Central Kurdish specifically, matched to Iraq or Iran and never a Kurmanji stand-in, for asylum, USCIS and court work across the United States.
Prism Linguistics arranges Sorani (Central Kurdish) interpreters for asylum interviews, USCIS interviews and court hearings across the United States, in person, by phone or by video, and provides certified English translation of the bilingual Kurdistan Region records and the Persian documents that Sorani speakers hold.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
This page is about Sorani specifically, which is Central Kurdish, the Kurdish of Sulaymaniyah and Erbil in Iraq and of Sanandaj and Mahabad in Iran. It is not Kurmanji, the Northern Kurdish of Turkey, Syria and Duhok, and the two are far enough apart that one will not reliably do for the other. If you are not sure which variety your speaker uses, our general Kurdish interpreter page explains how they differ. Our office is in New York and our Sorani interpreters work nationwide, in person where one is within reach and by phone or video where that is faster.
Sorani is not Kurmanji, and a courtroom will not pause to sort out which is which. Sorani has shed the grammatical gender and the noun cases that Kurmanji and Behdini keep, and much of the everyday vocabulary has drifted, so a Kurmanji interpreter from Duhok or Turkey booked for a Sorani witness from Sulaymaniyah will lose the detail exactly where it counts. We assign a Sorani interpreter, not a Kurdish generalist.
Within Sorani the gaps are smaller. Iraqi Sorani from Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, the Ardalani of Sanandaj and the Mukriyani of Mahabad follow one another well, though each carries different loanwords from Arabic or Persian. We ask the country and city at intake and tell you which Sorani interpreter we are sending, because an Iranian Kurd and an Iraqi Kurd do not draw on the same borrowed words.
Asylum work is the core of Sorani demand, and the affirmative interview and the credible fear interview are where accuracy decides the case. An officer reads the applicant's own words and the pauses between them, so we assign a Sorani interpreter matched to the home city and brief them to give the answer as spoken, without smoothing or filling. A bilingual relative never sits in that chair. For an Iranian Kurd whose account turns on political or religious persecution, we match an interpreter who follows the Mukriyani or Ardalani speech rather than assuming Iraqi Sorani will cover it.
Away from asylum, the routine work is the naturalization and adjustment-of-status interview, where a Sorani interpreter renders each answer as given so the officer hears the applicant and not a paraphrase. Many Iraqi Kurds arrived on Special Immigrant Visas earned working with US forces, and their files and testimony run through several agencies, so consistency in how names and places are rendered matters from one appointment to the next. We brief for a plain rendering, keep the same transliteration of names across the file, and never seat a family member as the interpreter.
Sorani reaches the courts through immigration hearings and through the state civil, family and criminal matters where a Kurdish party or witness speaks it. No state runs a certification exam in Sorani, or in any other Kurdish variety, so a court works from a registered or otherwise qualified interpreter, and we tell the bench and the attorneys what that interpreter holds and which variety they speak. We do not let a Kurmanji or Behdini interpreter be booked in a Sorani speaker's place. Prism takes this work from courts and firms directly, and we are a private agency and not a vendor appointed by any court.
Sorani is the one Kurdish variety that turns up on official paper. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq it is the working language of government, and the civil status directorates issue records bilingually, Kurdish beside Arabic, under a Kurdistan Regional Government header: the civil status identity card, the nationality certificate, the unified national card that has replaced both, and birth and marriage certificates. USCIS wants every visible field translated, and a translator working only from the Arabic quietly drops the Sorani half. Because Sorani uses an Arabic-based script with letters of its own, one name can reach the passport through two different romanisations, and we hold a single spelling across the file. A speaker from Iran is a different case: Persian is the only language of Iranian official documents, so the shenasnameh booklet is in Persian, and what needs a Sorani translator there is the letters and messages behind an asylum claim. Each record is rendered from the language it is written in, with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. 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 Sorani interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Sorani 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 Sorani assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.