[lojban-beginners] espeak text to speech for lojban

["Stephen Pollei" <stephen.pollei@gmail.com>]

I looked into the report at
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?forumId=5&comments_parentId=6701
that espeak was mispronouncing certain letters. I downloaded
espeak-1.38-source and altered
espeak-1.38-source/dictsource/jbo_rules and
espeak-1.38-source/dictsource/jbo_list .

for jbo_list the fix was easy I simply deleted most of it.
_0      no
_1      pa
_2      Re
_3      Si
_4      vo
_5      mu
_6      xa
_7      ze
_8      bi
_9      so
_dpt    pi

was all that was maybe needed. lojban should be a phometic language so
all the other things probably was just causing issues.

for jbo_rules I simply added pausing rules for things that begin with
vowels. dj and tc shouldn't need special rules . gi'V shouldn't need
extra help . l and r should need the extra stuff they have and n
doesn't change based on if g or k follows it. the pausing rules and
word boundary rules for lojban are probably complex enough that a
special front end should be created to split words and insert
mandatory pauses(".") were needed. Also stress in lojban is based on
brivla Vs cmavo Vs. cmene , and if a capital letter is put in there.
special front end should probably do stress markings as well.

Truth be told I didn't compile or test any of these changes and I
wanted opinion from some who are more knowlegdable than me to comment
and test.

--- jbo_rules.orig      2008-01-17 17:08:21.000000000 -0800
+++ jbo_rules   2008-08-25 22:12:55.000000000 -0700
@@ -9,8 +9,12 @@
        ai      aI
        au      aU
      X) a (_   %a      // single-syllable cmavo are unstressed
+                       //  probably needs better way to do stressed/unstressed
      X) ai (_  %aI
      X) au (_  %aU
+     _) a      _a
+     _) ai     _aI
+     _) au     _aU

 .group b
        b       b
@@ -20,13 +24,15 @@

 .group d
        d       d
-       dj      dZ
+//     dj      dZ

 .group e
        e       e
        ei      eI
      X) e (_   %e
      X) ei (_  %eI
+     _)e       _e
+     _)ei      _eI

 .group f
        f       f
@@ -34,7 +40,7 @@
 .group g
        g       g

-     _) gi ('A_  _;_gi
+//     _) gi ('A_  _;_gi

 .group h
        h       h
@@ -44,6 +50,8 @@
        i (A    j
      X) i (_   %i
      X) i (A_  %j
+     _)i       _i
+     _)i (A    _j

 .group j
        j       Z
@@ -55,20 +63,23 @@
        l       l-
      A) l       l
        l (A    l
+// not sure why this is stuff is here for l

 .group m
        m       m

 .group n
        n       n
-       n (g    N
-       n (k    N
+//     n (g    N
+//     n (k    N

 .group o
        o       o
        oi      OI
      X) o (_   %o
      X) oi (_  %OI
+     _)o       _o
+     _)oi      _OI

 .group p
        p       p
@@ -80,6 +91,7 @@
        r       r-
      A) r      R
        r (A    R
+// not sure what to do here


 .group s
@@ -87,13 +99,15 @@

 .group t
        t       t
-       tc      tS
+//     tc      tS

 .group u
        u       u
        u (A    w
      X) u (_   %u
      X) u (A_  %w
+     _)u       _u
+     _)u (A    _w

 .group v
        v       v
@@ -106,6 +120,7 @@

 .group y
        y       @
+     _)        y       _@

 .group z
        z       z