espeak(1) User Commands espeak(1)
NAME
espeak - a compact open source software speech synthesizer
SYNOPSIS
espeak [option...] [words]
DESCRIPTION
espeak is a compact open source software speech synthesizer. It can run as a command line program to speak text from a file or from stdin.
Main features of espeak:
* Includes different voices, whose characteristics
can be altered.
* Can produce speech output as a WAV file.
* Supports SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language
- not complete)
* Supports HTML.
* Is compact in size.
* Can translate text to phoneme codes, so it could
be adapted as a front end for another speech
synthesis engine.
* Is written in C++.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-a integer Amplitude as an integer in the range from 0 to 200, default is 100.
-b Input text is 8-bit encoded.
-f text_file Speak text from text_file.
-g integer Specify the word gap, or the pause between words, as an integer. Units of 10mS at the default speed.
-k integer Indicate how to speak capital letters as an integer. The argument can have the following values: 1=sound, 2=the
word "capitals", higher values=a pitch increase (try -k 20).
-l integer Line length as an integer. If not zero (which is the default), consider lines less than this length as end-of-
clause.
-m Interpret SSML markup, and ignore other < > tags.
-p integer Pitch adjustment as an integer in the range from 0 to 99, default is 50.
-q Quiet, do not produce any speech (may be useful with -x).
-s integer Speed as an integer meaning words per minute. Values can be from 80 to 370, default is 170.
-v voice_file Use specified voice_file.
-w filename Write output to the specified filename, in WAV format, rather than speaking it directly.
-x Write phoneme mnemonics to stdout.
-X Write phonemes mnemonics and translation trace to stdout.
-z No final sentence pause at the end of the text.
--compile=voice_name Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current directory. The voice_name value is optional and spec-
ifies which language to use.
--punct="characters" Speak the names of punctuation characters while speaking. If the characters value is omitted, all punctuation is
spoken.
--split=minutes Starts a new WAV file every minutes. Used with -w.
--stdin Read text input from stdin instead of a file.
--stdout Write speech output to stdout.
--voices=language List the available voices for the specified language. If language is omitted, then list all voices.
FILES
The following files are used by espeak:
/usr/lib/libespeak.so
Library for espeak speech synthesis
/usr/share/espeak-data
Directory of voice language and data files
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWespeak |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface stability |Volatile |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
NOTES
espeak was written by Jonathan Duddington.
SEE ALSO
orca(1), libespeak(3), libgnomespeech(3), attributes(5)
Additional information is available from the following site:
http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
SunOS 5.11 20 Aug 2008 espeak(1)