South Asia · Pakistan
Urdu conversational speech dataset
1,000 hours of spontaneous Urdu conversations recorded in Pakistan across 100 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 | Urdu |
|---|---|
| Recorded in | Pakistan |
| Speech type | Spontaneous two-person conversations |
| Volume | 1,000 hours |
| Speakers | 100 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 Urdu speech:
- Automatic speech recognition (ASR / STT)
- Text-to-speech & voice synthesis prosody
- Voice agents and IVR for Pakistan
- 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 Urdu. Read more in our guide to conversational vs. scripted speech data.
Free samples
Audit the Urdu 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 Urdu speech data vs. this dataset
| Source | What it is | License | Commercial training |
|---|---|---|---|
| IndicVoices (opens in a new tab)AI4Bharat | Read (8%), extempore (76%) and conversational (15%) speech from districts across India; includes Urdu; gated download. | CC BY 4.0 | Allowed |
| Kathbath (opens in a new tab)AI4Bharat | IndicCorp sentences read aloud by contributors in Indian districts, collected on the Karya platform; includes Urdu. | CC0 (dataset card text); Hugging Face metadata lists CC BY 4.0; AI4Bharat notes it does not own the IndicCorp source text | Allowed |
| Mozilla Common Voice Scripted Speech 27.0 (opens in a new tab)Mozilla Foundation (Mozilla Data Collective) | Read speech: short clips of people reading given Urdu sentences aloud, with the sentence as transcript; 295 hours recorded, 80 hours validated. | CC0 1.0 | Allowed |
| FLEURS (opens in a new tab)Google | Read sentences from the FLoRes translation benchmark, recorded for 102 languages; training sets hold around 10 hours per language (Urdu config labeled ur_pk). | CC BY 4.0 | Allowed |
IndicVoices and Kathbath Urdu were recorded in India and Common Voice and FLEURS are read; ours is spontaneous two-person conversation recorded in Pakistan, one channel per speaker.
Licenses as published by each source, checked October 2026. Check the current terms before use.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What does the Urdu speech dataset include?
1,000 hours of spontaneous two-person conversations from 100 vetted native speakers recorded in Pakistan, delivered as dual-channel audio with time-aligned transcripts, speaker metadata (age, gender, region, device), and consent documentation.
What makes Urdu hard for speech recognition?
Urdu is written in Perso-Arabic script, usually without short vowels, so one written word can be read several ways. Spoken Urdu shares most of its grammar with Hindi but draws on Persian and Arabic vocabulary, and Pakistani speakers mix in plenty of English and Punjabi.
Is there free Urdu speech data?
Yes, IndicVoices, Kathbath, Mozilla Common Voice and FLEURS are free for commercial use. This dataset is spontaneous two-person conversation recorded in Pakistan, with speaker metadata, one channel per speaker and signed commercial-use consent.
Can I use this Urdu 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 Urdu 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.
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