Which Languages get Certified

At 7C Lingo, almost all of our clients ask us if our translators and interpreters are certified. It’s a completely reasonable question, as any business wants to ensure that they are working with the best, especially when it comes to language and cultural services. After all, studies report that almost $2 billion is lost annually due to language or cultural misunderstandings. However, this question is more complicated than it seems. There are over 7,000 languages spoken across the globe, with 37 of those languages reporting upwards of 50 million speakers. Because of this, many languages lack official channels to vet interpreters and translators. Because of this, there are several languages that lack a national accreditation program, despite their widespread use within the United States. Here are three that 7C Lingo believes that national language organizations should look into developing a solid certification program for.

Tagalog

The Tagalog language is considered to be one of the original languages of the Philippines. Filipino, the official language of the country, is actually derived from Tagalog, and utilizes a more standardized grammatical structure. While Filipino is used in many urban areas and also for government and legal work, Tagalog continues to be heavily used in more rural areas of the country, especially on its largest island, Luzon. Because of the Philippines’ close relations and strong cultural exchange with the US, a sizable population of Filipino immigrants have made their way to the States, bringing along their native languages. In 2021, it was estimated that over 1.7 million people residing in the United States speak Tagalog. Despite this large population of speakers, Tagalog suffers from a severe lack of accredited certification programs available for translation and interpretation, with large language organizations offering no official guidelines for certifying the language.

Hindi

While India has a stunning level of linguistic diversity (over 120 officially recognized languages in the country alone), Hindi continues to be its most widespread. With 345 million speakers around the world according to a survey conducted by Ethnolouge, Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in the world, trailing just behind English at 380 million speakers. While the use of Hindi is widespread, the Hindi speaking population in America is actually somewhat small, with only around 865,000 people residing in the US claiming to speak it. However, these numbers are quickly changing. For more than two decades, the plurality of immigrants coming to the United States listed their country of origin as being Mexico. In 2022, though, this changed, as Indian immigrants slightly beat out Mexico, with a reported 120,000 Indian immigrants coming to the United States that year as opposed to Mexico’s 117,000. Because of the rapid shift in these demographics, many language institutions have yet to tackle developing certification materials for Hindi, leaving language service agencies and third party organizations to develop custom solutions to vet their Hindi translators and interpreters.

Haitian Creole

The Creole languages arose from an intermingling of French with several African languages during France’s colonial period in the 17th and 18th centuries. While these languages do have some crossover with the original French, they are very different at a grammatical level, with a prime example being that these languages do not conjugate their verbs. Over 100 creole languages and dialects exist, and while there is some debate, many agree that the most commonly spoken language in this group is Haitian Creole, the official language of Haiti. Because of social upheaval that has plagued the country and its close proximity to the United States, many immigrants have chosen to relocate to the US. In 2021, it was reported that almost 900,000 people living in the US spoke Haitian Creole as a second language, with these populations being mostly concentrated in Florida and New York. While these two states have developed certification programs to ensure Haitian immigrants in need of translation and interpretation services are paired with experts in their native language, the majority of states have not.

How to Ensure You are Working With Experts in These Languages?

Due to a lack of nationally accredited programs for these languages, it can be daunting to hire a Tagalog translator or Hindi interpreter. How can you be sure that you are working with someone who is skilled in a language that you do not speak? While you can perform your own research to find out how to tackle these issues, we recommend working with an established language services industry. These organizations already know what certifications are available for each language, and if there are none, they will have developed their own procedure for vetting their language experts. Plus, many of these agencies offer services outside of translation and interpretation, like cultural development training to prepare your workforce for interacting with a diverse audience.