Speech Synthesis

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech.

Synthesized speech can be created by concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database. Systems differ in the size of the stored speech units; a system that stores phones or diphones provides the largest output range, but may lack clarity. For specific usage domains, the storage of entire words or sentences allows for high-quality output. Alternatively, a synthesizer can incorporate a model of the vocal tract and other human voice characteristics to create a completely "synthetic" voice output.

The quality of a speech synthesizer is judged by its similarity to the human voice and by its ability to be understood. An intelligible text-to-speech program allows people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to written works on a home computer. Many computer operating systems have included speech synthesizers since the early 1990s.

Sample of Microsoft Sam Sorry, your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player.
You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser. Microsoft Windows XP's default speech synthesizer voice saying "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1,234,567,890 times. soi"

Read more about Speech Synthesis:  History, Synthesizer Technologies, Dedicated Hardware, Speech Synthesis Markup Languages, Applications

Famous quotes containing the words speech and/or synthesis:

    “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
    —Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in Colossians, 4:6.

    “It is in this impossibility of attaining to a synthesis of the inner life and the outward that the inferiority of the biographer to the novelist lies. The biographer quite clearly sees Peel, say, seated on his bench while his opponents overwhelm him with perhaps undeserved censure. He sees him motionless, miserable, his head bent on his breast. He asks himself: “What is he thinking?” and he knows nothing.”
    —Andre Maurois (1885–1967)