Prism Linguistics provides certified English translation of the Italian civil records that Sicilian families hold, and Sicilian interpreters for the rare hearing, deposition or medical appointment where an older speaker needs one, in New Haven and across the United States.
Our Sicilian interpreters in New Haven are experienced, professional linguists, usually Italian court interpreters who grew up speaking Sicilian, and a Sicilian interpreting assignment is booked honestly: only when the speaker's Italian is not enough for the courtroom, the clinic or the deposition.
A Sicilian interpreter is rarely needed, and when it is, it is for someone old. Around 72 percent of people in Sicily are reported to speak Sicilian, but UNESCO lists it as vulnerable and the fluent speakers are mostly older. Anyone schooled in Italy in recent decades speaks Italian, and a younger Sicilian in the US needs an Italian interpreter if they need one at all. The Sicilian interpreter is for an elderly relative at a deposition, a capacity assessment or a guardianship hearing whose Italian has faded back into the Sicilian of their village, and for recorded calls or letters in Sicilian offered as evidence. No state runs a court certification exam in Sicilian, so courts use a qualified Sicilian interpreter, often an Italian court interpreter who grew up speaking Sicilian, and we tell the court which is which. Hospitals that take federal funds must provide one at no cost. At USCIS the Sicilian interpreter renders each answer as given.
For an in-person assignment in New Haven we assign a Sicilian 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 professional Sicilian interpreters in New Haven for the deposition, guardianship hearing or medical appointment where an older speaker's Italian has faded; most Sicilian speakers do fine with an Italian interpreter, and we say so at intake. Certified Sicilian translation of Italian records is arranged alongside.
New Haven sits in New Haven County, though Connecticut has no county government and organizes its courts by judicial district. The New Haven Judicial District covers the city and twelve surrounding towns. Serious criminal, civil and family matters go to the Superior Court for the district, while misdemeanors, infractions and motor vehicle offenses are heard in Geographical Area No. 23.
Ecuadorians are, after Mexicans, the largest national Latino group in the city, and an Ecuadorian consulate operates here. The city is also a resettlement site: IRIS, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, works across nearly twenty languages including Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Sinhala, Dinka, Kiswahili and Wolof, with recent arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Eritrea and Sudan. Yale New Haven Hospital adds medical work. Prism Linguistics has one office, in New York, and assigns a linguist based near New Haven for in-person hearings and appointments. Courts come to us for the rare languages other providers cannot supply, alongside USCIS-compliant certified translation.
Local Sicilian interpreting services in New Haven and nearby towns come from the same nationwide network, so an attorney, court or hospital in any of the cities below books a Sicilian interpreter the same way, and hears from us first if an Italian interpreter would serve better.
Our only office is in New York. For in-person work in New Haven we assign a Sicilian interpreter who is based in or near the city, and the same Sicilian linguists cover the surrounding area:
Certified Sicilian to English translation is, in practice, certified translation of the Italian records that Sicilian families hold: the estratto or copia integrale from the comune, handwritten entries included, each prepared by a qualified Sicilian translator and delivered with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy.
Sicilian speakers hold Italian documents. Sicilian is a Romance language in its own right, not a dialect of Italian, but it has never been the language of the state. A birth, marriage or death record from Palermo, Catania or a hill town in the interior is issued by the comune's Ufficio di Stato Civile in Italian, usually as an estratto per riassunto dell'atto di nascita or a copia integrale. Those are the documents that reach us for USCIS filings, for Italian dual-citizenship applications going the other way, and for probate where a Sicilian grandparent's record has to be read into a US court file.
What is Sicilian about them is the handwriting and the names. Older records from a small comune were written by hand, and a Sicilian family often knows a relative by a Sicilian name (Turiddu for Salvatore) that never appears on the Italian record. We translate the Italian in full, handwritten entries included, spell names as the passport does and note any variant on the original.
Every certified Sicilian 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 New Haven gets the same translator, the same price and the same turnaround as one anywhere else in the country. See certified Sicilian translation for the document service in full.
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Sicilian is a Romance language spoken by around 4.7 million people in Sicily, southern Calabria, and parts of southern Apulia. Linguistically it's classified as a separate language from Italian, though Italian dominates in administration and education. The US Sicilian-speaking community is small and concentrated in Italian-American communities in New York, New Jersey, and parts of New Orleans (the historic Sicilian-American community there dates to the 19th century). Most translation work from this region is in Italian rather than Sicilian.
Yes. The record is in Italian, issued by the comune's Ufficio di Stato Civile, so we translate it as an Italian document with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy, handwritten entries included, and spell the names to match the passport. If a letter or statement is written in Sicilian itself, we translate that too.
Yes, and we ask at intake whether the speaker needs one. Most Sicilian speakers also speak Italian; the Sicilian interpreter is for an older person whose Italian is weak. No state certifies court interpreters in Sicilian, so courts use a qualified interpreter, usually one who holds an Italian court credential and grew up speaking Sicilian. We are a private agency, not a court-appointed vendor.
No. Our only office is in New York. Sicilian translation is done remotely from a scan, so location makes no difference to the document work. For in-person interpreting in New Haven we assign a Sicilian 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 Sicilian 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.