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Chaldean Neo-Aramaic Interpreters

Professional Chaldean Neo-Aramaic interpreting, virtual or in person, for the settings where getting it wrong has consequences — asylum interviews, hearings, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings.

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is not Arabic, and for village-born elders Arabic is the wrong booking

Can an Arabic interpreter cover a Chaldean client? For many younger Chaldeans who grew up speaking Arabic, yes; for elders from the villages of northern Iraq, often not. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic — called Sureth or Surath by its speakers — is a Semitic language of its own in the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic group, and a 2023 Chaldean News feature recalls that Chaldeans arriving in Detroit from the villages could not easily communicate with the Arabic-speaking immigrants already there.

The same feature describes the parents’ generation as the last broadly fluent one and notes that many Chaldeans born outside the villages do not speak the language. That split runs through families: the son who books the appointment speaks Arabic and English, his mother speaks Sureth. Ask which language the person being interviewed uses at home, not whether they “understand Arabic”, which elders will often say yes to.

Official numbers hide the language. The Census Bureau codes it as “Syriac” and counted 23,175 speakers in metropolitan Detroit in 2009–2013, while the Chaldean Community Foundation estimates 187,000 Chaldeans in southeast Michigan, mostly in Macomb and Oakland counties. The gap is people who speak Arabic or English at home; it is not evidence that Sureth speakers are rare where you are.

Chaldean and Assyrian are close relatives, and which name the family uses matters

Glottolog lists Chaldean Neo-Aramaic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as separate languages within North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, and the Endangered Language Alliance notes that these varieties are highly diverse and many are not mutually intelligible. They also have different written traditions: Neo-Aramaic writing in northern Iraq grew from a literary koine developed by scribes of the Alqosh region from the late 16th century, while the Assyrian standard was built on the dialect of Urmia in Iran in the 19th century. Whether a particular Assyrian interpreter will be easy for a particular Chaldean speaker depends on the places involved, so tell us the town — Alqosh or another village of the Mosul plain, or Baghdad — rather than only “Aramaic”.

Identity is part of the booking. Chaldeans are Eastern-rite Catholics in full union with Rome, and the Chaldean Community Foundation’s own fact sheet describes them as “from the Arab world but are not Arabs”. A client who is told they are getting an “Assyrian” or an “Arabic” interpreter may hear a statement about who they are. Book the language under the name the family uses; it costs nothing and removes a distraction.

Detroit, San Diego, and the Iraqi removal cases since 2017

The Census tables place the largest Syriac-speaking populations in metropolitan Detroit, then Chicago and San Diego (10,575 speakers in the San Diego metro). The Chaldean Catholic Church has two US dioceses, one in Michigan and one in California, and the foundation counts more than 50,000 Iraqi refugees who have come to Michigan since 2007. In asylum and removal work the accounts are of religious persecution — the foundation’s sheet recalls ISIS marking Christian homes and businesses in Mosul with the Arabic letter nūn, for “Nasrani”, in 2014 — and the interpreter needs the church and community vocabulary as well as the legal.

In 2017 ICE began arresting Iraqi nationals with old removal orders, and the class action the ACLU of Michigan brought, Hamama v. Adducci, was settled on July 31, 2024 on behalf of about 1,400 Iraqis; the ACLU notes that earlier rulings in the case gave class members time to reopen their immigration cases. Declarations for reopened cases often rest on an elder’s memory of events decades back. Iraqi civil documents are in Arabic, so when one is read aloud in a Sureth session the interpreter is sight-translating from Arabic — say in advance if documents will be used, so we look for someone who reads Arabic as well.

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a rare language

Only a handful of qualified Chaldean Neo-Aramaic interpreters work in the United States — we found five or fewer across state court rosters, professional directories and freelance platforms — and courts and hospitals book them first. That is why Chaldean Neo-Aramaic carries the rare-language rate, 75% on top of the base: $140 an hour by video or phone with a one-hour minimum, and $192.50 an hour in person with a two-hour minimum, plus travel. Give us as much notice as you can: two weeks is comfortable, a few days often is not enough.

We would rather tell you that before you book a hearing date than after. If your date is fixed and close, say so when you enquire and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it rather than accepting and hoping.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, except the rare languages — Mam, K’iche’, Q’anjob’al, Tzotzil, Mixtec, Fuzhounese, Hakka, Hakha Chin, Kachin, Balochi, Bambara, Soninke, Tigre, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic — which carry 75%. If a language is not on the standard list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Where interpretation is used

The settings differ in what they demand of the interpreter, which is worth saying because they are frequently priced as though they were the same work:

• Asylum and immigration interviews. USCIS asylum interviews require the applicant to bring an interpreter, and the interview can be rescheduled if the interpreter does not appear or is not competent — which makes this the setting where getting it right matters most.
• Attorney–client meetings and declarations. Preparing testimony, taking a statement, going through documents.
• Depositions and hearings. Where the record is being made and accuracy is examined afterwards.
• Medical appointments. Note that hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance themselves, so ask before you hire.
• School meetings. IEP meetings and parent conferences — districts also have their own obligations here.
• Business meetings and signings, such as real estate closings.

Each setting has its own page — who has to provide the interpreter, what the meeting asks of one and what it costs: see interpreters by setting.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Rare languages — add 75%: $140 per hour virtual and $192.50 per hour in person. These are the languages with only a handful of qualified interpreters in the United States, listed below.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply within minutes, four business hours at most, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What we will tell you before you book

Two things, both of which occasionally cost us the booking. Whether the venue supplies its own interpreter. Immigration court provides one. Hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance. School districts have obligations of their own. If yours does, you should not be paying us — ask them first.

And whether we can actually staff your date. For a limited-availability or rare language on short notice the honest answer is sometimes no, and we would rather say it than accept a booking we cannot fill. Interpretation is not translation: see certified translation at $24.95 per page if what you need is a document rendered in writing.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

The facts on this page about the language and its speakers in the United States were checked against these sources on October 28, 2026.

• U.S. Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, ACS 2009–2013 (nation and metro tables; “Syriac”)
• Chaldean Community Foundation — The Chaldeans (fact sheet)
• Chaldean News — Why Language Matters (October 30, 2023)
• Glottolog 5.3 — Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
• Endangered Language Alliance — Neo-Aramaic
• Emanuela Braida, “Neo-Aramaic Garshuni”, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 17.1 (2014)
• ACLU of Michigan — Court approves settlement in class action protecting Iraqi immigrants (July 31, 2024)

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