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Uyghur Interpreters

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

In a Uyghur case, who the interpreter is can matter as much as what they say

Should a Uyghur asylum applicant be concerned about the interpreter? It is a reasonable concern, and many applicants have it. In 2013 the Dutch Council for Refugees reported that Chinese informants working as interpreters in asylum cases had passed on information about Uyghur asylum applications in the Netherlands. A 2021 report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society describes Chinese authorities recruiting diaspora Uyghurs to spy on their own communities. In an Amnesty International survey it cites, 26 people reported being asked to do exactly that.

The pressure works through family. Human Rights Watch found that Xinjiang authorities treat contact with people in 26 "sensitive countries" as grounds for interrogation and detention, so many Uyghurs abroad have lost contact with relatives or keep it guarded. An applicant may therefore hold back in front of an interpreter they cannot place, and will rarely say why. Ask the client whether they want to know the interpreter's name and background in advance, and tell us. We will say who we propose before you book, and video with an interpreter from another city is often the simplest arrangement.

Do not book a Mandarin interpreter for a Uyghur account of persecution unless the client has clearly chosen it. Many Uyghurs speak Mandarin, and HRW documented detainees in Xinjiang camps being forced to learn it. Being able to speak it is not the same as being willing to testify in it.

Uyghur is a Turkic language with its own script, and Chinese documents spell it their own way

Uyghur is a Turkic language, unrelated to Chinese. In China it is written in a Perso-Arabic script, right to left. Uyghurs in Kazakhstan, about 2 percent of that country's population by Unicode CLDR's estimate, write it in Cyrillic. So a client's papers may be in Arabic script, Cyrillic or Chinese characters, depending on where and when they were issued.

The romanization on Chinese documents follows China's own pinyin-based scheme, which the UN geographical-names experts describe for Uyghur place names. In that scheme the Uyghur sound sh is written x and ch is written q, and several distinct Uyghur letters are merged. A town or a person can therefore appear in pinyin-style spelling on Chinese records and in a quite different English spelling chosen by the family. An interpreter who reads the original script can say on the record that they are the same name.

Names have also been changed under pressure. HRW reports that Xinjiang authorities banned baby names with religious connotations, such as Medina. A name that differs between a birth record and later documents may have a political explanation, and the interpreter should render the explanation, not smooth it over.

Long-pending asylum cases, and a small US community

The Census Bureau counted about 8,900 Uyghur speakers in the United States in 2009–2013. About 3,400 lived in the New York metro area, with smaller communities in the Washington, DC area, San Diego, St. Louis and Sacramento. The community is small, so an interpreter from within it may know the client, which makes the questions above more pressing, not less.

Many Uyghur asylum cases have been pending for years. In 2023 the Uyghur Human Rights Project reported US applicants waiting more than eight years for a decision. When an interview finally comes, the earlier declaration may have been prepared years before, through a different interpreter. Preparing for the interview through an interpreter who will render precisely what the client says, including corrections to the earlier account, is the most useful work we do in these cases.

Uyghur is a limited-availability language

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

• European Database of Asylum Law (ECRE) — The Dutch Refugee Council reports on the situation of Uyghur asylum seekers (October 4, 2013)
• Uyghur Human Rights Project and Oxus Society — No Space Left to Run: China's Transnational Repression of Uyghurs (2021)
• Human Rights Watch — "Eradicating Ideological Viruses": China's Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang's Muslims (September 9, 2018)
• Uyghur Human Rights Project — Uyghur asylum seekers in US face stress from waiting (news recap, April 21, 2023)
• US Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English, 2009–2013 (October 2015)
• UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Working Group on Romanization Systems — Uighur (version 4.0, September 2013)
• Unicode Consortium, CLDR — territory language data (languages and scripts by country)

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