Arabic speech data: Modern Standard Arabic and 4 dialects
Modern Standard Arabic and 4 dialects (Gulf, Levantine, Egyptian and Moroccan Darija) as spontaneous two-person conversation: 6,500 hours from 650 native speakers recorded in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco, at $65 to $90 per hour of audio.
Compare the Arabic datasets
| Variety | Recorded in | Hours | Speakers | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern Standard Arabic | Saudi Arabia | 2,000 | 200 | $90 |
| Gulf Arabic | Saudi Arabia | 500 | 50 | $90 |
| Levantine Arabic | Lebanon | 500 | 50 | $65 |
| Egyptian Arabic | Egypt | 2,000 | 200 | $65 |
| Moroccan Darija | Morocco | 1,500 | 150 | $65 |
| All 5 | 4 countries | 6,500 | 650 | $65 to $90 |
List prices in US dollars per hour of audio. Need another dialect, more hours or your own recording setup? We collect speech data to spec.
What differs between MSA and the dialects
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic is the language of news, formal speeches and writing, but almost nobody speaks it at home, and speakers carry their own dialect's accent into it.
Gulf Arabic
Gulf Arabic differs from Modern Standard Arabic in sounds ("q" often becomes "g" and "k" can become "ch"), vocabulary and grammar, and it has no fixed spelling.
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, spoken in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, turns "q" into a glottal stop in the cities and has its own vocabulary and verb forms.
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 | $65 to $90 per hour of audio |
Built for
Training and evaluating speech models for Arabic-speaking 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 Arabic dialect should I buy for a voice agent in Saudi Arabia?
Gulf Arabic. The Gulf Arabic dataset is recorded in Saudi Arabia: 500 hours of conversation from 50 native speakers at $90 per hour. Callers speak their own dialect rather than Modern Standard Arabic, so Gulf conversation is closer to what the agent will hear. Add Modern Standard Arabic (2,000 hours, recorded in Saudi Arabia) if the agent also needs to handle formal speech or read text aloud.
Is Modern Standard Arabic enough to recognize dialect speech?
Usually not. People speak their dialect in everyday conversation, and each dialect differs from MSA in sounds, vocabulary and grammar, so a model trained only on MSA misses much of what they say. Pair MSA with the dialect of your market, recorded where it is spoken: Gulf Arabic in Saudi Arabia, Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Egyptian Arabic in Egypt and Moroccan Darija in Morocco.
How much does Arabic speech data cost?
List prices are per hour of audio: $65 for Levantine Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and Moroccan Darija; $90 for Modern Standard Arabic and Gulf Arabic. Each dataset page shows its price, and volume and multi-language discounts are available on request.
Can you record an Arabic dialect that is not listed?
Yes. Other dialects, such as Iraqi, Sudanese or Tunisian Arabic, 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 dialects before you buy
Tell us which dialects 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.