Punjabi interpreting and translation

Punjabi interpreting across courts, clinics and classrooms

Punjabi interpreters are plentiful, so face-to-face interpreting can usually be arranged quickly for police interviews, magistrates' and crown courts, solicitors' offices, GP and hospital appointments, safeguarding meetings, social care assessments and parents' evenings. Our telephone interpreting service runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and video interpreting is available on the SILA Linguists® app or your own platform.

Many British Pakistani families speak Mirpuri or Pothwari at home. If that applies, tell us and we will send an interpreter who speaks it rather than standard Punjabi or Urdu. Dialects such as Majhi, Doabi, Malwai and Puadhi in India, or Jhangochi and Shahpuri in Pakistan, are matched in the same way. Requests for a female or male interpreter are common in healthcare and family matters and are accommodated wherever possible. Gurdwara, mosque and community events can be covered by consecutive or simultaneous interpreters.

Punjabi translation in two scripts

Punjabi has two scripts. Gurmukhi, written left to right, is used in India and by Sikh communities worldwide; Shahmukhi, an Arabic-based script written right to left, is used in Pakistan. Readers of one often cannot read the other, so tell us your audience and we will produce public information, letters, leaflets and consent forms in the right script, or in both.

Official documents in Pakistan are mostly in Urdu or English, and in Indian Punjab in Gurmukhi Punjabi or English. We translate birth and marriage certificates, court papers, land records, affidavits and witness statements, and supply certified Punjabi translation with a signed statement of accuracy, accepted by UK authorities such as courts, the Home Office and universities, and by employers. Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi documents for the United States, Canada or Australia can be certified by a provincially certified Canadian translator, with a US certificate of accuracy, or through NAATI in Australia.

Punjabi transcription

Police interview recordings, phone downloads, voice notes and recorded evidence often arrive in Punjabi mixed with Urdu, Hindi and English. We transcribe them with time stamps, translate into English and mark each language change clearly.

Sectors we support in Punjabi

Our vetted, trained and qualified Punjabi linguists can support courts, police forces, prosecutors and defence solicitors, immigration advisers, NHS services, children's and adult social care, schools, housing providers and faith and community organisations. You deal with one project team, every linguist is vetted and bound by confidentiality agreements, and data is handled in line with UK GDPR. Punjabi interpreters can work with Canadian courts and refugee proceedings, US immigration courts and attorneys, and Australian hospitals and councils.