SilencioNetwork/hausa-speech

Hausa Speech Dataset

The most comprehensive Hausa speech dataset on HuggingFace - natural, real-world Hausa from native speakers across West Africa.

Dataset Overview

• Total audio samples: 42 recordings
• Total duration: ~25 minutes
• Primary region: Nigeria (Kano, Northern Nigeria)
• Context: Natural spontaneous speech (free_speech)
• Audio format: WAV files
• Sample rate: 48 kHz
• License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (free for research, non-commercial use)

Language Context

Hausa (هَرْشٜن هَوْس) is one of Africa's most widely spoken languages:

• Speakers: 80M+ (50M native, 30M+ L2)
• Geographic spread: Nigeria (Northern states), Niger, Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, diaspora
• Trade language: West African lingua franca
• Writing system: Latin (Boko) and Arabic (Ajami) scripts
• Linguistic family: Afro-Asiatic (Chadic branch)
• Cultural significance: Hausa literature, Nollywood (Kannywood), Islamic scholarship
• Digital presence: Growing on social media, YouTube, Nigerian tech ecosystem

Target Applications

This dataset is designed for:

• Hausa ASR systems - Speech recognition for 80M+ speakers
• Voice assistants - Nigerian tech startups, mobile banking
• TTS for Hausa - Text-to-speech with authentic Northern Nigerian pronunciation
• Language learning apps - Pronunciation training for Hausa learners
• Content moderation - Social media platforms operating in Nigeria/Niger
• Transcription services - Kannywood (Hausa film industry), radio, podcasts
• Banking & fintech - Voice-enabled banking in Northern Nigeria

Dataset Structure

hausa-speech/
└── data/
    ├── audio/              # 42 WAV files
    └── metadata.csv        # Speaker metadata & transcripts

Data Splits

Hausa (Nigeria)

• Files: 42 recordings
• Dialect: Primarily Kano Hausa (standard/prestige dialect)
• Context: Natural spontaneous speech
• Use case: General-purpose Hausa ASR, West African voice AI

Languages Sampled in This Dataset ✅

42 audio samples available for immediate download:

• Hausa: 42 files (~25 minutes)

Full OTS Inventory Available 📊

This sample represents <0.16% of Silencio's complete Hausa speech inventory.

Contact us for access to our full Hausa corpus:

Hausa by Country:

• Nigeria: 964 hours, 124,481 recordings
• United States: 5 hours, 1,052 recordings
• United States Minor Outlying Islands: 3 hours, 273 recordings
• South Africa: 2 hours, 192 recordings
• Algeria: 2 hours, 230 recordings
• American Samoa: 1 hour, 142 recordings
• Niger: 1 hour, 135 recordings
• Uganda: 1 hour, 50 recordings
• + 10 more countries (diaspora communities)

Total: 981+ hours across 127,000+ recordings

Contact us for access: sofia@silencioai.com

Key Features

✅ Native speakers - Authentic Nigerian Hausa (Kano dialect)
✅ Natural speech - Real conversational Hausa, not scripted
✅ Standard dialect - Kano variant (prestige/most widely understood)
✅ Diverse topics - Daily life, opinions, business, culture
✅ High audio quality - 48 kHz WAV format
✅ Rich metadata - Gender, dialect, emotions, transcriptions in Latin script
✅ Ethical data collection - Consent-based, privacy-preserving

Use Cases

1. Hausa Speech Recognition

Build ASR systems for the 80M+ Hausa-speaking market in Nigeria, Niger, and West Africa.

2. Voice Banking & Fintech

Power voice-enabled mobile banking in Northern Nigeria (Kano, Kaduna, Katsina).

3. Hausa TTS

Train text-to-speech models with authentic Kano/Northern Nigerian Hausa pronunciation.

4. Content Moderation

Build speech detection for Nigerian social media platforms and Kannywood content.

5. Kannywood & Media

Improve automatic transcription for Hausa films, radio, podcasts (Kannywood is a major industry).

6. Voice Assistants

Develop Hausa-language voice assistants for Northern Nigeria's growing smartphone market.

Loading the Dataset

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load full Hausa dataset
dataset = load_dataset("SilencioNetwork/hausa-speech")

# Access samples
for sample in dataset['train']:
    audio = sample['audio']
    transcript = sample['transcript']
    dialect = sample['dialect']
    print(f"Transcript: {transcript}")
    print(f"Dialect: {dialect}")

Sample Metadata

Each recording includes:

• file_name: Audio file path
• id: Unique recording ID
• gender: Speaker gender
• location: Speaker location
• mother_tongue: Native language (Hausa)
• dialect: Regional variant (Nigeria - Kano)
• duration: Recording length (seconds)
• emotions: Emotion labels (happy, tired, relaxed, etc.)
• language: Hausa
• type_of_script: free_speech (spontaneous, unscripted)
• transcript: Whisper-generated transcription (Latin/Boko script)
• script: Original prompt (question asked in Hausa)

Hausa Speech Characteristics

This dataset captures authentic Hausa speech features:

• Tonal language: 2-3 tone system (high, low, falling)
• Ejective consonants: ƙ, ɓ, ɗ (unique to Hausa)
• Vowel length distinction: Short vs long vowels change meaning
• Arabic loanwords: Rich Islamic vocabulary
• Code-switching: Natural mixing with English (Nigeria), French (Niger)
• Natural prosody: Authentic rhythm, stress, intonation
• Real-world audio: Mobile recordings, natural environments

Market Context

West African Tech & Economy

• 80M+ Hausa speakers - One of Africa's top 5 languages
• Northern Nigeria: 100M+ population, major economic zone
• Kano: 4M population, commercial capital of Northern Nigeria
• Smartphone penetration: Growing 20%+ annually in Northern Nigeria
• Kannywood: Billion-dollar Hausa film industry (rival to Nollywood)
• BBC Hausa: Major news service reaching millions
• Islamic scholarship: Rich tradition of Hausa-language education

Why Hausa Matters

• Underrepresented in AI: <0.1% of speech datasets despite 80M+ speakers
• Trade language: West African lingua franca (Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Chad)
• Large market: Northern Nigeria's economy larger than many African countries
• Cultural influence: Hausa music, literature, film reaching across West Africa
• Growing digital economy: E-commerce, fintech, edtech emerging in Kano/Kaduna

Hausa Dialects

Kano Hausa (represented in this dataset) is the prestige dialect:

• Most widely understood across Hausa-speaking regions
• Used in media (BBC Hausa, VOA Hausa, Radio France International)
• Taught in schools
• Standard for written Hausa

Other major dialects: Sokoto, Katsina, Zaria (all mutually intelligible)

Ethical Considerations

All data was collected with explicit informed consent from native Hausa speakers. Recordings contain general conversational topics only - no sensitive personal information.

Comparison to Other Datasets

Dataset	Language	Hours	Speakers	Natural?
LibriSpeech	English	1,000	2,484	❌ Read speech
Common Voice	Hausa	~10	Few	⚠️ Read sentences
Silencio Hausa	Hausa	981+	3,500+	✅ Spontaneous

This is the largest natural Hausa speech dataset available.

Citation

If you use this dataset in your research or commercial product, please cite:

@dataset{silencio_hausa_speech_2026,
  title={Hausa Speech Dataset},
  author={Silencio Network},
  year={2026},
  publisher={HuggingFace},
  url={https://huggingface.co/datasets/SilencioNetwork/hausa-speech}
}

Related Datasets

• African Languages Speech - 6 African languages (Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Amharic, Nigerian English)
• Yoruba Speech - 50 Yoruba samples (fellow Nigerian language)
• Complete Voice AI Speech Dataset - 39 language/accent variants
• Indian Languages Speech - 9 Indian languages

License

CC BY-NC 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International)

✅ Free for research and non-commercial use
❌ Commercial use requires licensing (contact us)

About Silencio

Silencio is a voice AI data sourcing company with 2M+ contributors across 180+ countries. We provide scaled sourcing of real-world audio and speech data for AI labs, robotics companies, and enterprises building voice AI products.

🌐 silencioai.com
📧 sofia@silencioai.com

---

Tags: hausa, hausa language, nigerian languages, west africa, nigeria, niger, kano, kannywood, african languages, low-resource languages, speech recognition, asr, tts, voice ai, natural speech, spontaneous speech, nigerian speech, chadic languages