Rangi (Langi) interpreting and translation

Rangi interpreting, remote and relay options

Most Rangi speakers also speak Swahili, so a practical first step is to confirm early whether your client is comfortable in Swahili. Where they are, we can supply a Swahili interpreter quickly. Where the client needs Rangi, perhaps an older person from Kondoa, or someone giving a detailed account in an asylum interview, remote interpreting by telephone or video is usually the most realistic route.

Our phone interpreters can be reached whatever the hour, on weekends and bank holidays too, and video calls can run in our own app or inside Teams or Zoom. Where a Rangi interpreter cannot work directly into English, relay through Swahili is available. Rangi has no established technical vocabulary in medicine or law, so concepts are often explained descriptively or borrowed from Swahili, which is why we brief interpreters on specialist subjects before medical appointments and legal interviews. Tell us if the client would rather speak with a man or a woman.

Written Rangi and certified Tanzanian documents

Written Rangi is used mainly in church and literacy materials. Its practical orthography includes the barred vowels ɨ and ʉ, which need a Unicode font that displays them correctly; we check those characters at proof stage. Community information, health notices and personal statements are the usual requests, along with translation of Rangi letters and messages into English.

Official documents from Tanzania are issued in Swahili or English, so certified translation for Rangi speakers usually involves Swahili, signed off with our statement of accuracy and accepted by UK authorities such as tribunals and university admissions offices, as well as by employers.

Transcription for research and evidence

Rangi attracts linguistic research, and fieldwork recordings need careful transcription. We produce time-stamped transcripts with English translation, preserving the barred vowels and marking any Swahili. Asylum applicants from central Tanzania can also be assessed through LADO, our language analysis service for questions of origin.

Settings for our linguists in Rangi

Our vetted, trained and qualified Rangi linguists can support asylum and immigration services, clinics and hospitals, community information projects, universities and field linguists. Booking through SILA Linguists® means a single coordinator for every Rangi request, interpreters we have checked ourselves, and recordings and papers kept private under signed NDAs and UK GDPR.