[lojban] Re: Have you guys heard of eSpeak?

[Álvaro Vallejo <avallejor@gmail.com>]

Hi, Rex,

Back to your question on eSpeak (instead of derived chat): I tried it
some time ago, did a few trials and desisted. However, if you "patch"
your Lojban text to accomodate eSpeak rules to existing language
engines, you can get a decent Lojban pronunciation, but not perfect.
Try the following:
- Select a eSpeak language engine (the best should be Italian or
Spanish probably German or Greek too, because of the vowels, but the
problem with greek could be the alphabet, I can't remember).
- Rewrite your text to trick eSpeak's engine. E.g. if using Spanish
engine, "xanto" becomes "janto" (but then, in Spanish, you will not
find the Lojban "y" sound, neither "z" nor "v", let's forget about
Spanish).

Italian will also have problems, because "c" has several pronunciation
rules, there is no the Lojban "x" sound ... Ok, let's try with German:

- Rewrite your text, replacing Lojban "x" by "ch", Lojban "y" by
"ü" (not a perfect, but acceptable replacement), "c" by "sch", vowels
will work fine, but "f" will be only approximate. hm... There is no
"z" sound in German, and the problem of ' pronunciation ... hm... now
I remember why I abandoned eSpeak for Lojban. It will always speak
Lojban as a foreigner, no matter which engine you try ... unless
someone is able to create a Lojban speech engine.

Álvaro

On Mar 22, 8:51 pm, RexScientiarum <amt2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I downloaded eSpeak when I learned it did text to speech for lojban.  It
> seems nearly flawless (to me, but I am just learning), the only thing I can
> tell is wrong with it is that it doesn't put a stop in at {ni'o}... still
> it does with {.i}.  I assumed everyone knew about it but I haven't seen it
> mentioned anywhere so I thought I'd mention it.  Is
> its pronunciation accurate?

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