Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language

Mezgebe Araya Keletay; Hussien Seid Worku

doi:doi:10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language

Mezgebe Araya Keletay, Hussien Seid Worku

Published in Internet of Things and Cloud Computing (Volume 8, Issue 2)

Received: 24 February 2020 Accepted: 10 March 2020 Published: 27 October 2020

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Abstract

A Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizer is a computer-based system able to read any text and convert it into speech that resembles as closely as possible a native speaker of the language. This thesis describes the first Text-to-Speech (TTS) system for the Tigrigna language, using speech synthesis architecture in MATLAB. The TTS system is working based on concatenative synthesis and applying LPC technique. The performance of the system is measured and the quality of synthesized speech is assessed in terms of intelligibility and naturalness. The result of the synthesizer is evaluated in two ways, in word level and sentences level. The test results indicate in the word level is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool online and most of the words are recognizable. The overall performance of the system in the word level which is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool is found to be 78%. When it comes to the intelligibility and naturalness of the synthesized speech in the sentence level, it is measured in MOS scale and the overall intelligibility and naturalness of the system is found to be 3.28 and 3.27 respectively. The values of performance, intelligibility and naturalness are encouraging and show that diphone speech units are good candidates to develop fully functional speech synthesizer. But there are areas that can be improved. Inclusion of text analyzer to pronounce zonal dialects of the language and prosody generator are some of the things that need further investigation.

Published in	Internet of Things and Cloud Computing (Volume 8, Issue 2)
DOI	10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12
Page(s)	24-30
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Concatenative Approach, Speech Synthesis, Tigrigna Syllables, Text-to-Speech

References

[1]	M. S. Siyoum, "syllable-based text-to- speech synthesis (tts) for amharic," addis ababa university, june, 2012.
[2]	R. K. Kaveri Kamble, "Translation of Text to Speech Conversion for Hindi Language," 2012.
[3]	S. A. S. S. P. P. Mrs. Mangal Joshi, "Text to Speech Synthesis for Hindi Language using Festival Framework," International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET), vol. 06, no. 04, p. 630, Apr 2019.
[4]	Dr. Samuel manoharan, "a smart image processing algorithm for text recognition, information extraction and vocalization for the visually challenged," journal of innovative image processing (jiip), vol. 01, pp. 31-38, (2019).
[5]	R. J. R. G. D. Ramteke, "Text-To-Speech Synthesis of Marathi Numerals," vol. 3, no. 7, July 2015.
[6]	A. Kiflu, "Unit Selection Based Text-to-Speech Synthesizer for Tigrinya Language," vol. Volume 1, December 2012.
[7]	A. T. Ei Phyu Phyu Soe, "Text-to-Speech Synthesis for Myanmar Language," International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, vol. 4, no. 6, p. 1509, June 2013.
[8]	J. M. Varghese, "Design of Gujarati Text-to-Speech System," vol. 02, no. 05, May 2015.
[9]	B. Sudhakar, "Development of Concatenative Syllable based Text to Speech Synthesis System for Tamil," vol. 91, April 2014.
[10]	Y. Fisseha, "development of stemming algorithm for tigrigna text," june 2011.
[11]	N. P. P. S. S. a. S. A. Ayushi Trivedi, "Speech to text and text to speech recognition systems-Areview," IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE), vol. 20, no. 2, p. 40, May-April 2018.
[12]	S. D. D. E. Kodhai, "Textaloud Assistant App Development for Multilanguage," International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE), vol. 8, no. 7s, May 2019.
[13]	M. R. B.,. C. N. M. Suhas R. Mache, "Review on Text-To-Speech Synthesizer," International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, vol. 4, no. 8, p. 56, August 2015.
[14]	P. G. K. D. Pawan S. Nadig, "Survey on text-to-speech Kannada using Neural Networks," International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology, vol. 5, no. 6, p. 128, 2019.
[15]	G. D. R. R. J. R. Sunil S. Nimbhore, "Implementation of English-Text to Marathi-Speech (ETMS) Synthesizer," IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE), vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 34-43, Feb. 2015.
[16]	Y. B. Ilyes Rebai, "Text-to-speech synthesis system with Arabic diacritic recognition system," Multimedia InfoRmation System and Advanced Computing Laboratory, 17 April 2015.
[17]	A. T. Zegeye, "a generalized approach to amharic text-to-speech (tts) synthesis system," addis ababa university, july, 2010.

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APA Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay, Hussien Seid Worku. (2020). Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet of Things and Cloud Computing, 8(2), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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ACS Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay; Hussien Seid Worku. Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet Things Cloud Comput. 2020, 8(2), 24-30. doi: 10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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AMA Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay, Hussien Seid Worku. Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet Things Cloud Comput. 2020;8(2):24-30. doi: 10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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@article{10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12,
  author = {Mezgebe Araya Keletay and Hussien Seid Worku},
  title = {Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language},
  journal = {Internet of Things and Cloud Computing},
  volume = {8},
  number = {2},
  pages = {24-30},
  doi = {10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  abstract = {A Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizer is a computer-based system able to read any text and convert it into speech that resembles as closely as possible a native speaker of the language. This thesis describes the first Text-to-Speech (TTS) system for the Tigrigna language, using speech synthesis architecture in MATLAB. The TTS system is working based on concatenative synthesis and applying LPC technique. The performance of the system is measured and the quality of synthesized speech is assessed in terms of intelligibility and naturalness. The result of the synthesizer is evaluated in two ways, in word level and sentences level. The test results indicate in the word level is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool online and most of the words are recognizable. The overall performance of the system in the word level which is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool is found to be 78%. When it comes to the intelligibility and naturalness of the synthesized speech in the sentence level, it is measured in MOS scale and the overall intelligibility and naturalness of the system is found to be 3.28 and 3.27 respectively. The values of performance, intelligibility and naturalness are encouraging and show that diphone speech units are good candidates to develop fully functional speech synthesizer. But there are areas that can be improved. Inclusion of text analyzer to pronounce zonal dialects of the language and prosody generator are some of the things that need further investigation.},
 year = {2020}
}

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TY - JOUR
T1 - Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language
AU - Mezgebe Araya Keletay
AU - Hussien Seid Worku
Y1 - 2020/10/27
PY - 2020
N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12
DO - 10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12
T2 - Internet of Things and Cloud Computing
JF - Internet of Things and Cloud Computing
JO - Internet of Things and Cloud Computing
SP - 24
EP - 30
PB - Science Publishing Group
SN - 2376-7731
UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12
AB - A Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizer is a computer-based system able to read any text and convert it into speech that resembles as closely as possible a native speaker of the language. This thesis describes the first Text-to-Speech (TTS) system for the Tigrigna language, using speech synthesis architecture in MATLAB. The TTS system is working based on concatenative synthesis and applying LPC technique. The performance of the system is measured and the quality of synthesized speech is assessed in terms of intelligibility and naturalness. The result of the synthesizer is evaluated in two ways, in word level and sentences level. The test results indicate in the word level is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool online and most of the words are recognizable. The overall performance of the system in the word level which is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool is found to be 78%. When it comes to the intelligibility and naturalness of the synthesized speech in the sentence level, it is measured in MOS scale and the overall intelligibility and naturalness of the system is found to be 3.28 and 3.27 respectively. The values of performance, intelligibility and naturalness are encouraging and show that diphone speech units are good candidates to develop fully functional speech synthesizer. But there are areas that can be improved. Inclusion of text analyzer to pronounce zonal dialects of the language and prosody generator are some of the things that need further investigation.
VL - 8
IS - 2
ER -

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Author Information

Mezgebe Araya Keletay

Department of Computer Science, School of Computing and Informatics, Mizan-Tepi University, Tepi, Ethiopia
Hussien Seid Worku

Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Technology, Arba-Minch Institute of Technology, Arba-Minch, Ethiopia

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APA Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay, Hussien Seid Worku. (2020). Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet of Things and Cloud Computing, 8(2), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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ACS Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay; Hussien Seid Worku. Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet Things Cloud Comput. 2020, 8(2), 24-30. doi: 10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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AMA Style

Mezgebe Araya Keletay, Hussien Seid Worku. Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language. Internet Things Cloud Comput. 2020;8(2):24-30. doi: 10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12

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@article{10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12,
  author = {Mezgebe Araya Keletay and Hussien Seid Worku},
  title = {Developing Concatenative Based Text to Speech Synthesizer for Tigrigna Language},
  journal = {Internet of Things and Cloud Computing},
  volume = {8},
  number = {2},
  pages = {24-30},
  doi = {10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.iotcc.20200802.12},
  abstract = {A Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizer is a computer-based system able to read any text and convert it into speech that resembles as closely as possible a native speaker of the language. This thesis describes the first Text-to-Speech (TTS) system for the Tigrigna language, using speech synthesis architecture in MATLAB. The TTS system is working based on concatenative synthesis and applying LPC technique. The performance of the system is measured and the quality of synthesized speech is assessed in terms of intelligibility and naturalness. The result of the synthesizer is evaluated in two ways, in word level and sentences level. The test results indicate in the word level is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool online and most of the words are recognizable. The overall performance of the system in the word level which is evaluated by NeoSpeech tool is found to be 78%. When it comes to the intelligibility and naturalness of the synthesized speech in the sentence level, it is measured in MOS scale and the overall intelligibility and naturalness of the system is found to be 3.28 and 3.27 respectively. The values of performance, intelligibility and naturalness are encouraging and show that diphone speech units are good candidates to develop fully functional speech synthesizer. But there are areas that can be improved. Inclusion of text analyzer to pronounce zonal dialects of the language and prosody generator are some of the things that need further investigation.},
 year = {2020}
}

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