Transcribe Somali audio with WhisperAI
WhisperAI transcribes Somali (Soomaali) audio for the around 25 million speakers who use the language across Somalia, Somaliland, the Somali region of Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya, Djibouti, and the global Somali diaspora. Built on OpenAI Whisper and tuned for the realities of Somali speech, the service produces publication-grade transcripts in Latin alphabet (adopted in 1972).
Somali's tone, vowel length, and oral-tradition emphasis
Somali is tonal (high vs low) and distinguishes vowel length, both of which are written. The language was only standardised with Latin script in 1972, so much culturally important material exists only in oral form. Whisper handles Somali with proper Latin orthography.
Northern Somali (standard), Benadiri and Maay dialects are supported.
What Somali transcripts include
Native Latin alphabet (adopted in 1972)
Output in Latin alphabet (adopted in 1972) with all diacritics, tone marks, special characters and script-specific conventions preserved — never transliteration.
Speaker labels
Diarisation that separates and labels speakers in Somali interviews, panels and multi-party meetings.
Timestamps and SRT
Word-level timestamps and SRT subtitle export for Somali video captioning, with proper line-breaking for the script.
Editor and exports
In-browser editor with PDF, DOCX, TXT and SRT exports. Edit the transcript without leaving the browser, then download the format your downstream workflow expects.
How Somali speakers actually use WhisperAI
- Somali-diaspora mediaSomali-language broadcasters in Minneapolis, London, Toronto and Stockholm transcribe content for distribution.
- Horn of Africa NGO documentationOrganisations operating in Somalia, Somaliland and the Somali region of Ethiopia transcribe Somali field interviews.
- Somali cultural preservationCultural institutions document Somali oral poetry and historical recordings.
- Somali-language podcastsIndependent Somali-language podcasters use transcripts for show notes.
How to transcribe Somali audio
Upload your Somali recording
Drop in MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4 or similar — files up to 5GB. Long-form Somali interviews, lectures and meetings work without splitting.
Whisper transcribes the audio
The model recognises Somali speech across the dialects above and outputs Latin alphabet (adopted in 1972). Code-switched English and other languages in the same recording are handled inline.
Edit, label and export
Open the transcript in the editor, fix any names or terms, label speakers, and export to PDF, DOCX, TXT or SRT. Optional AI summary surfaces the key points and decisions.
Who actually needs Somali transcription
Somali demand comes from Somali-diaspora media in Minneapolis, London and Toronto, NGO documentation in the Horn of Africa, and Somali cultural-preservation work.
Dialects and varieties handled
- Northern Somali (standard, Mahaa)
- Benadiri (coastal)
- Maay (southern)
Transcription guides and best practices
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Start transcribing Somali today
Sign up free, drop in your first Somali file, and have a usable transcript in minutes.