OrienTel Egypt MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) database

The OrienTel Egypt MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) database comprises 500 Egyptian speakers (254 males, 246 females) recorded over the Egyptian fixed and mobile telephone network. This database is partitioned into 1 CD and 1 DVD. The speech databases made within the OrienTel project were validated by SPEX, the Netherlands, to assess their compliance with the OrienTel format and content specifications.Speech samples are stored as sequences of 8-bit 8 kHz A-law. Each prompted utterance is stored in a separate file. Each signal file is accompanied by an ASCII SAM label file which contains the relevant descriptive information.Each speaker uttered the following items:•1 isolated single digit•2 sequences of 5 isolated digits•7 connected digits : 1 prompt sheet number (6 digits), 6 strings of 4 digits in written format•2 currency money amounts•2 natural numbers•3 dates : 1 prompted date, 1 relative or general date expression, 1 prompted date phrase (Islamic calendar)•1 time phrase•2 spelled words : string of 4 letter sequences•3 directory assistance utterances : 1 frequent city name, 1 frequent company name, 1 personal name ( first name and family name)•2 yes/no questions : 1 predominantly ”yes” question, 1 predominantly ”no” question•6 application keywords/keyphrases•1 word spotting phrase using embedded application words•4 phonetically rich words•9 phonetically rich sentences•4 spontaneous items (for control)The following age distribution has been obtained: 329 speakers are between 16 and 30, 121 speakers are between 31 and 45, 50 speakers are between 46 and 60.A pronunciation lexicon with a phonemic transcription in SAMPA is also included.