SO SOCAL: The Best...The Beautiful...And The Bizarre : Quich Spoken Here

Since 1986, Berlitz International, the same language service company that preps tourists and traveling businessmen to ask directions to the Louvre or order goulash in Hungary, has furnished interpreters for L.A.’s immigration courts. Under contract to the U.S. Department of Justice, about 500 of them render the court proceedings in everything from Punjabi to Akan, and translate the testimony of immigrant petitioners into English.

Hired on a freelance basis by Berlitz, the interpreters can translate 225 languages, although, according to Susan Gryder, Berlitz senior quality assurance manager, this number changes as the “government’s needs change.” Last month, for example, Berlitz fulfilled close to 970 service orders from downtown’s immigration courts--with foochow (China), Amharic (Ethiopia), Mixtec (Mexico), Quiche (south-central Guatemala) and Gujarati (West India) among them.

Most cases involve immigrants seeking political asylum or the continuation of their expired visas. Despite outcomes that vary from deportation to the granting of asylum, and despite the stories of severe hardship and political oppression they routinely convey to the court, interpreters are expected to remain neutral and adhere to protocol. Says Vijay Sethi, a 10-year Berlitz veteran certified to translate five languages in immigration courts: “You may call me a robot, but I just do my job, concentrating on the conversations, the testimonies and the decisions.”

So, what’s in the Top 10? Here’s a list of the frequency of language service orders fulfilled by Berlitz for the immigration courts in L.A. last month:

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1 Spanish: 357

2 Armenian: 118

3 Russian: 63

4 Mandarin Chinese: 61

5 Farsi (Iran): 39

6 Punjabi (India and Pakistan): 37

7 Arabic: 34

8 Bengali (India and Bangladesh): 27

9 Urdu (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh): 27

10 Somali: 26