espeak-ng - lingual software speech synthesizer.
espeak-ng [options] [words]
ESPEAK-NG(1) User Commands ESPEAK-NG(1)
NAME
espeak-ng - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.
SYNOPSIS
espeak-ng [options] [words]
DESCRIPTION
espeak-ng is a software speech synthesizer for English, and some other
languages.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Show summary of options.
--version
Prints the espeak library version and the location of the espeak
voice data.
-f <text file>
Text file to speak.
--stdin
Read text input from stdin till to the end of a stream at once.
If neither -f nor --stdin are provided, then <words> from parameter are
spoken, or text is spoken from stdin, read separately one line by line
at a time.
-d <device>
Use the specified device to speak the audio on. If not speci-
fied, the default audio device is used.
-q Quiet, don't produce any speech (may be useful with -x).
-a <integer>
Amplitude, 0 to 200, default is 100.
-g <integer>
Word gap. Pause between words, units of 10ms at the default
speed.
-k <integer>
Indicate capital letters with: 1=sound, 2=the word "capitals",
higher values = a pitch increase (try -k20).
-l <integer>
Line length. If not zero (which is the default), consider lines
less than this length as end-of-clause.
-p <integer>
Pitch adjustment, 0 to 99, default is 50.
-s <integer>
Speed in words per minute, default is 175.
-v <voice name>
Use voice file of this name from espeak-ng-data/voices. A vari-
ant can be specified using voice+variant, such as af+m3.
-w <wave file name>
Write output to this WAV file, rather than speaking it directly.
--split=<minutes>
Used with -w to split the audio output into <minutes> recorded
chunks.
-b Input text encoding, 1=UTF8, 2=8 bit, 4=16 bit.
-m Indicates that the text contains SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup
Language) tags or other XML tags. Those SSML tags which are sup-
ported are interpreted. Other tags, including HTML, are ignored,
except that some HTML tags such as <hr> <h2> and <li> ensure a
break in the speech.
-x Write phoneme mnemonics to stdout.
-X Write phonemes mnemonics and translation trace to stdout. If
rules files have been built with --compile=debug, line numbers
will also be displayed.
-z No final sentence pause at the end of the text.
--stdout
Write speech output to stdout.
--compile=voicename
Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
directory. =<voicename< is optional and specifies which language
is compiled.
--compile-debug=voicename
Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
directory as above, but include line numbers, that get shown
when -X is used.
--ipa Write phonemes to stdout using International Phonetic Alphabet.
--ipa=1 Use ties, --ipa=2 Use ZWJ, --ipa=3 Separate with _.
--tie=<character>
The character to use to join multi-letter phonemes in -x and
--ipa output.
--path=<path>
Specifies the directory containing the espeak-ng-data directory.
--pho Write mbrola phoneme data (.pho) to stdout or to the file in
--phonout.
--phonout=<filename>
Write output from -x -X commands and mbrola phoneme data to this
file.
--punct="<characters>"
Speak the names of punctuation characters during speaking. If
=<characters> is omitted, all punctuation is spoken.
--sep=<character>
The character to separate phonemes from the -x and --ipa output.
--voices[=<language code>]
Lists the available voices. If =<language code> is present then
only those voices which are suitable for that language are
listed. If xx-yy language code is passed, then voices with yy of
xx language variants are shown with higher priority than just
xx. If variant is passed, then all voice variants are shown. If
mb or mbrola is passed, then all voices using the MBROLA voice
synthesizer are shown. If all is passed, then all eSpeak NG
voices, voice variants and MBROLA voices are shown.
--voices=<directory>
Lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.
EXAMPLES
espeak-ng "This is a test"
Speak the sentence "This is a test" using the default English
voice.
espeak-ng -f hello.txt
Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
cat hello.txt | espeak-ng
Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
espeak-ng -x hello
Speak the word "hello" using the default English voice, and
print the phonemes that were spoken.
espeak-ng -ven-us "[[h@'loU]]"
Speak the phonemes "h@'loU" using the American English voice.
espeak-ng --voices
List all voices supported by eSpeak.
espeak-ng --voices=en
List all voices that speak English (en).
espeak-ng --voices=mb
List all voices using the MBROLA voice synthesizer.
AUTHOR
eSpeak NG is maintained by Reece H. Dunn msclrhd@gmail.com. It is based
on eSpeak by Jonathan Duddington jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk.
This manual page is based on the eSpeak page written by Luke Yelavich
themuso@ubuntu.com for the Ubuntu project.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+--------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Availability | library/speech/espeak-ng |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Stability | Volatile |
+---------------+--------------------------+
NOTES
Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
code-downloads.html.
This software was built from source available at
https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng.
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng.
Solaris 11.4 January 2022 ESPEAK-NG(1)