Africa · Ethiopia
Amharic conversational speech dataset
2,000 hours of spontaneous Amharic conversations recorded in Ethiopia across 200 vetted native speakers. Dual-channel audio with time-aligned transcripts, speaker metadata (age, gender, region, device), and full chain-of-consent documentation. Licensed for commercial ASR, TTS, and voice AI training.
Dataset specifications
| Language | Amharic |
|---|---|
| Recorded in | Ethiopia |
| Speech type | Spontaneous two-person conversations |
| Volume | 2,000 hours |
| Speakers | 200 vetted native speakers |
| Audio | Dual-channel (one channel per speaker) |
| Transcripts | Time-aligned, human-verified |
| Metadata | Age, gender, region, recording device |
| License | Commercial (training & evaluation) |
| Price | $65 per hour of audio |
Need more hours, another dialect or your own recording setup? We collect speech data to spec.
Built for
Training and evaluating speech models that must handle real Amharic speech:
- Automatic speech recognition (ASR / STT)
- Text-to-speech & voice synthesis prosody
- Voice agents and IVR for Ethiopia
- Speaker diarization & turn-taking models
- Speech LLM / audio-understanding fine-tuning
Why conversational data?
Models trained on read speech consistently underperform on spontaneous audio. Disfluencies, overlap, and natural speech rates aren’t in the training distribution. This dataset closes that gap for Amharic. Read more in our guide to conversational vs. scripted speech data.
Free samples
Audit the Amharic data yourself
Share your company email and we’ll email you representative audio, matching transcripts, and the metadata schema. Check audio quality, transcript accuracy, and speaker diversity before you spend a dollar.
Public alternatives
Public Amharic speech data vs. this dataset
| Source | What it is | License | Commercial training |
|---|---|---|---|
| IARPA Babel Amharic Language Pack (LDC2019S22) (opens in a new tab)Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) | About 204 hours of Amharic conversational and scripted telephone speech. | IARPA Babel Amharic Agreement via LDC (fee applies): Non-Member version is non-commercial only; For-Profit Member version covers commercial use | Paid license |
| Common Voice Scripted Speech (Amharic) (opens in a new tab)Mozilla Common Voice (Mozilla Data Collective) | Read speech recordings in Amharic from Mozilla's Common Voice project. | CC0 1.0 | Allowed |
| Common Voice Spontaneous Speech (Amharic) (opens in a new tab)Mozilla Common Voice (Mozilla Data Collective) | Spontaneous spoken responses to questions in Amharic. | CC0 1.0 | Allowed |
| FLEURS (Amharic) (opens in a new tab)Google | Read sentences from the FLoRes translation benchmark, recorded in 102 languages. | CC BY 4.0 | Allowed |
Babel Amharic is phone speech that needs LDC for-profit membership for commercial use; the others are read sentences or answers to questions. This dataset is licensed for commercial training.
Licenses as published by each source, checked October 2026. Check the current terms before use.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What does the Amharic speech dataset include?
2,000 hours of spontaneous two-person conversations from 200 vetted native speakers recorded in Ethiopia, delivered as dual-channel audio with time-aligned transcripts, speaker metadata (age, gender, region, device), and consent documentation.
What makes Amharic hard for speech recognition?
Amharic is written in the Ge'ez script, has ejective consonants, and uses doubled consonants that change meaning but aren't shown in writing. Its root-and-pattern grammar creates many word forms, and public Amharic speech data is scarce.
Is there free Amharic speech data?
Yes, Common Voice Scripted Speech, Common Voice Spontaneous Speech and FLEURS are free for commercial use. The IARPA Babel Amharic Language Pack needs a paid license. This dataset is spontaneous two-person conversation recorded in Ethiopia, with speaker metadata, one channel per speaker and signed commercial-use consent.
Can I use this Amharic dataset commercially?
Yes. The dataset is licensed for commercial use, including training ASR, TTS, and other voice-AI models. Every speaker has signed explicit commercial-use consent, and we provide the full consent chain for your legal review.
How much does the Amharic speech dataset cost?
Pricing is $65 per hour of audio. Volume discounts are available for full-dataset and multi-language purchases. Contact us for a quote.
Can I evaluate samples before buying?
Yes. Request samples with your company email, and we'll email you representative audio files and matching transcripts so your team can audit quality before committing.
$60/hr