On a given morning in District of Columbia Superior Court, the soft voices of language interpreters can be heard just below the back-and-forth of judges, lawyers and litigants. Those voices have grown louder in recent years — figuratively, that is — according to court statistics.
During 2012, more than 8,700 local court proceedings required a foreign or sign language interpreter, compared with about 5,700 in 2002. Although last year’s figure wasn’t as high as the 10,000-plus court events that required interpreters during 2009 and 2010, it did include an all-time high for proceedings involving foreign languages other than Spanish — close to 1,200.
