West Bengal · studio network
Speech Data Collection in Kolkata
Kolkata is one of the recording sites in our nationwide network. Rarhi standard Bengali in cholit register, with heavy English mixing in professional speech.
- State
- West Bengal
- Languages
- 4
- Setup
- Treated booth plus transcription team co-located for fast turnaround.
Why we record in Kolkata
The primary site for Bengali, and the gateway to the Eastern languages that most national corpora skip entirely.
Kolkata Bengali with a distinct formal register, plus Hindi, Odia and Assamese speaking communities. The Bengali spoken here differs meaningfully from what is spoken in the districts.
Languages recorded here
- Bengali
- Hindi
- Indian English
- Urdu
Dialect profile
Rarhi standard Bengali in cholit register, with heavy English mixing in professional speech.
Recruitment pool
Primary Indian Bengali pool; North Bengal varieties require Siliguri fielding.
Over-represents urban educated Bengali. District Bengali, which is what most speakers actually use, needs deliberate out-of-city recruitment.
City choice is a data-quality decision, not a logistics decision. It determines which dialects end up in your corpus.
Studio setup
Treated booth plus transcription team co-located for fast turnaround.
Running sessions in Kolkata
Studio capacity is adequate rather than plentiful. Extended festival periods each autumn effectively pause recruitment, which has to be planned around rather than discovered.
Field recording conditions here
Tram and street ambience, market interiors and older building acoustics with long reverberation.
The numbers we hold ourselves to
- 100% of delivered files pass automated technical QA for SNR, clipping, duration and silence
- 5-25% of files pass a second native-speaker content review, stratified by city, dialect and transcriber, and escalating to 100% on any batch that fails the agreed threshold
- Accepted yield runs 85-90% for scripted speech, 60-70% for spontaneous, 55-65% for conversational and 50-60% for telephony
- Default cohort quotas: 50/50 gender, with age bands at 30% (18-25), 40% (26-40) and 30% (41-60)
- 48 kHz / 24-bit capture, delivered as 16-bit PCM WAV, with studio sessions held below a -50 dBFS noise floor
- First response within one working day; a scoped, fixed quote within two to three
These are the figures a delivery is measured against, not aspirations. A batch that misses them is re-recorded at our cost rather than repaired.
What every session includes
- Local coordinators recruit and screen against your quota matrix
- Participants are briefed and consented on site
- Sessions run to the same template as every other city in the network
- Technical QA runs on upload, so defects are caught while the speaker can still be recalled
Frequently asked
Can you record in Kolkata only?
You can, but be clear about what that buys you. Over-represents urban educated Bengali. District Bengali, which is what most speakers actually use, needs deliberate out-of-city recruitment. For most languages we recommend spreading the cohort across at least three cities.
How fast can sessions start in Kolkata?
Recruitment typically takes one to two weeks depending on how narrow your quotas are. Studio capacity is adequate rather than plentiful. Extended festival periods each autumn effectively pause recruitment, which has to be planned around rather than discovered.
What does field recording in Kolkata sound like?
Tram and street ambience, market interiors and older building acoustics with long reverberation. Every session's noise profile is documented so you can match it against your deployment environment.
Which languages are strongest in Kolkata?
Bengali, Hindi, Indian English, Urdu. Primary Indian Bengali pool; North Bengal varieties require Siliguri fielding.
Record in Kolkata
Send the language, speaker count and conditions you need.