Portuguese and Tetum record translation for Timorese families, and Mambae interpreting by phone or video for asylum, USCIS and hospital appointments across the US.
Prism Linguistics translates the Portuguese and Tetum civil records that Mambae families from Timor-Leste carry into certified English, and connects Mambae interpreters by phone or video for asylum interviews, USCIS appointments, court hearings and medical visits anywhere in the United States.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Almost nobody files a document in Mambae. It is one of the larger mother tongues of Timor-Leste, spoken through the central mountains, but the paperwork a family brings to an American case was written by a Portuguese-language registry. So the work splits in two: the records are a translation job from Portuguese or Tetum, while Mambae itself is what an interpreter is wanted for, in the room or on the line. Our office is in New York and, for a community this scattered, the interpreter reaches the appointment by phone or video far more often than in person.
Timor-Leste is a small country and its diaspora here is smaller still, spread thin rather than gathered in one city, which is why Mambae interpreting almost always runs down a phone or video line. The language has three regional varieties, a northwestern one around Ermera and Liquiçá, a central one around Aileu and Ainaro, and a southern one around Same, and we ask which district the speaker calls home before assigning anyone.
Ask whether Mambae is the language you actually need. A younger applicant from town has usually grown up with Tetum as well, and a Tetum interpreter will serve that person cleanly. The people who need Mambae are older relatives from the mountains and anyone recounting events they lived through in it. Send a Tetum speaker to that account and the detail thins out at exactly the point where it counts.
A large share of Mambae requests are asylum interviews, and the asylum interview is where a good interpreter earns the booking. The officer compares the applicant's exact words across hours of questioning, so an interpreter who smooths a hesitant answer or fills a silence quietly rewrites the account. We brief the Mambae interpreter to render and nothing more, and we keep bilingual relatives out of that chair.
No state runs a certification exam in Mambae, which is the very reason a court that needs one calls an agency rather than its own roster. We supply a qualified Mambae interpreter, generally by video for a hearing fixed in advance, and we work for the court, the attorney or the law firm directly. Prism is a private agency here, not a court-appointed vendor.
A hospital drawing federal funds owes the patient a Mambae interpreter at no cost, and few Timorese families arrive expecting it. Video handles most of a consultation or a consent conversation. Where an older patient tires on a screen, or a mental health assessment needs the interpreter present, we look for someone who can attend, and we stay honest at intake about how likely that is for a language this rare.
The document at the center of most Timorese filings is the birth certificate, a certidão de nascimento issued in Portuguese by the Direção Nacional de Registo e Notariado under the Ministry of Justice. An applicant old enough to have been born before independence in 1999 may instead hold a record from the Indonesian occupation years, written in Indonesian. Either way the translation runs into English from Portuguese, Tetum or Indonesian rather than from Mambae, and we keep the issuing office named exactly as it prints.
Where Mambae does surface, in a handwritten statement, a letter from a village, a line inside an affidavit, we translate it and flag the variety. Names carry a Portuguese spelling on the passport and a home spelling on older papers, so we follow the passport and a file then holds one name throughout. The full document service sits 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 Mambae interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Mambae 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 Mambae assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.