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Release Date: 9/25/2026
Format: MP3, TSV
Size: 514.50 MB
The Norhtern Pashto ASR Dataset is a resource designed to support research in speech and language technologies for the Northern Pashto language. It contains utterance-level audios and corresponding transcriptions, extracted from ELAN files. This dataset aims to advance the development of AI and NLP technologies for the underrepresented Northern Pashto language while supporting language documentation, preservation, and future multilingual research.
Pricing details
Your purchase is the license to the raw data. Once purchased, you're responsible for storing and using this dataset.
Your purchase includes a license to the data, paid directly to the dataset vendor, and a 5% ($100.00) platform fee paid to MDC.
Licensing
MDC Data License Agreement 1.0
https://community.mozilladatacollective.com/mdc-data-licence-agreement-1-0/Restrictions/Special Constraints
Any attempt to identify, re-identify, or expose the identity of speakers featured in this dataset is strictly forbidden. This includes cross-referencing with other datasets, voice-print matching, or any other technique intended to link recordings to real individuals.
Forbidden Usage
Any attempt to identify, re-identify, or expose the identity of speakers featured in this dataset is strictly forbidden. This includes cross-referencing with other datasets, voice-print matching, or any other technique intended to link recordings to real individuals.
Intended Use
ASR training and evaluation
Pashto (this collection uses Northern Pashto, ISO 639-3 code pbu) is spoken by tens of millions of people, primarily in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan and across Afghanistan, with speakers in this dataset drawn from areas such as Swabi, Swat, and Charsadda. Pashto has a strong oral and literary tradition, including a well-known body of proverbs, poetry, and the Pashtunwali code of customs and social conduct. While it has a comparatively larger body of digital and broadcast content than some regional languages, spoken, dialect-rich, informal Pashto — as opposed to standard/written registers — remains under-resourced for speech and NLP research.
The dataset comprises unscripted, first-person interviews and talks in Pashto featuring speakers identified by speaker IDs, drawn from various towns and villages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Topics span daily routines and childhood memories (childhood games, local games, memories of school and hostel life), place and identity (birthplace descriptions such as Swabi and Charsadda, village life in Manglor Swat), tradition and culture (Pashtun traditions and customs, wedding and death rituals, the role and impact of the Hujra, Pashto proverbs and poetry, friendship and rivalries among Pashtuns), social and generational topics (past vs. present education for women, the role of mother tongue in education, the impact of technology and artificial intelligence, healthy habits, children's care and training), religion (preparing for Namaz, the positive impact of prayer), and everyday life (professions, hobbies, travel experiences, weather's impact on daily life, environmental pollution). A small number of clips in the source metadata are marked as deleted (due to voice-quality issues) and are excluded from this table's counts.
The dataset consists of a clips/ directory containing the audio utterances, and a data.tsv file with columns
video_id
path: path to utterance audio file
sentence: transcript
A metadata file also accompanies the dataset, providing speaker-level and clip-level metadata for every recording, including:
Recording ID / folder name
Speaker ID
Duration
Topic/description of the clip's content
Number of speakers in the clip
Speaker gender
Speaker age group
| # | Video ID | Speaker ID | Duration | Topic / Description | # of Speakers | Gender | Age Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20260330-pbu001 | MPS101 | 0:01:00 | Talk about childhood games | 1 | Male | 18-25 |
| 2 | 20260330-pbu002 | MPS102 | 0:03:21 | Place of Birth (Swabi) | 1 | Male | 36-45 |
| 3 | 20260330-pbu003 | MPS102 | 0:01:43 | About childhood | 1 | Male | 36-45 |
| 4 | 20260330-pbu004 | MPS102 | 0:02:13 | Talk about festival (Eid ul Fitr) | 1 | Male | 36-45 |
| 5 | 20260331-pbu005 | MPS103 | 0:02:39 | Talk about what you did yesterday from morning to night | 1 | Male | 26-35 |
| 6 | 20260331-pbu006 | MPS104 | 0:01:14 | Discuss plans for the coming week | 1 | Male | 26-35 |
(Full metadata for all 209 recordings is provided in the accompanying Excel file.)
