A US COURT INTERPRETER’S PERSPECTIVE
As one of six certified Russian court interpreters in the state of Florida, I am often contacted by clients who found my contact information on the Registry of Certified Court Interpreters https://www.flcourts.org/content/download/217076/file/certified-russian-registry.pdf. That is great, but sometimes it turns out that they googled ‘certified Russian court interpreter’ to ask me: “Do you also speak Georgian (Armenian, Uzbek, Lithuanian, etc.)? I have received multiple requests from different court administrations and other interpreting agencies. Such requests were one of the reasons I have started Nota Bene! However, I have always felt like some historical, cultural, and linguistic clarification is needed here.
USSR (The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), a.k.a. the Soviet Union, consisted of fifteen ‘brotherly’ Republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Unlike in the USA, not all the ‘brothers’ were considered equal. The Russian Republic was the ‘big’ brother, while all the other members were ‘younger brothers’. Linguistically speaking, Russian was considered the ‘language of the land’, used by government institutions, mass media, and at the workplace, while the native languages of Soviet Republics had been actively suppressed.
While the linguistic map of the Soviet Union was extremely diverse and consisted of languages from different groups and families (Slavic, Mongolic, Northeast Caucasian, Finnic, just to name a few), Russian was the language of education, and learning the native language was at best ‘optional’. This and a number of other factors, ranging from Holodomor (Famine-Genocide), eradication of the national elites during the Stalin era and simply ‘tossing’ the population from one Republic to another (some, like Crimean Tatars, forcefully, some more naturally, through economic means like urbanization, jobs availability, etc.) resulted in an amazingly quick and radical ‘Russification’ of the linguistically diverse Soviet Union.
As a result, even now, almost 30 years after the USSR collapse, Russian is still considered a ‘bridge’ language spoken by the citizens of the counties that used to be the Soviet Republics or part of the ‘Soviet bloc’. However, this is only partially true. The older generation, born and educated in Soviet Union, indeed most probably speaks Russian at ‘near-native fluency’, even though it may not be their mother tongue. The younger generations, educated in the post-soviet schools do not necessarily speak Russian fluently, even though they may understand some of it.
This notion of ‘native language fluency’ is especially important in the judiciary. Its specialized vocabulary and complex grammar make it difficult to understand for some people even in their native language and it gets even harder with the acquired or ‘second’ language. That is why people request an interpreter in court even though they can communicate in English in their everyday life. There is even a special term for this – LEP (Limited English Proficiency).
The same notion can be applied to Russian. Sometimes people request a Russian interpreter, even though they have ‘Limited Russian Proficiency’. It can happen just because they think it is easier to get a Russian interpreter, or they feel that their Russian is much better than their English, so they will get at least some help. Unfortunately, it does not work this way. It is not the interpreter’s job to assess the level of a client’s proficiency in Russian. If it is not sufficient, however, the interpretation from/into Russian does not provide full access to justice and therefore, defies the purpose of providing interpretation services for the people with limited English proficiency in the US judiciary.
The pool of qualified interpreters for the languages of the former USSR is indeed very limited and court certification is not available. However, it does not mean that Russian is always an acceptable compromise. The native language is always the best solution if there is any doubt about the level of proficiency in Russian. As far as the choice of an interpreter is concerned, the best option would be to use a certified Russian interpreter born and educated in the Soviet Republic and fluent in the language requested to interpret from/into the native language; the second option would be to use qualified and properly vetted interpreters of the native language.