How synthetic speech and text-to-speech works

[kestrell]

Kes: I actually don't listen to my screen reader nearly this fast--my usual speed is only somewhat faster than an average speaker, I would call it highly caffeinated geek speed--and, while I have issues listening to older lesser quality TTS, II don't aspire to the higher quality, human-sounding TTS for most purposes: most of the time, the TTS is rendered kind of invisibl inside my head, equivalent to my internal reading voice.
https://tink.uk/notes-on-synthetic-speech/#main-content

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

As I'm using speech output more for reading, I'm playing around with lots of voices.

100% agree that the more robotic-sounding voices permit content to shine. I also loathe narrators who perform audiobooks rather than just read them.

My recent Worst Ever was The Undying by Rose Boyer, where the narrator modulated her accent from Standard American News to terrible RP when she was quoting English writers like John Donne.

I grit my teeth and kept listening because the book itself is a FABULOUS exploration of the impairment that can accompany cancer treatment, and how the author recognizes cancer's martial framing as an elaborate way to blame the victim.

[kestrell]

I know I should know this, but what is RP?

[jesse_the_k]

Received Pronunciation--the high status British accent, or as Merriam-Webster puts it:

[kestrell]

Whatever you typed after the colon didn't show up with my screen reader: was it some sort of funky linguistic glyphs?

[jesse_the_k]

Fascinating -- it was a quote in markdown format -- greater-than space at the start of each single line break. Further complicated by me responding in my email client and mailing it back to DW

Trying again as plain text

a traditionally prestigious form of English spoken at the English public schools, at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and by many educated British people elsewhere

I was surprised to see this only dates from 1913.

More excellent discussions at Language Hat: https://languagehat.com/?s=Received+Pronunciation+

[kestrell]

Thanks for reposting, especially as I am kind of a nutter about most things Oxbridge, including the particularities of speech. I wonder if the form of speech became more elite as the society became more mixed around the time of WW1: I've heard that class in Britain is not a matter of how you dress, but the class system is expressed in its accents.

I'm an easily amused geek

[jesse_the_k]

to learn that Léonie Watson's blog has a category for "recipes from other W3C members"

https://tink.uk/tag/web-standards-food/