Multilingual collection · اردو
Urdu Multilingual Data Collection
Parallel programmes across several Indian languages at once, run to one specification so the resulting datasets are comparable rather than a set of incompatible deliveries. This page covers how that works specifically for Urdu, where shares most phonology with hindi but adds perso-arabic phonemes (/q/, /x/, /ɣ/, /z/, /f/) that many speakers merge.
- Language
- Urdu (ur-IN)
- Dialects covered
- 5
- Typical programme
- 250-1,000 hours
- Cities
- Hyderabad, Lucknow, Delhi
What changes when the language is Urdu
The service specification stays constant across languages; the linguistics do not. For Urdu, three things drive the design of a multilingual collection programme.
- Shares most phonology with Hindi but adds Perso-Arabic phonemes (/q/, /x/, /ɣ/, /z/, /f/) that many speakers merge
- Dialect spread: Dakhini (Hyderabad), Lucknawi, Dehlvi, Bihari Urdu
- Spoken Urdu and spoken Hindi are largely mutually intelligible; the distinction is mainly lexical and orthographic. Decide up front whether transcription is in Nastaliq, Devanagari, or both.
Technical specification
| Parameter | Standard |
|---|---|
| Languages | Up to 14 Indian languages plus Indian English in one programme |
| Consistency | One spec, one manifest schema, one QA standard across all languages |
| Balance | Per-language quotas set independently to match your deployment mix |
| Reporting | Single consolidated progress view across languages |
Urdu cohort design
Fix the script decision before fielding; retro-transcribing a Nastaliq dataset into Devanagari after delivery costs as much as the original transcription pass.
| Dimension | Typical split | Why it matters for Urdu |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Urdu forms that younger urban speakers have lost |
| Region | Uttar Pradesh / Telangana / Bihar and others | Dialect spread across 5 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
- Master specification written once and localised per language
- Per-language linguistic review of prompts and guides
- Parallel fielding across studio cities
- Central QA applying identical thresholds
- Consolidated delivery with per-language reports
Urdu-specific quality rules
- Right-to-left Nastaliq tooling errors and diacritic loss
- Merged phonemes transcribed by sound rather than by etymology, or vice versa, inconsistently
- Dakhini forms replaced with standard Urdu
The hardest language sets the timeline. Low-resource languages such as Assamese and Odia should start first.
Deliverables
- Per-language datasets in one schema
- Cross-language coverage report
- Consolidated QA summary
Worked example
A representative Urdu multilingual collection engagement: 250 hours from 500 speakers, 50/50 gender, ages 18-45, spread across Hyderabad, Lucknow, Delhi, recorded to the specification above and delivered in WAV with a per-utterance manifest.
Timeline: 6-12 weeks for a multi-language programme, depending on the smallest-pool language in scope.
Where this data is missing today
Indian Urdu specifically, and Dakhini in particular, are absent from public data dominated by Pakistani Urdu broadcast speech.
Frequently asked
How much does Urdu multilingual collection cost?
Priced per delivered hour or unit against a written spec. The cost drivers for Urdu are dialect spread, demographic narrowness and recording condition, in that order.
Which Urdu dialects are included?
By default Dakhini (Hyderabad), Lucknawi, Dehlvi, Bihari Urdu and others, tagged per speaker. You can also commission a single-dialect corpus if you are targeting one region.
Can you deliver Urdu data in our format?
Yes. Per-language datasets in one schema is the default, but naming, schema and directory structure follow your pipeline.
How long does a Urdu programme take?
6-12 weeks for a multi-language programme, depending on the smallest-pool language in scope.
Request a Urdu multilingual collection quote
Hours, speakers, dialects, deadline. Send what you have.