Punjabi Speech to Text — Dictate in Punjabi with Veena

Spoken by about 35 million people in India — across Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and Chandigarh — Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ) is one of the most widely spoken languages of northern India and one of the most vibrant voices in Indian music, film, and social media. In India, Punjabi is written in the Gurmukhi script, which gives it a distinctive look on screens and in print. Yet for all its energy, Punjabi voice typing has mostly meant cloud dictation — services that need an internet connection and that upload your audio to remote servers. Veena is built differently: Punjabi speech to text that runs entirely on your own device, with no account and no cloud.

Punjabi speech to text with Veena

Veena’s recognition engine is built on IndicConformer, a multilingual model from AI4Bharat, exported to ONNX and quantized so it runs entirely on-device. Veena’s multilingual engine covers all 22 scheduled languages of India, and each language gets its own vocabulary and decoding tuned for it — Punjabi included. Tap the microphone and speak in Punjabi, and Veena records 16 kHz mono audio and transcribes it locally with the bundled model. The transcript appears in an editable text box, ready to copy, share, or refine. No internet connection is needed for transcription, and your audio never leaves your device.

A dedicated Punjabi vocabulary matters because Punjabi is a tonal language: pitch changes distinguish words that otherwise sound alike, and the engine needs a model tuned for those distinctions rather than a borrowed Hindi or Hindi-adjacent vocabulary. Combined with the Gurmukhi script and Punjabi’s own grammar and word stock, that tuning is what turns natural spoken Punjabi — from the farmlands of Malwa and Majha to the cities of Delhi and Chandigarh — into editable Gurmukhi text on your screen.

Why transcribe Punjabi audio

Punjabi is the language of everyday life for tens of millions of people, and dictation fits naturally into that daily rhythm:

• Students in Punjab’s schools and colleges can dictate notes and assignments in Punjabi without slow Gurmukhi typing on a phone.
• Farmers and small business owners can send messages and keep records in Punjabi by speaking, even with one hand busy.
• Journalists, writers, and content creators can speak articles, scripts, and captions into Veena and get a first draft in Punjabi.
• Families spread across Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana, and Punjab can keep up fast, editable Punjabi correspondence.
• Anyone who finds typing slow or uncomfortable — including people with limited hand mobility — can express themselves at the speed of speech.

Because Veena works fully offline, it is also a practical choice for work in the fields, long road trips, and anywhere mobile data is expensive or unreliable. Your Punjabi audio never has to leave your device to become text.

How to use Veena for Punjabi

On the mobile app, open Veena, tap the microphone, and speak in Punjabi. The transcript appears in an editable text box — copy it, share it, or fix a word before sending. You can hold to record or tap to record, replay your last recording to check what you said, and edit transcripts after the fact. The app asks for only one permission: microphone access.

On the desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux, use push-to-talk or a global shortcut to start dictating from any application. The audio is transcribed locally and the text is pasted directly into the app you are using, or copied to your clipboard. A recording history with search and retention settings helps you find past dictations, and downloadable models let you choose between accuracy and speed. Optional post-processing such as filler-word removal and custom-word correction can be enabled; the transcription itself is fully on-device.

Tips for better accuracy in Punjabi

• Speak at a natural, steady pace and pause briefly between sentences.
• Keep the microphone close and background noise low — a quiet room helps more than a fancier mic.
• Punjabi’s tones carry meaning, so pronounce words fully rather than rushing; the engine is tuned for Punjabi’s tonal contrasts, but clear speech still helps.
• Stay in one language per session. Mixing Hindi or English into a Punjabi sentence can make the engine pick a different word than you intended.
• Names of people, places, and brands often need a small edit; the transcript box makes that quick.
• Use the replay feature to hear your last recording if a sentence came out wrong.
• On desktop, enable custom-word correction for names and terms you dictate often.

Start dictating in Punjabi today

Veena is free, needs no account, and keeps every recording on your device. Download it on Android or iOS, or grab the desktop app for Windows, macOS, or Linux. Browse all supported languages on the speech to text overview page, or keep reading — Hindi speech to text covers the language spoken alongside Punjabi across Delhi and the region, and Dogri speech to text serves the language of the Jammu region with speakers in Punjab too. For tips, updates, and use cases, visit the Veena blog. Your next Punjabi document is just a spoken sentence away.