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Kurdish Interpreters

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

Ask Kurmanji or Sorani before anything else: "Kurdish" is not one booking

Will any Kurdish interpreter do? No. Kurmanji and Sorani account for more than three quarters of Kurdish speakers, and Translators without Borders states that they are not mutually intelligible in written or spoken form. Kurmanji is the Kurdish of most Kurds in Turkey and Syria (an estimated 15–17 million speakers); Sorani is the Kurdish of most Kurds in Iraq and Iran (4–6 million and 5–6 million).

Clients rarely volunteer the distinction: asked their language, TWB notes, most Kurds simply say "Kurdi". Ask the country and the city instead. The script is a separate question from the variety — Kurmanji is normally written in a Latin-based alphabet and Sorani in an Arabic-based one, but Nashville's school course planned to teach Sorani and Kurmanji (Behdini, the Iraqi form) in both scripts. Smaller varieties such as Hewrami (Gorani) and Zaza exist; we confirm whether we can staff them before you book.

Nashville's Kurds came mostly from Iraq; Lincoln's Yazidis speak Kurmanji

Nashville has the largest Kurdish population in the United States. WPLN traces it to three waves: Kurds arriving in the mid-to-late 1970s after a failed independence movement, civilians fleeing Saddam Hussein's campaign from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, and people tied to Western aid groups and the US military evacuated through Guam in 1996–97. By 2019 Metro Nashville schools had more than 1,100 Kurdish students, and even the Census Bureau's small 2009–2013 count of 17,020 Kurdish speakers nationally put Tennessee first, at 3,065.

Lincoln, Nebraska holds an estimated 3,000–4,000 Yazidis, most of them from Sinjar after the Islamic State attack of August 2014, and the language they speak is the Kurmanji they call Ezidki. Book Kurmanji for them, and ask before assigning an interpreter from another religious community to a survivor's account: community leaders interviewed by Nebraska Public Media say both the Iraqi and Kurdish governments failed to protect them.

Which state a Kurd comes from shapes what they can read and how their name is spelled

Kurdish has had official status in Iraq since 2003, was banned in Turkey until 1992, has been tolerated in Iran since 1979 and repressed in Syria, according to TWB, and many Kurds were never schooled in it. A Kurd from Turkey may read only Turkish and one from Syria only Arabic, so a Kurdish document is not automatically something the client can follow when it is read. None of that makes Turkish, Arabic or Persian the right interview language: school language and the language of a person's own account are different things.

Turkey's 1928 alphabet excluded the letters q, w and x, which Kurdish uses. In 2004 an appeals court upheld a ban on them in Kurdish names and the Interior Ministry refused to register such names on identity cards, until a 2013 reform package lifted the restriction. An older Turkish document can therefore spell a Kurdish name differently from the way the family writes it; the interpreter should state that once on the record rather than leave it as a discrepancy.

Kurdish is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Kurdish interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Kurdish carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, and why lead time matters more here than with a common language: a week is comfortable, two days is a gamble.

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. If a language is not on that 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.
• 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 the same business day, 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 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.

• Translators without Borders (CLEAR Global) — Kurdish language factsheet
• WPLN Nashville Public Radio — Little Kurdistan, Nashville (September 9, 2022)
• Kurdistan24 — Kurds prepare next step after Nashville school board approves Kurdish language course (January 23, 2019)
• U.S. Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, 2009–2013 American Community Survey (nation and state tables)
• Hürriyet Daily News — Ban on Kurdish letters to be lifted with democracy package (September 27, 2013)
• Nebraska Public Media — A decade after genocide, Yazidi community finds sanctuary in Lincoln (August 1, 2024)
• KOLN 10/11 — Lincoln Yazidi community combines old traditions and fresh beginnings at new year celebrations (April 16, 2026)

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