User:Wdengle1/Final project

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Introduction

Text to speech (TTS) systems are crucial for accessibility and adoption of a language, but no TTS engine for Totontepec Mixe (mto) currently exists. So, we are adding support for mto to eSpeak NG, an open source speech synthesizer.

The problem

  • No text to speech system for any variety of Mixe, a family of Oaxacan indigenous languages.
  • Screen reader panics when faced with crucial pieces of mto orthography: saltillo; certain combined characters. Working with Mixe is currently difficult for people using TTS.

TTS is important for: screen readers, public announcements (like train schedules), phone trees, language learning, etc.

Solution

We have developed support (phoneme table and dictionary files) for mto in eSpeak format and submitted this work as a pull request for inclusion in a future version of the program.

Demos