Prism Linguistics provides Maay (Maay Maay, Af Maay) interpreters for USCIS interviews, medical appointments and court hearings in Pompano Beach and across the United States, and certified English translation of the affidavits and camp records that Maay-speaking Somali Bantu families hold in place of civil certificates.
Our Maay interpreters in Pompano Beach are qualified, professional Af Maay speakers who work in asylum offices, courts, hospitals and resettlement agencies, and a Maay interpreting request with Prism goes to an Af Maay speaker.
A Somali interpreter is not a Maay interpreter. Maay and standard Somali (Af Maxaa) look alike on paper and are mutually unintelligible in speech, and health providers unfamiliar with the Somali Bantu have booked a Somali interpreter for a Maay speaker and found the appointment could not proceed; the Office of Global Health Affairs recommends a Maay interpreter first for this community. Most of the roughly 13,000 Somali Bantu refugees the United States resettled between 2003 and 2007 speak Maay; for standard Somali see our separate Somali page. Some states, Minnesota among them, certify court interpreters in Somali through the NCSC exam, but none does in Maay, so courts use a qualified Maay interpreter, often by phone or video, and Maay is exactly the kind of rare language courts come to us for. Hospitals that take federal funds must provide a Maay interpreter at no cost. At an asylum or adjustment interview the Maay interpreter renders each answer as given, without softening.
For an in-person assignment in Pompano Beach we assign a Maay interpreter based in or near the city. Telephone and video interpreting can usually be arranged the same day. We serve courts, attorneys, hospitals, USCIS applicants and private individuals; we are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor, and we say so up front.
Prism Linguistics supplies experienced Maay interpreters in Pompano Beach for asylum and adjustment interviews, court hearings, medical appointments and resettlement casework, in person, by phone or by video, with certified Maay translation of the affidavits and camp papers that go with those cases.
Pompano Beach sits in Broward County, which forms Florida's Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. Felonies, family and larger civil matters go to the Circuit Court, while misdemeanors, ordinance violations, traffic infractions and small claims are heard in County Court; north Broward cases are handled at the North Regional Courthouse in Deerfield Beach rather than the main Fort Lauderdale courthouse.
Broward County Public Schools translates district-wide forms and documents into its three predominant languages, Haitian Creole, Portuguese and Spanish, covering registration packets, report cards and the Code of Student Conduct. Locally, Haitian Creole and French are everyday languages, Spanish is widely spoken, and the Brazilian Portuguese community is concentrated in Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach. Broward Health North adds hospital work. Prism Linguistics has a single office, in New York, and assigns a linguist based near Pompano Beach for in-person hearings, medical appointments and USCIS-compliant certified translation. Courts come to us for the rare languages other providers cannot supply.
Maay interpreting services in Pompano Beach and the surrounding area run through one intake for every city listed below: a clinic, court, attorney or resettlement caseworker there books the same Maay interpreters, and books a Maay speaker, not a Somali one.
Our only office is in New York. For in-person work in Pompano Beach we assign a Maay interpreter who is based in or near the city, and the same Maay linguists cover the surrounding area:
Certified Maay to English translation at Prism means the sworn affidavits, camp records and resettlement papers a Somali Bantu family holds instead of certificates, each translated by a Maay translator who reads the competing spellings and signed with a Certificate of Translation Accuracy prepared to meet USCIS requirements.
There is no Maay birth certificate to translate. The State Department's reciprocity schedule records that Somalia has no recognised civil authority able to issue civil documents, that most records were destroyed after the government collapsed in 1990, and that applicants should instead submit a sworn affidavit from at least two people giving where and when the birth took place and the parents' full names. That is the paperwork a Maay-speaking family actually holds: affidavits, UNHCR registration and ration cards from Dadaab or Kakuma, and school or clinic records from the camps, in Somali, English or Swahili, with the Maay speaker's name spelled by whichever clerk wrote it. Maay is written in Latin letters, but several competing spellings have circulated since the 1980s, so the same Maay name can appear three ways across one family's papers. We translate each document as issued, spell names to match the travel document and note every variant.
Every certified Maay translation is a complete, word-for-word rendering with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy, prepared to meet USCIS requirements. It is done from a clear scan, so a client in Pompano Beach gets the same translator, the same price and the same turnaround as one anywhere else in the country. See certified Maay translation for the document service in full.
Get a free Maay interpreting quote or call +1 (833) 282 8883
Maay (Maay Maay, Af-Maay) is a Somali language spoken by around 2 million people in southern Somalia, particularly in the Bay and Bakool regions. It's distinct enough from standard Somali (Maxaa-tiri / Northern Somali) that the two are sometimes not mutually intelligible. The US Maay-speaking community is part of the broader Somali-American population, particularly in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Columbus, and San Diego. Our Maay translation work overlaps with general Somali but requires specifically Maay-trained translators for the Bay-region documents and dialect-specific interpreting assignments.
Usually there is none to translate. The State Department records that Somalia has no recognised authority issuing civil documents and asks for sworn affidavits from two people instead. We translate those affidavits, UNHCR camp records and resettlement papers with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy and spell Maay names to match the travel document, noting any variant.
No. Maay and standard Somali are not mutually intelligible in speech, and a Somali interpreter placed with a Maay speaker regularly fails in medical and immigration settings. We assign a Maay interpreter. No state certifies court interpreters in Maay. We are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
No. Our only office is in New York. Maay translation is done remotely from a scan, so location makes no difference to the document work. For in-person interpreting in Pompano Beach we assign a Maay interpreter who is based in or near the city, and phone or video interpreting is available anywhere in the United States.
Every assignment follows our TEP workflow for written work – translation, editing, proofreading – with a free revision policy, and every interpreting booking is managed by a dedicated coordinator to meet regulatory and client requirements.
Our Maay interpreters are vetted for fluency, subject-matter expertise and professional ethics, and certified translation work is handled by certified translators who are members of provincial bodies under CTTIC.
We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year – including American statutory holidays. Confidentiality is protected in line with HIPAA on every assignment.