Transcribe Urdu audio with WhisperAI
WhisperAI transcribes Urdu (اردو) audio for the around 230 million speakers who use the language across Pakistan (national language), India (constitutionally recognised), and the Pakistani and Indian diaspora. Built on OpenAI Whisper and tuned for the realities of Urdu speech, the service produces publication-grade transcripts in Perso-Arabic script (Nastaʿlīq style), written right-to-left.
How Urdu speakers actually use WhisperAI
- Pakistani mediaKarachi and Lahore-based Urdu broadcasters and newspapers transcribe interviews for publication.
- Pakistani diaspora mediaUrdu-language broadcasters in London, Toronto and Dubai transcribe content for distribution.
- Indian Urdu-language workIndian Urdu-language outlets and cultural organisations transcribe interviews and oral histories.
- Urdu academic and literary workUniversities transcribe Urdu lectures, mushairas (poetry recitations) and literary recordings.
Urdu and Hindi share a spoken core but are written completely differently
Urdu and Hindi are essentially the same spoken language at the colloquial level (Hindustani) but written in completely different scripts and using different formal vocabularies (Urdu draws from Persian and Arabic, Hindi from Sanskrit). Whisper produces native Urdu in Nastaʿlīq script with right-to-left rendering and handles Pakistani/Indian Urdu code-switched with English.
Standard Urdu, Dakhini and Pakistani spoken Urdu are supported with native Nastaʿlīq script output.
Who actually needs Urdu transcription
Urdu demand comes from Pakistani media (Karachi and Lahore), Pakistani diaspora communities, Indian Urdu-language work, and academic Urdu-studies.
Dialects and varieties handled
- Standard Urdu (Lucknow, Karachi)
- Dakhini (southern Indian Urdu)
- Pakistani spoken Urdu
How to transcribe Urdu audio
Upload your Urdu recording
Drop in MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4 or similar — files up to 5GB. Long-form Urdu interviews, lectures and meetings work without splitting.
Whisper transcribes the audio
The model recognises Urdu speech across the dialects above and outputs Perso-Arabic script (Nastaʿlīq style), written right-to-left. 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.
What Urdu transcripts include
Native Perso-Arabic script (Nastaʿlīq style), written right-to-left
Output in Perso-Arabic script (Nastaʿlīq style), written right-to-left with all diacritics, tone marks, special characters and script-specific conventions preserved — never transliteration.
Speaker labels
Diarisation that separates and labels speakers in Urdu interviews, panels and multi-party meetings.
Timestamps and SRT
Word-level timestamps and SRT subtitle export for Urdu 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.
Transcription guides and best practices
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Start transcribing Urdu today
Sign up free, drop in your first Urdu file, and have a usable transcript in minutes.