[espeak-gaeilge] Re: eSpeak Irish Version 2.1 now available
- From: RobbieS <robbiesin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: espeak-gaeilge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:22:21 +0100
After glimpsing at Version 2.1, I've given ten remarks or suggested changes
below.
I've tried in vain to establish verbal contact with Ronan. My wi-fi might
not be up to Skype, but touch wood, and hoping for the best, I'm for a
Skype-meeting as soon as is practicably possible. I am only available
Mondays-Wednesday nights, generally speaking.
A question uppermost in my thoughts is whether anyone has approached Ailbhe
Ni Chasaide et, al, at TCD to ask them if we can use their work as a
basis. Last year, they told me that their programme was compatible with
NVDA and that it was also Open-Source. It would save us a lot of
unnecessary work, and after all, they have put in enormous work and
resources - and are continuing to do so.
Further to my remarks on d and t last time, problems with the broad t can
be seen by hearing how eSpeak pronounces "bata" and "botun" for example.
Here, the second consonant sounds more like a c than anything else, but
doesn't seem anywhere near a t-leathan.
Regarding Ronan's questions on l-cao and m-caol, well, I think that
confusions have arisen because of the rampant anglicisation of the language
in terms of phonetics as much as anything else. Irish spelling rules make
a lot of sense in terms of phonetics, and 99% of the time are extremely
faithful to the pronunciation (at least of caighdean). - more of which
later.
"lei" needs to get a slender L to distinguish it from the words "lae" and
"lao", which have a broad-L sound. Boosting the broad-L sound on the
synthesizer could really help in this regard. A broad L sound is made by
placing the tip of the tongue underneath the top teeth, giving a sort of an
Arabic L-sound as in "Alah".
There are two ways of making a slender L sound in Irish: one involves
putting the centre of the tongue on the alveola (i.e., between the pallate
and the teeth), and letting the tip of the tongue touch the teeth, if
anything at all. The second, which leads to confusion, is a sound which is
similar to English ly-endings, *except* unlike the English sound, the tip
of the tongue on the palate is also supported by the middle of the tongue
on the palate behind it. This sound has also made it into Hiberno-english,
giving us unique takes on the glide from T to L (e.g., at last sound like a
clast), or atlas sounding like aclas).
More commonly, the preposition "le" gets this second tiype of slender L.
I'm thinkin' the word "lei" would be included in this, and the word "le"
belongs to the first slender-L sound.
there is a tendency in learnt Irish nowadays to conflate all these L-sounds
(slender and broad) into the English L. As a matter of taste, I think this
is an abomination, but more importantly, for our purposes, the traditional
spoken sounds (which are still very much alive) are a real boon to
spech-synthesizers if they are utilized.
I'm not sure I quite understand Ronan's point on the slender-m sounds. As
far as I can see, there is only one m-sound in irish (excluding the
y-sounds that necessitate from the slender vowels folloing or before).
Hence, "mise" cannot have a broad vowel sound inserted anywhere. In the
case of "mean", the key differences in pronunciation tend to be on the
length of the first vowel (whether it is a very quick glide, or whether it
is given fuller pronunciation). Nonetheless, that slender vowel-sound is
always there.
Going back to my suggestions in the Dropbox folder, I was thinking in terms
of Caighdean. I am not a fan of Caighdean. I speak Irish with a strong
Munster brogue with some inclusions from elsewhere. However, instead of
picking anyone dialect over another, I'm thinking that Caighdean is our
starting-point, at least. To this end, "agam" and "agat" have the Munster
endings of "ut", with emphasis on the last syllable. Connacht has a strong
emphasis on the first syllable, and more often than not, doesn't even
pronounce the me "g", so that the word sounds something like the way most
Irish people say the English word "ought". the current eSpeak would seem
to be closer to Ulster "agat" than anything else, which will not
necessarily be helpful to beginners or those who are not familiar with that
dialect.
Sylable-stress is an important aspect of intelligibility in Irish. It does
very from dialect to dialect, but again, if we stick as close as possible
to the Caighdean, it should make life easier for all. e.g., the word
barraiocht as currently sounding on eSpeak, should have emphasis on the
first sylable at the expense of the other two. Voiceover does an excellent
job of it, apart from the *ch. ** *
1. the slenderness of the letter b (i.e., the letter e itself) in the word
“beo” could be more pronounced. This can be seen also in the words dó and
deo, which sound the same in eSpeak currently. I don’t think this is just
a matter of treating a broad consonant as if it has a y-sound beside it,
but there is an actual difference between the sounds of the broad and
slender consonants themselves, which should be utilized, and which would
make intelligibility much easier.
2. the slender b (i.e., the *e* ) in “beart” could be less pronounced.
3. “baoth” should have the same vowel-sound as “baol” currently has.
4. “bac” currently sounds like it is spelt “bác”. It should rather have a
short vowel sound to sound like the English *mock. *.
5. “barr” should have the same fowel-sound as the first vowel-sound in the
English *borrow. *
6. However, the double-r conotes a sort of an rs sound or sometimes an
rzh sound, with the tip of the tongue on the palate. Can this be
reproduced? The importance of both the vowel-sound and the double-r can be
illustrated the sentences “Is fearr é” and “is fear é” – “It is best”, and
“He is a man”, respectively. They sound identical in espeak currently, but
not in spoken Irish.
7. a haon (one) shouldn’t be a diphthong, because this confuses it with
the word for “bird” – éan. In Connacht and Ulster, this *ao *sound is
invariably pronounced like English *ee *sound, or an í (I fada) without
followed by a broad consonant.
8. Apart from the over-pronounced slender b mentioned ealirer, the last
vowel-sound in*”beatha” *sounds like a neutral vowel-sound instead of an
“a”. the same can be said for “bearna”.
* *
*9. bodhar should have the same sort of vowel-sound as the English
word”hour”. The same goes for the word “bonn”. Fonn, gann, donn, lann,
and rann. *
* *
* *
*10. The slender r needs improvement, I think. Apart from being
indistinguishible from the broad-r in most examples, e-speak seems to
suppress it in a word like “buairt”. *
* *
Hope some of this is helpful, and I'm looking forward to programming
myself.
Regards,
Robbie
**
*p.s. my number if anyone needs to speak to me regarding anything to do
with Irish is 086-3989365. *
On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Cearbhall O'Meadhra <omeadhrac@xxxxxxx>wrote:
> Dear Damien,
>
> You don't need to have version 2.0 in place. Just go ahead and follow the
> instructions given under "Documentation" in the drop Box folder. That will
> bring you up to date with both the eSpeak module and with NVDA.
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Cearbhall
>
> T: +353 (0)1 6364364 m: 08333 23487 E: omeadhrac@xxxxxxx
> -----Original Message-----
> From: espeak-gaeilge-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:espeak-gaeilge-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Damien O'Connor
> Sent: 27 August 2012 07:48
> To: espeak-gaeilge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [espeak-gaeilge] Re: eSpeak Irish Version 2.1 now available
>
> Hi Ronan.
>
> Before I get into the below. Do I need to install 2.1 or will my installed
> version automatically update?
>
> Thanks
>
> Damien.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: espeak-gaeilge-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:espeak-gaeilge-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ronan McGuirk
> Sent: 26 August 2012 22:26
> To: espeak-gaeilge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [espeak-gaeilge] eSpeak Irish Version 2.1 now available
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have added version 2.1 to the DropBox environment.
>
> Many thanks to those of you who gave me feedbak on pronunciation. I have
> tried to incorporate your suggestions.
>
> I suggest we meet up on Skype at some stage to discuss pronunciation issues
> in more detail.
>
> In the meantime can I ask you to look at one issue in particular.
>
> When I was preparing Version 2, I initially put in simple rules for slender
> consonants. At first I simply had a rule that if a consonant is preceded by
> or followed by a slender vowel (e, i, é, í) then the consonant should be
> slender.
>
> As most of you will know, this was too simplistic.
>
> The words mise and minic for example, I believe have a broad m, whereas
> words beginning mionn or meán have a slender m. I incorporated this into
> version 2. However, there are a lot of other exceptions to the simple
> slender rule.
>
> I have tried to apply some of these to Version 2.1.
>
> For example it seems that the following words have aslender l:
> liom, leat, libh. Whereas I think leis and léi have a broad l.
> I think d and s seem to be nearly always slender if surrounded by slender
> vowels, but most other consonants appear to have exceptions.
>
> Can you please review version 2.1 with a view to identifying where it is
> mispronouncing consonants as slender rather than broad or vice versa, when
> slender vowels surround the consonants. Note that the current rules set
> all
> consonants to broad if they are surrounded by broad vowels, which I believe
> is correct.
>
> If anyone has a good reference for rules for slender consonants, can you
> please let me know.
>
> As always, please let me know of any other mispronunciations or feedback.
>
> le meas
> Ronan
>
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