Automatic Speech Recognition for African Low-Resource Languages: Challenges and Future Directions
Sukairaj Hafiz Imam, Babangida Sani, Dawit Ketema Gete, and 6 more authors
In Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on African Natural Language Processing (AfricaNLP 2025), Jul 2025
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technologies have transformed human-computer interaction; however, low-resource languages in Africa remain significantly underrepresented in both research and practical applications. This study investigates the major challenges hindering the development of ASR systems for these languages, including data scarcity, linguistic complexity, limited computational resources, acoustic variability, and ethical concerns surrounding bias and privacy. The findings highlight the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and sustained investment to advance low-resource speech technology.