Urdu interpreting and translation

Urdu interpreting services across public life

Our Urdu interpreters work in magistrates' and crown courts, police stations, solicitors' offices, immigration appointments, maternity wards, GP surgeries, safeguarding meetings and parents' evenings. Telephone interpreting is available around the clock, all year, and video interpreting runs through the SILA Linguists® app or the system your organisation already uses. For seminars, faith events and international meetings we provide consecutive, simultaneous and remote simultaneous interpreting.

Formal Urdu used in legal and medical settings draws heavily on Farsi and Arabic vocabulary that some clients rarely use, so interpreters adjust register and check understanding without simplifying the meaning. A female or male Urdu interpreter can be requested, which is often important in maternity, mental health and family cases.

Urdu translation in Nastaliq

Urdu is written right to left, traditionally in the sloping Nastaliq style, and many design programs default to Naskh, which readers find less natural. We supply translations typeset in proper Nastaliq fonts, with numerals running left to right as they should.

Certified Urdu translation covers birth and marriage certificates, nikah nama marriage contracts, family registration certificates from NADRA, divorce papers, court orders, property documents and academic records, each with a signed statement of accuracy, accepted by UK authorities such as the Home Office, courts and universities, and by employers. Pakistani documents for American applications come with a translator's certificate of accuracy, and for Canadian ones we can arrange a provincially certified translator. Names are transliterated to match passports. For public information, we write in clear everyday Urdu rather than literary prose, so leaflets and letters reach the widest readership.

Urdu transcription and language analysis

Police interviews, covert recordings, phone calls and video evidence are transcribed verbatim with timings and translated into English. Speakers often mix Urdu with Punjabi or English, and our transcribers label each switch. Where nationality or origin is in question, SILA Linguists® can also arrange language analysis (LADO) by specialist analysts.

Where we can help in Urdu

Our vetted, trained and qualified Urdu linguists can support courts, solicitors and barristers, police and probation, the NHS and mental health trusts, social services, schools, housing providers, mosques and community organisations, and businesses trading with Pakistan. One project team looks after you from enquiry to delivery, with vetted professionals bound by non-disclosure agreements and UK GDPR safeguards. Urdu interpreters can support US immigration courts and attorneys and Canadian refugee and family proceedings, alongside hospitals and schools in both countries.