Alien Speech Synthesis on the Mac

[agorski]

This is kinda fun. On the Mac, you can use a menu command in TextEdit to speak text (among other ways). I discovered that you can command the speech synthesizer to use phonemes.

So I pulled out Alien Module 1 and tried a couple of Aslan words:

Uealikhe (carbine)

[[inpt PHON]]UWEHAAlIHkEH[[inpt TEXT]]

Eakhyasear (hunter's rifle)

[[inpt PHON]]EHAAkhyAAsEHAAr[[inpt TEXT]]

Copy each line of phonetic text and paste it into TextEdit and try it. You can play around with other voices, and even download voices for foreign languages, but I couldn't find phonetic rules for foreign languages. I think this is pretty good by itself.

So it might be fun to write a program to generate alien words (easy enough) and have it convert the words to phonemes and speak them.

 

[BytePro]

Oh, thanks for that. Ironically, was just looking earlier this morning to see if iOS offers something similar to Mac's speech synthesis (for a non-game project).

Yes, it is fun to play with phonetics and Traveller... did so on the C-64 a long time ago for spaceship computers and for my (non-canon) aliens.

My favorite was for an alien computer self-destruct countdown :devil:

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Fanarking Sweet!

Thanks much, dude! Being one of the rare Mac users here, I love when I can find cool things for the Mac.

Which reminds me I have to check your site to see if there are any new Career generators.

So do you have T5 and if so what are the chances of some T5 Mac Apps?

 

[agorski]

Thanks much, dude! Being one of the rare Mac users here, I love when I can find cool things for the Mac.

You're welcome!

Which reminds me I have to check your site to see if there are any new Career generators.

I've been on hiatus doing summer things. Lately, I've been acquiring copies of the Alien Modules so I might do character generators for some of those. I've been thinking about how to make the apps look more modern, so there'll be some up-front UI work I need to do first.

So do you have T5 and if so what are the chances of some T5 Mac Apps?

AFAIK, I probably don't have a legal right to do those so I've stayed away from them.

 

[aramis]

Art:

You should make a parser for the extant sounds table entries by language, and use the extant Text-To-Speech hooks in RB to pass the parsed and converted sounds.

I'll note that the example didn't get the kh sound the way it should when I ran it in Text Edit. It produced a normal K sound.

Edit: Found out why: it's not a supported sound!
http://developer.apple.com/library/...thesisProgrammingGuide/Phonemes/Phonemes.html provides the following:
Phoneme symbol
Example of pronunciation
% (silence)
@ (breath intake)
AE bat
EY bait
AO caught
AX about
IY beet
EH bet
IH bit
AY bite
IX roses
AA father
UW boot
UH book
UX bud
OW boat
AW bout
OY boy
b bin
C chin
d din
D them
f fin
g gain
h hat
J jump
k kin
l limb
m mat
n nap
N tang
p pin
r ran
s sin
S shin
t tin
T thin
v van
w wet
y yet
z zoo
Z measure

So it does MOST but not all the phonemes we need. Missing are kh, click and double click, and a few others.

 

[agorski]

I'll note that the example didn't get the kh sound the way it should when I ran it in Text Edit. It produced a normal K sound.

Edit: Found out why: it's not a supported sound!

Yup, I noticed that also.

http://developer.apple.com/library/...thesisProgrammingGuide/Phonemes/Phonemes.html provides the following:

So it does MOST but not all the phonemes we need. Missing are kh, click and double click, and a few others.

Note that some of the following pages listed in the sidebar define some other things that might be useful, like controlling emphasis of specific syllables.

I'm afraid you'd have to install foreign languages to get everything you need, which another user wouldn't have by default. And for some reason, Apple hasn't provided the phoneme documentation for anything but North American English.

 

[aramis]

Yup, I noticed that also.


Note that some of the following pages listed in the sidebar define some other things that might be useful, like controlling emphasis of specific syllables.

I'm afraid you'd have to install foreign languages to get everything you need, which another user wouldn't have by default. And for some reason, Apple hasn't provided the phoneme documentation for anything but North American English.

Or develop and include a voice with the product...
That sounds like a LOT of work... but it's very much doable.

Not certain it's worth it... but it might be fun to try.