Certified translation of bilingual New Zealand certificates, iwi letters and whakapapa records, and Maori interpreting by video for a witness who chooses te reo, across the US.
Prism Linguistics translates te reo Maori and bilingual New Zealand records into certified English, and supplies Maori interpreters, almost always by video, for the court and medical settings where a speaker chooses to give evidence or take an oath in Maori, anywhere in the United States.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
New Zealanders rarely call us because they cannot manage in English. They call because a document carries te reo Maori that has to be certified, or because someone wants to speak Maori at a hearing as a right the language has held since 1987. Our office is in New York, the interpreters work by video almost without exception, and the first thing we establish is whether the job is really translation, really interpreting, or a bilingual certificate that only needs its Maori side rendered.
The 2023 New Zealand census recorded 213,849 people able to hold a conversation in Maori, a little over four percent of the country, and effectively all of them also speak English. So a Maori interpreter in an American courtroom is not there to unblock understanding. The speaker follows the English fine. What an interpreter provides is the standing to testify, swear an oath or address the court in te reo, and that is a legitimate request we are glad to meet.
Regional differences exist, and a fluent interpreter absorbs them. The reo of Tuhoe or Ngai Tahu carries its own idiom, but a genuinely fluent Maori interpreter moves between them without trouble, so we screen for fluency rather than region. Every one of these bookings is remote. The pool of court-ready Maori interpreters is small and spread across two countries, so we connect by video and set it up ahead of the date.
No US state runs a certification exam in Maori, so a court that wants an interpreter uses a qualified one, and we place a fluent Maori speaker by video. The usual reason is a witness or party who elects to give evidence or take the oath in te reo. We take these instructions from courts, attorneys and law firms directly. Prism is a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
A hospital that receives federal funds must offer a Maori interpreter at no cost, though in practice the patient can usually manage the appointment in English. Where the request stands, most often for an older person or for a conversation the family wants held in te reo, we connect a Maori speaker by video, which carries a consultation or a consent discussion without difficulty.
Remote is simply how Maori interpreting works. We are not going to fly a speaker across the country when a video link does the job and the demand is a handful of hearings and appointments a year. A scheduled link, tested before the session, gives a witness the te reo they asked for and gives the court a clean record.
Start with what you can skip. The standard New Zealand birth, death or marriage certificate comes from Births, Deaths and Marriages, part of the Department of Internal Affairs, in English, and USCIS takes it as printed. The decorative birth certificate that office has offered since 2008 is bilingual, and there the Maori side has to be certified even though the English sits right beside it, so we translate it and certify the document whole.
Real Maori translation arrives as iwi registration letters, whakapapa, land and will records, and certificates from kura kaupapa Maori schools. The catch is the macron: it marks a long vowel and it changes the word, so a name stripped of its macrons becomes a different name. We keep the macrons the original uses, match each name to the passport, and note where the passport dropped one. 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 Maori interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Maori 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 Maori assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.