speak-ng - lingual software speech synthesizer.
speak-ng [options] [<words>]
SPEAK-NG(1) User Commands SPEAK-NG(1)
NAME
speak-ng - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.
SYNOPSIS
speak-ng [options] [<words>]
DESCRIPTION
speak-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 instead of a file.
If neither -f nor --stdin are provided, <words> are spoken, or if no
words are provided then text is spoken from stdin a line at a time.
-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.
--voices=<directory>
Lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.
EXAMPLES
speak-ng "This is a test"
Speak the sentence "This is a test" using the default English
voice.
speak-ng -f hello.txt
Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
cat hello.txt | speak-ng
Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
speak-ng -x hello
Speak the word "hello" using the default English voice, and
print the phonemes that were spoken.
speak-ng -ven-us "[[h@'loU]]"
Speak the phonemes "h@'loU" using the American English voice.
speak-ng --voices
List all voices supported by eSpeak.
speak-ng --voices=en
List all voices that speak English (en).
speak-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 SPEAK-NG(1)