Europe is in the middle of its biggest refugee crisis since World War II. As hundreds of thousands of migrants come to seek a better life, European governments have to determine who to let in and who to keep out.
In order to be granted asylum as refugees, they have to convince border agencies they are fleeing serious danger or persecution. There is also agrowing suspicion that the few documents refugees do provide are forged—and most don’t have any papers anyway. European countrieshave “safe” lists of countries (pdf) that they won’t accept refugees from,such as the Balkan states and many migrants trying to get in from those places are disguising themselves as Syrian in hopes of getting asylum.
To determine which asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin, governments use what is called “language analysis.” The test is pretty simple: Do they speak like where they say they are from?
Some European countries, such as Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium use in-house government departments. But Sweden, the UK, Denmark, and other countries around the world use private companies to carry out this delicate work.
One Swedish company, Verified, has conducted over 24,000 analyses and insiststheir services provide robust “expert testimony” on an “individual’s linguistic background.” These experts include analysts who are native speakers of the language being analyzed and supervising linguists.
“The way we speak is shaped by our past experiences,” Roderick Martin, CEO of Verified, tells Quartz. “In cases where no documents to support the identity are produced, attributing a dialect to the claimant can greatly help assessing the veracity of the residential history given.”
A sample Verified report (pdf) shows how it works. An asylum seeker claims to be from Syria, in the Aleppo province. A native speaker and a linguist are brought in to test for this claim. The native speaker interviews the asylum seeker for around 20 minutes, asking a number of questions, while using their “over-all intuition” to identify particular dialectical traits.
The analyst then compiles a report that looks at different aspects of the language: phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicology. The report will then arrive at a conclusion, in this case “the language analysis shows with certainty that the results obtained are clearly consistent with the linguistic community as stated in the hypothesis.”
Controversies abound
It sounds good in theory. But Verified’s rival, Sprakab, also from Sweden, has been embroiled in a range of controversies.
Last year, one of its key language analysts was accused of being a convicted drug smuggler that lied about his qualifications. Sprakab was also criticized by the UK Supreme Court for providing “wholly inappropriate” advice to the British Home Office, which may have contributed to the wrongful deportations of hundreds of asylum seekers. A Swedish immigration tribunal had also cast doubt on the work by a Sprakab analyst.
Sprakab denies the allegations, insisting the analyst in question’s work is “flawless.” In a statement sent to Quartz, it argues “a drug conviction 21 years in the past, which was erased 17 years back, has no implications of the work ea20 [the analyst] does at Sprakab.” As for claims on quality control, Sprakab says that several professors have failed its tests to become an analyst.
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