espeak-ng/docs/voices.md

# Voice Files

- [Contents of Voice Files](#contents-of-voice-files)
  - [Identification Attributes](#identification-attributes)
    - [name](#name)
    - [language](#language)
    - [gender](#gender)
  - [Voice Attributes](#voice-attributes)
    - [pitch](#pitch)
    - [formant](#formant)
    - [freq\_add](#freq_add)
    - [echo](#echo)
    - [tone](#tone)
    - [flutter](#flutter)
    - [roughness](#roughness)
    - [voicing](#voicing)
    - [consonants](#consonants)
    - [breath](#breath)
    - [breathw](#breathw)
    - [speed](#speed)
  - [Language Attributes](#language-attributes)
    - [phonemes](#phonemes)
    - [dictionary](#dictionary)
    - [dictrules](#dictrules)
    - [replace](#replace)
    - [stressLength](#stressLength)
    - [stressAdd](#stressAdd)
    - [stressAmp](#stressAmp)
    - [intonation](#intonation)
    - [charset](#charset)
    - [dictmin](#dictmin)
    - [alphabet2](#alphabet2)
    - [dictdialect](#dictdialect)
- [Voice Files Provided](#voice-files-provided)
  - [default](#default)

----------

A Voice file specifies a language (and possibly a language variant or
dialect) together with various attributes that affect the
characteristics of the voice quality and how the language is spoken.

Voice files are placed in the `espeak-data/voices` directory,
or within subdirectories in there.

The available voice files can be listed by:

	espeak-ng --voices

or

	espeak-ng --voices=<language>

also

	espeak-ng --voices=<variant>

Lists voice variants which can be applied to eSpeak NG voices.

	espeak-ng --voices=<mbrola>

Lists the Mbrola voices.

## Contents of Voice Files

The `language` attribute is mandatory. All the other attributes are
optional.

### Identification Attributes

#### name

	name <name>

A name given to this voice.

#### language

	language <language code> [<priority>]

This attribute should appear before the other attributes which are
listed below.

It selects the default behaviour and characteristics for the language,
and sets default values for "phonemes", "dictionary" and other
attributes. The \<language code\> should be a two-letter ISO 639-1
language code. One or more language variant codes may be appended,
separated by hyphens. (eg. en-uk-north).
 
The optional \<priority\> value gives the preference of this voice
compared with others for the specified language. A low value indicates a
more preferred voice. The default value is 5.

More than one `language` line may be present. A voice may be selected
for other related languages (variants which have the same initial 2
letter language code as the specified language), but it will be less
preferred for these. Different language variants may be specified by
additional `language` lines in order to indicate that this is a
preferred voice for them also. E.g.

	language en-uk-north
	language en

indicates that this is voice is for the "en-uk-north" dialect, but it is
also a main choice when a general "en" language is specified. Without
the second `language` line, it would be disfavoured for "en" for being
a more specialised voice.

#### gender

	gender <gender> [<age>]

This attribute is only a label for use in voice selection. It doesn't
change the sound of the voice.  

*  \<gender\> may be male, female, or unknown.  
*  \<age\> is optional and gives an age in years.

### Voice Attributes

#### pitch

	pitch <base> <range>

Two integer values. The first gives a base pitch to the voice (value in
Hz) The second controls the range of pitches used by the voice. Setting
it equal to the base pitch will give a monotone. The default values are 82 118.  

#### formant

	formant <number> <frequency> <strength> <width> <freq_add>

Systematically adjusts the frequency, strength, and width of the
resonance peaks of the voice. Values are percentages of the default
values. Changing these affects the tone/quality of the voice.

#### freq\_add

Adds a constant value (in Hz) to the frequency of the formant peak. The value
may be negative.

* Formants 1,2,3 are the standard three formants which define vowels.
* Formant 0 is used to give a low frequency component to the sounds, of
  frequency lower than F1.
* Formants 4,5 are higher than F3. They affect the quality of the voice.
* Formants 6,7,8 are weak, high frequency, additions to vowels to give a
  clearer sound.

#### echo

	echo <delay> <amplitude>

Parameter 1 gives the delay in mS (0 to 250mS).  

Parameter 2 gives the echo amplitude (0 to 100).  

Adding some echo can give a clearer or more interesting sound, especially when
listening through a domestic stereo sound system, rather than small computer
speakers.

#### tone

Controls the tone of the sound.  

`tone` is followed by up to 4 pairs of `<frequency> <amplitude>`
which define a frequency response graph. Frequency is in Hz and
amplitude is in the range 0 to 25 The default is:

	tone 600 170  1200 135  2000 110

This means that from frequency 0Hz to 600Hz the amplitude is 17 From
600Hz to 1200Hz the amplitude decreases from 170 to 135, then decreases
to 110 at 2000Hz and remains at 110 at higher frequencies. This
adjustment applies only to voiced sounds such as vowels and sonorant
consonants (such as `[n]` and `[l]`). Unvoiced sounds such as `[s]` are
unaffected.

This `tone` statement can also appear in `espeak-data/config`, in which case
it applies to all voices which don't have their own `tone` statement.

#### flutter

	flutter <value>

Default value: 100.  

Adds pitch fluctuations to give a wavering or older-sounding voice. A
large value (eg. 20) makes the voice sound "croaky".

#### roughness

	roughness <value>

Default value:  Range 0 - 7  

Reduces the amplitude of alternate waveform cycles in order to make the
voice sound creaky.

#### voicing

	voicing <value>

Default value: 100

Adjusts the strength of formant-synthesized sounds (vowels and sonorant
consonants).

#### consonants

	consonants <value> <value>

Default values: 100, 100

Adjusts the strength of noise sounds which are used in consonants. The
first value is the strength of unvoiced consonants such as "s" and "t".

The second value is the strength of the noise component of voiced
consonants such as "z" and "d".

#### breath

	breath <up to 8 integer values>

Default values: 0.

Adds noise which corresponds to the formant frequency peaks. The values
give the strength of noise for each formant peak (formants 1 to 8).

Use together with a low or zero value of the `voicing` attribute to
make a "wisper". For example:

	breath   75 75 60 40 15 10
	breathw  150 150 200 200 400 400
	voicing  18
	flutter  20
	formant   0 100 0 100   // remove formant 0 

#### breathw

	breathw <up to 8 integer values>

These values give bandwidths of the noise peaks of the `breath`
attribute. If `breathw` values are not given, then suitable default
values will be used.

#### speed

	speed <value>

Default value 10

Adjusts the speaking speed by a percentage of the default rate. This
can be used if a language voice seems faster or slower compared to other
voices.

### Language Attributes

#### phonemes

	phonemes <name>

Specifies which set of phonemes to use from those contained in the
phontab, phonindex, and phondata data files. This is a `phonemetable`
name as given in the "phoneme" source file.

This parameter is usually not needed as it is set by default to the
first two letters of the "language" parameter. However, different voices
of the same language can use different phoneme sets, to give different
accents.

#### dictionary

	dictionary <name>

Specifies which pair of dictionary files to use. eg. "english" indicates
that `speak-data/en_dict` should be used to translate from words to
phonemes. This parameter is usually not needed as it is set by default
to the first two letters of "language" parameter.

#### dictrules

	dictrules <list of rule numbers>

Gives a list of conditional dictionary rules which are applied for this
voice. Rule numbers are in the range 0 to 31 and are specific to a
language dictionary. They apply to rules in the language's `*_rules`
dictionary file and also its `*_list` exceptions list. See
[Text to Phoneme Translation](dictionary.md).

#### replace

	replace <flags> <phoneme> <replacement phoneme>

Replace a phoneme by another whenever it occurs.  
\<replacement phoneme\> may be NULL.  

Flags: bit 0: replacement only occurs on the final phoneme of a word.  
Flags: bit 1: replacement doesn't occur in stressed syllables.  

e.g.  

	replace  0  h  NULL      // drops h's
	replace  0  V  U         // replaces vowel in 'strut' by that in 'foot'
	                         // as occurs in northern British English
	replace  3  N  n         // change 'fishing' to 'fishin' etc.
	                         // (only the last phoneme of a word, only in unstressed syllables)

The phoneme mnemonics can be defined for each language, but some are
listed in [Phonemes](phonemes.md).

#### stressLength

	stressLength <8 integer values>

Eight integer parameters. These control the relative lengths of the
vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables.

* 0  unstressed
* 1 diminished. Its use depends on the language. In English it's used for
  unstressed syllables within multisyllabic words. In Spanish it's used
  for unstressed final syllables.
* 2 secondary stress
* 3 words marked as "unstressed" in the dictionary
* 4   not currently used
* 5   not currently used
* 6 stressed syllable (the main syllable in stressed words)
* 7 tonic syllable (by default, the last stressed syllable in the clause) 

#### stressAdd

	stressAdd <8 integer values>

Eight integer parameters. These are added to the voice's corresponding
`stressLength` values. They are used in the voice variant files in
`espeak-data/voices/!v` to give some variety. Negative values may be used.

#### stressAmp

	stressAmp <8 integer values>

Eight integer parameters. These control the relative amplitudes of the
vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables (see stressLength above).
The general default values are: 16, 16, 20, 20, 20, 24, 24, 22, although
these defaults may be different for particular languages.

#### intonation

	intonation <param1>

* 1 -- Default.  
* 2 -- Less intonation.  
* 3 -- Less intonation, and comma does not raise the pitch.  
* 4 -- Pitch rises (rather than falls) at the end of sentence.

#### charset

	charset <param1>

The ISO 8859 character set number. (not all are implemented).

#### dictmin

	dictmin <value>

Used for some languages to detect if additional language data is
installed. If the size of the compiled dictionary data for the language
(the file `espeak-data/*_dict`) is less than this size then a
warning is given.

#### alphabet2

	alphabet2 <alphabet> <language>

Used to specify a language to be used to speak words which are written
in a non-native alphabet. e.g.:

	alphabet2 cyr ru

Alphabets names include: latin, cyr (cyrillic), ar (arabic). The default
language for latin alphabet is English.

#### dictdialect

	dictdialect <dialect>

Words can be marked in the `*_list` or `*_rules` file to be spoken using
a foreign voice. This `dictdialect` attribute can be used to specify
which dialect of the foreign language should be used, instead of the
default dialect. The currently available dialects are:

* `en-us` (US English)  
* `es-la` (Latin American Spanish)

e.g.

	dictdialect en-us

This means that any words or rules which are maked with `_^_EN` will be
spoken with the US English voice instead of the default UK English
voice.

Additional attributes are available to set various internal options
which control how language is processed. These would normally be set in
the program code rather than in a voice file.

## Voice Files Provided

A number of Voice files are provided in the `espeak-data/voices` directory.
You can select one of these with the `-v <voice filename>` parameter to
the `espeak-ng` command.

#### default

This voice is used if none is specified in the speak command. You can
copy your preferred voice to "default" so you can use the speak command
without the need to specify a voice.