozi linguists are so scarce, video is the practical way to get a qualified interpreter into a consultation or a consent conversation quickly. For an elderly patient facing a hard diagnosis we do what we can to place someone in the room, but on short notice a video link is often what actually reaches you.
Lozi documents, strictly speaking, do not exist: neither Zambia nor Namibia issues civil records in Lozi. A Zambian birth certificate comes in English under the Births and Deaths Registration Act, from the Department of National Registration, Passport and Citizenship; a Namibian one is in English too. So a Lozi speaker's certificate itself needs no translation. What a Lozi translator actually handles is the supporting paper written in Lozi: a sworn affidavit, a letter from a village headman or a church, a traditional marriage statement, and the Lozi names and villages inside an English record. The snag to watch is a Lozi name a registrar in Western Province spelled one way and the passport office spelled another; standardise the two quietly and you hand an officer a mismatch. We match the passport, note the variant and sign a Certificate of Translation Accuracy. 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 Lozi interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Lozi 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 Lozi assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.