V: a plain vowel CV: a consonant followed by a vowel VC: a vowel followed by a consonant CVC: a consonant followed by a vowel followed by a consonant HCV: a half consonant, followed by a CV HCVC: a half consonant, followed by a CVC 0C: a consonant alone G[0-9]*: a silence gap of the specified length (typical gaps between words would be between G1500 and G3000 depending upon the speed required; max allowed is G15000; larger gaps can be given by repeating G15000 as many times as required)
Before giving examples of the above, we need to enumerate the consonants and vowels we allow.
1 a as is pun 2 aa as in the hindi word saal (meaning year) 3 i as in pin 4 ii as in keen 5 u as in pull 6 uu as in pool 7 e as in met 8 ee as in mate 9 ae as in mat 10 ai as in height 11 o as in the tamil word ponni (meaning gold) 12 oo as in court 13 au as in call 14 ow as in cow 15 tamil-u : as in the tamil aanddu (meaning year)
The phonetic description uses the numbers 1-15 instead of the pnemonics given above.
k kh g gh ch chh j jh t th d dh n tt tth dd ddh nna p f b bh m y r l ll v sh s h zh z an
Most of the above are self-explanatory for those who know an Indian language. The only ones which may need explanation are
ll as in the tamil word vellam (meaning water, not jaggery) zh as in the tamil word vazhi (meaning way) z as in the urdu work roz (meaning daily) an as in the hindi kahaan (meaning where)
These consonants are numbered 1..34. the phonetic description however uses the pnemonics above. Within the program and in the database nomenclature, the numbers are used.
khana (food in hindi) kh2 n2 (CV CV) maun (silence in hindi) m13n (CVC) kahaan (where in hindi) k1 h2an (CV CVC) pratibha (talent in hindi) pHr1 t3 bh2 (HCV CV CV) sankalp (resolution in hindi) s1n k1l 0p (CVC CVC 0C) chandramaa (the moon in hindi) ch1n dHr1 m2 (CVC HCV CV) praan (life in hindi) pHr2n (HCVC) mysore (as pronounced in kannada) m10 s6 r5 (CV CV CV) rashtr (nation in hindi) r2sh 0tt 0r (CVC 0C 0C) aadesh (instruction in hindi) 2 d8sh (V CHC) andaaz (style in urdu) 1n d2z (VC CVC) ahimsa (nonviolence) 1 h3n s2 (V CVC CV) vazhapazham (banana in tamil) v2 zh1 p1 zh1m (CV CV CV CVC)
ky kr kl kll kv ksh
khy khr khl khv
gy gr gl gv gn
ghy ghr ghv ghn
chy chr chv
jy jv
ty tr tv
thy thr
dy dr dv
dhy dhr dhv
ny nr nv
tty ttr ttv
ddy ddr ddv
py pr pl pll
fr fl
by br bl
bhy bhr bhl
my mr
vy vr vl
If you want to use a half sound which is not in this list, you must use 0C instead. For example,
srushtti would be 0s r5sh tt3 hrithik would be 0h r3 t3kbut
dhyan is dhHy2n khyaati is khHy2 t3
The database has the following structure. All sound files stored in the database are gsm compressed .gsm files (see the gsm directory containing an open source distribution of the GSM standard by The Communications and Operating Systems Research Group (KBS) at the Technische Universitaet Berlin) recorded at 16KHz as 16bit signed linear samples. The following sound units are stored in the database (the numbers below have been explained above).
CV pairs 1..33 * 2 4 6 8 9 10 12 13 14 15
VC pairs 2 4 6 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 * 1..34
V 1..14
33 0C sounds, all consonants except an.
Halfs: ky kr kl kll kv ksh
khy khr khl khv
gy gr gl gv gn
ghy ghr ghv ghn
chy chr chv
jy jv
ty tr tv
thy thr
dy dr dv
dhy dhr dhv
ny nr nv
tty ttr ttv
ddy ddr ddv
py pr pl pll
fr fl
by br bl
bhy bhr bhl
my mr
vy vr vl
The total size of the database is currently around 1MB, though we can possibly work to get it down to about half the size by storing only parts of vowels and extending them on the fly. We are using gsm compression which gives about a factor of 10 compression. There are programs with bettwer compression ratios available but they do not seem to be open source.
CV files are in the cv/ directory within database/ VC files are in the vc/ directory within database/ V files are in the v/ directory within database/ Halfs files are in the halfs/ directory within database/ 0C files are in the c/ directory within database/
CV files are named x.y.gsm where x is the consonant number and y is the vowel number.
VC files are named x.y.gsm where x is the vowel number and y is the consonant number.
V files are named x.gsm where x is the vowel number. Halfs files are named x.y.gsm where x,y are the two consonants involved.
0C files are named x.gsm where x is the consonant number.
All files other than the 0C files have been pitch marked and the marks appear in the corresponding .marks files, one mark per byte as an unsigned char.
In addition to the sound files, there are four files in database/, namely cvoffsets, vcoffsets, voffsets and hoffsets, which store various attributes of the sound files.
CV fields: start(start of the cv)
diphst(diphone start position: default halfway to ctov from start)
ctov(cons to vowel change position)
longvowlen(length of long vowel, currently not really used)
shortvowlen(length of short vowel)
diphend(end of diphone for long vowel, short
will be obtained from long)
diphshortfactor(factor for getting short diphone from long)
halfst(place where this cv is cut to connect to previous half)
VC fields: end(end of vc)
diphend(diphone end position: default halfway from ctov to end)
vtoc(vowel to cons change position)
longvowlen(length of long vowel, currently not really used)
shortvowlen(length of short vowel)
diphst(start of diphone for long vowel, short
will be obtained from long)
Several of the above files will have xxx attributes meaning that the synthesis program can set default values for these attributes.