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Tajik Interpreters

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

Tajik is Persian written in Cyrillic, so a Farsi or Dari interpreter is only a partial match

Can a Farsi or Dari interpreter cover a Tajik speaker? Partly in conversation, and poorly with documents: Tajik belongs to the same Persian family — Glottolog places it with Dari among the eastern Farsic varieties, with Iranian Farsi on a separate branch — but it has been written in Cyrillic since 1940, so a Farsi interpreter who reads only the Perso-Arabic script cannot sight-translate a Tajik document at all. How far a given Iranian or Afghan interpreter follows spoken Tajik varies with the speaker; for an asylum interview, book Tajik.

Tajik Cyrillic adds its own letters to the Russian alphabet — ғ, ӣ, қ, ӯ, ҳ, ҷ, and names containing them are worth having the interpreter spell out from the document rather than from memory. Russian has constitutional standing too: Tajikistan’s constitution makes Tajik the state language and Russian “the language of communication between the nationalities”. A client’s documents, and the institutional vocabulary they use, may be Russian, and an interpreter with Russian as well as Tajik covers both.

In Queens, a “Tajik” request may really be for Bukhori

The Census Bureau counted only 435 people speaking Tajik at home in 2009–2013, all of them in the New York metro area, with a margin of error almost as large as the figure; the pool of Tajik interpreters is small, and lead time matters. New York is also home to a larger related community. The Endangered Language Alliance puts the Bukharian Jewish community of Forest Hills and Rego Park at an estimated 40–50,000 people, many of whom still use Bukhori daily alongside Russian and English.

Bukhori, also called Judeo-Tajik, is closely related to Tajik and more distantly to modern Persian, with religious vocabulary from Hebrew and Aramaic and heavy contact with Uzbek. For an older Bukharian client a Tajik interpreter may be the closest available match, and Russian may be the language the client is most comfortable with in an official setting. Ask the family which language works best, and tell us the client is Bukharian.

For Pamiris and political exiles, the language is not the only question

In the Gorno-Badakhshan region of eastern Tajikistan many people speak a Pamiri language first. The Endangered Language Alliance counts about 75,000 Shughni speakers there, a Southeastern Iranian language rather than a form of Persian, and notes that speakers may be literate in Tajik, Russian, or both. A client from Khorog or the Pamirs may give a fuller account in Shughni than in Tajik; ask, and if no Shughni interpreter can be staffed, a Tajik or Russian session is a fallback we confirm with you before booking.

The State Department’s 2023 report on Tajikistan describes the banned opposition Islamic Renaissance Party and Group 24, roughly 400 political prisoners by NGO estimates, hundreds arrested after the 2022 protests in Gorno-Badakhshan, and transnational repression of opponents and their relatives abroad, including deportations of asylum seekers back to Tajikistan. A client with that history may be wary of any interpreter from the Tajik community. Ask whether they have a preference, and be ready to tell them who the interpreter is.

Tajik is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Tajik interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Tajik 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.

• U.S. Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, ACS 2009–2013 (“Tadzhik”)
• Glottolog 5.3 — Tajik
• Library of Congress — ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Non-Slavic Languages (in Cyrillic Script)
• Constitute Project — Constitution of Tajikistan (2016 text), Article 2
• Endangered Language Alliance — Bukhori
• Endangered Language Alliance — Shughni
• U.S. Department of State — 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Tajikistan

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