African speech data from 8 countries
Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba and Amharic as spontaneous two-person conversation, plus African varieties of English, French, Portuguese and Arabic: 16,000 hours from 1,600 native speakers recorded in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, the DR Congo, Angola, Egypt and Morocco, at $60 to $65 per hour of audio.
Compare the African datasets
| Language | Recorded in | Hours | Speakers | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swahili | Kenya | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Hausa | Nigeria | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Yoruba | Nigeria | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Amharic | Ethiopia | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| South African English | South Africa | 2,000 | 200 | $60 |
| Congolese French | DR Congo | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Angolan Portuguese | Angola | 500 | 50 | $65 |
| Egyptian Arabic | Egypt | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Moroccan Darija | Morocco | 1,500 | 150 | $65 |
| All 9 | 8 countries | 16,000 | 1,600 | $60 to $65 |
List prices in US dollars per hour of audio. Need another language, more hours or your own recording setup? We collect speech data to spec.
isiZulu, isiXhosa and Sesotho are recorded to spec by native speakers: South African speech data.
What differs between these languages
Swahili
Swahili builds words from prefixes and suffixes around a root, and noun classes change agreement across the whole sentence.
Hausa
Hausa is tonal and has long and short vowels, but standard spelling marks neither, so text alone doesn't tell a model how a word sounds.
Yoruba
Yoruba has three tones that change meaning. Careful writing marks them with accents, but most text online leaves them out, so web text is ambiguous.
Amharic
Amharic is written in the Ge'ez script, has ejective consonants, and uses doubled consonants that change meaning but aren't shown in writing.
South African English
South African English is shaped by contact with Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa and other local languages.
Congolese French
French in the DR Congo is spoken alongside Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo and Tshiluba, and everyday conversation mixes them freely.
Angolan Portuguese
Angolan Portuguese is the first language of a growing share of Angolans and carries Kimbundu, Umbundu and Kikongo influence in vocabulary and rhythm.
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood Arabic dialect thanks to Egyptian film and TV, but it's far from Modern Standard Arabic.
Moroccan Darija
Moroccan Darija is hard even for speakers of other Arabic dialects to follow. It drops many short vowels, borrows from Amazigh, French and Spanish, and is often written online in Latin letters and numbers.
What every dataset includes
| Speech | Spontaneous two-person conversations recorded in-country, not read scripts |
|---|---|
| Audio | Dual-channel, one channel per speaker |
| Transcripts | Time-aligned and human-verified |
| Metadata | Age, gender, region and recording device for every speaker |
| Consent | Every speaker signed explicit commercial-use consent; the full consent chain is provided for legal review |
| License | Commercial use, including training and evaluating ASR, TTS and other voice AI models |
| Price | $60 to $65 per hour of audio |
Built for
Training and evaluating speech models for African markets:
- Automatic speech recognition (ASR / STT)
- Text-to-speech & voice synthesis prosody
- Voice agents and IVR
- Speaker diarization & turn-taking models
- Speech LLM / audio-understanding fine-tuning
Frequently asked questions
Which African languages do you have off the shelf?
The catalog has 4 African languages: Swahili (Kenya), Hausa (Nigeria), Yoruba (Nigeria) and Amharic (Ethiopia). It also has 5 African varieties of global languages: South African English, Congolese French, Angolan Portuguese, Egyptian Arabic and Moroccan Darija. All are spontaneous two-person conversations recorded in-country by native speakers.
Do you have isiZulu, isiXhosa or Sesotho speech data?
Not off the shelf. isiZulu, isiXhosa and Sesotho are recorded to spec by native speakers, scripted or spontaneous, with time-aligned transcripts and documented consent. The off-the-shelf South African dataset is South African English: 2,000 hours at $60 per hour.
How much does African speech data cost?
List prices are per hour of audio: $60 for South African English; $65 for the other 8. Each dataset page shows its price, and volume and multi-language discounts are available on request.
Can you record other African languages?
Yes. Other languages, such as Igbo, Somali or Oromo, can be recorded to spec by native speakers, scripted or spontaneous, with time-aligned transcripts and documented consent. We confirm feasibility and send a quote within one business day.
Hear the languages before you buy
Tell us which languages you need and share your company email. We’ll reach out shortly with representative audio, matching transcripts and the metadata schema, so you can check quality before you commit.