I have now added a first attempt at a Kurdish voice to eSpeak, Try the development version (1.31.12 or later) from:
http://espeak.sourceforge.net/test/latest.html
The name of the Kurdish voice is "ku".
The compiled binaries should be compatible with Ubuntu Gutsy.
I don't speak or understand any Kurdish, so much is guesses based on a little which I have read. I based the vowel sounds on the samples at http://www.skolutveckling.se/vaxthus...rdkurdiska.htm
I don't know whether this represents a suitable accents or dialect. Some of the sounds there differ from their descriptions on wikipedia or omniglot.
I'm not sure whether the "q" sound is correct. We don't have this sound in English, so I'm not sure if sounds OK. I've used strong version of "x", but again if it sounds wrong, tell me.
It puts the stress on the last syllable of each word. I know this is wrong in some cases, but I don't know the rules. Perhaps some word endings should be unstressed?
Probably vowel lengths need adjustment.
I don't know the names of the letters (eg. in English "see" for "c" and "eff" for "f") so I've made guesses.
I've made an attempt at numbers, but the information I found was confusing, with alternative pronunciations for some numbers. So probably some are wrong.
The pronunciation rules are in file: dictsource/ku_rules.
The file dictsource/ku_list gives the names of letters, symbols and numbers, and will contain any words with exceptional pronunciations. Also it should list common "function" words with attributes such as:
These can help the speech to flow better. Currently all words are stressed (except for a couple which I've already added to ku_list).Code:$u unstressed $u+ unstressed, except at end-of-sentence. $pause add a short pause before the word (eg. conjunctions). $brk add a shorter pause. (perhaps some prepositions).
So, send me corrections, suggestions, and additions. If we can improve it so that's it's useable then it can be included in Ubuntu and other distributions.
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