Call-centre speech · தமிழ்
Tamil Call Centre Speech Data
Simulated and consented real-world contact-centre audio in Indian languages, recorded over telephony-grade channels so it matches the bandwidth your production system actually sees. This page covers how that works specifically for Tamil, where extreme diglossia: written tamil and spoken tamil differ so much that read-speech corpora are near-useless for conversational asr.
- Language
- Tamil (ta-IN)
- Dialects covered
- 6
- Typical programme
- 500-2,000 hours
- Cities
- Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai
What changes when the language is Tamil
The service specification stays constant across languages; the linguistics do not. For Tamil, three things drive the design of a call-centre speech programme.
- Extreme diglossia: written Tamil and spoken Tamil differ so much that read-speech corpora are near-useless for conversational ASR
- Dialect spread: Chennai (Madras Bashai), Kongu (Coimbatore), Madurai, Nellai (Tirunelveli)
- Tanglish is the default urban register. Technology, finance, and workplace vocabulary is largely English embedded in Tamil syntax.
Technical specification
| Parameter | Standard |
|---|---|
| Channel | 8 kHz narrowband telephony plus 48 kHz reference where required |
| Codec | G.711 / Opus simulated to match your stack |
| Structure | Agent and customer on separate channels |
| Scenarios | Billing, delivery, KYC, recharge, collections, support, sales |
| Emotion | Neutral, frustrated and escalated variants on request |
Tamil cohort design
Recruit by district rather than by city alone; Chennai-only cohorts produce models that degrade sharply in the south and west of the state.
| Dimension | Typical split | Why it matters for Tamil |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | 50 / 50 | Pitch range differences change acoustic model behaviour; unbalanced cohorts bias recognition |
| Age | 18-25: 30%, 26-40: 40%, 41-60: 30% | Older speakers retain conservative Tamil forms that younger urban speakers have lost |
| Region | Tamil Nadu / Puducherry / parts of Karnataka and Kerala and others | Dialect spread across 6 recognised varieties |
| Education | Mixed, including below-graduate | Prompt-reading fluency correlates with education and skews prosody |
| Condition | Studio / quiet room / field | Match the noise profile of your deployment |
Process
- Scenario library built from your call taxonomy
- Agent-side speakers briefed on your script and tone
- Recording over the specified codec path
- Transcription with intent and outcome labels
- Delivery with per-scenario counts
Tamil-specific quality rules
- Transcribers normalising spoken Tamil into literary Tamil, destroying the acoustic-text alignment
- ழ / ள / ல confusion
- Inconsistent handling of English insertions: Tamil script transliteration vs Latin script must be fixed in the guide
Narrowband is simulated at capture time, not by downsampling clean studio audio, which would leave unrealistic artefacts.
Deliverables
- Dual-channel call audio
- Verbatim transcripts
- Intent, outcome and sentiment labels
- Scenario coverage matrix
Worked example
A representative Tamil call-centre speech engagement: 500 hours from 1,000 speakers, 50/50 gender, ages 18-45, spread across Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, recorded to the specification above and delivered in WAV with a per-utterance manifest.
Timeline: 3-6 weeks for 100-250 hours.
Where this data is missing today
Almost all public Tamil audio is literary read speech from news or scripture. Genuine colloquial Tamil, especially southern and Kongu varieties, is the single biggest gap for anyone building Tamil voice products.
Frequently asked
How much does Tamil call-centre speech cost?
Priced per delivered hour or unit against a written spec. The cost drivers for Tamil are dialect spread, demographic narrowness and recording condition, in that order.
Which Tamil dialects are included?
By default Chennai (Madras Bashai), Kongu (Coimbatore), Madurai, Nellai (Tirunelveli) and others, tagged per speaker. You can also commission a single-dialect corpus if you are targeting one region.
Can you deliver Tamil data in our format?
Yes. Dual-channel call audio is the default, but naming, schema and directory structure follow your pipeline.
How long does a Tamil programme take?
3-6 weeks for 100-250 hours.
Request a Tamil call-centre speech quote
Hours, speakers, dialects, deadline. Send what you have.