Google, African universities to feature Yoruba, Igbo, Acholi, 18 others in WAXAL African languages Dataset launch

Yoruba, Igbo, Acholi, Swahila and 17 other Sub-Saharan African languages are set to be included in WAXAL, a large-scale open speech dataset to be launched by Google in partnership with  African universities and research institution.

Other languages to include; Luganda and Hausa. Google says WAXAL is designed to support more than 100 million speakers who have largely been excluded from voice-based technologies due to limited quality language data.

While voice assistants and speech-powered tools are widely used globally, Africa’s over 2,000 languages remain underrepresented in AI systems. This gap has limited access to voice-enabled services across sectors such as education, healthcare, and business.

Developed over three years with funding from Google, WAXAL contains 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and over 20 hours of high-quality studio recordings. These recordings can also be used to create realistic synthetic voices.

“The ultimate impact of WAXAL is the empowerment of people in Africa,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.

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