TEXT-TO-SPEECH CONVERSION (FOR BAHASA MELAYU)

Text-to-Speech (TTS) is an application that help user in having the text given to be read out loud. This project highlighted in creating a TTS system that allows text reading in Standard Malay Language (Bahasa Melayu). There is a lack of computer aided learning (CAL) tools that emphasize in Malay linguistic and misconception that people have regarding the usage of English-based TTS to read Bahasa Melayu text derived the development ofthis project. The end result is the TTS conversion prototype for Bahasa Melayu that reads by syllable using syllabification techniques through the employment ofMaximum Onset Principle (MOP) and produce syllable sounding speech by using syllable to sound mapping method

TEXT-TO-SPEECH CONVERSION (FOR BAHASA MELAYU)

Text-to-Speech (TTS) is an application that help user in having the text given to be read out loud. This project highlighted in creating a TTS system that allows text reading in Standard Malay Language (Bahasa Melayu). There is a lack of computer aided learning (CAL) tools that emphasize in Malay linguistic and misconception that people have regarding the usage of English-based TTS to read Bahasa Melayu text derived the development ofthis project. The end result is the TTS conversion prototype for Bahasa Melayu that reads by syllable using syllabification techniques through the employment ofMaximum Onset Principle (MOP) and produce syllable sounding speech by using syllable to sound mapping method

SMaTTS: standard malay text to speech system

This paper presents a rule-based text- to- speech (TTS) Synthesis System for Standard Malay, namely SMaTTS. The proposed system using sinusoidal method and some pre- recorded wave files in generating speech for the system. The use of phone database significantly decreases the amount of computer memory space used, thus making the system very light and embeddable. The overall system was comprised of two phases the Natural Language Processing (NLP) that consisted of the high-level processing of text analysis, phonetic analysis, text normalization and morphophonemic module. The module was designed specially for SM to overcome few problems in defining the rules for SM orthography system before it can be passed to the DSP module. The second phase is the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) which operated on the low-level process of the speech waveform generation. A developed an intelligible and adequately natural sounding formant-based speech synthesis system with a light and user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) is introduced. A Standard Malay Language (SM) phoneme set and an inclusive set of phone database have been constructed carefully for this phone-based speech synthesizer. By applying the generative phonology, a comprehensive letter-to-sound (LTS) rules and a pronunciation lexicon have been invented for SMaTTS. As for the evaluation tests, a set of Diagnostic Rhyme Test (DRT) word list was compiled and several experiments have been performed to evaluate the quality of the synthesized speech by analyzing the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) obtained. The overall performance of the system as well as the room for improvements was thoroughly discussed

Towards designing a high intelligibility rule based standard malay text-to-speech synthesis system

Although text-to-speech (TTS) technology has gained some interest from amateur and professional researchers in developing a Standard Malay (SM) text- to- speech synthesizer, however, up to this day, there is rarely any high intelligible TTS system which is freely accessible to be implemented and introduced to the community of SM speakers. Therefore, identification of the core components required for the development of SM TTS system especially in establishing the NLP module should be carried out intensively. This paper presents a rule-based text- to- speech synthesis system for Standard Malay, named SMaTTS. An intelligible and adequately natural sounding formant-based speech synthesis system with a light and user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed. Result and suggestion for future improvements is discussed. The available Malay TTS synthesizers, the algorithms and speech engine in used, as well as their strong and weak points for each of the system are discussed in this paper. Assessment was made at all possible levels; phoneme, word and sentence level. The overall performance of the system is analyzed using Categorical Estimation (CE) for a comprehensive analysis. Result and suggestion for future improvements is discussed

Tracing the Linguistic Crossroads Between Malay and Tamil

Speakers of Malay and Tamil have been in intermittent contact for roughly two millennia, yet extant academic work on the resultant processes of contact, lexical borrowing, and language mixing at the interface of these two speech communities has only exposed the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This paper presents an historical overview of language contact between Malay and Tamil through time and across the Bay of Bengal. It concludes with a call for future studies on the lexicology, dialectology, and use of colloquial language of both Malay and Tamil varieties

eXTRA: A Culturally Enriched Malay Text to Speech System

This paper concerns the incorporation of naturalness into Malay Text-to-Speech (TTS) systems through the addition of a culturally-localized affective component. Previous studies on emotion theories were examined to draw up assumptions about emotions. These studies also include the findings from observations by anthropologists and researchers on culturalspecific emotions, particularly, the Malay culture. These findings were used to elicit the requirements for modeling affect in the TTS that conforms to the people of the Malay culture in Malaysia. The goal is to introduce a novel method for generating Malay expressive speech by embedding a localized ‘emotion layer’ called eXpressive Text Reader Automation Layer, abbreviated as eXTRA. In a pilot project, the prototype is used with Fasih, the first Malay Text-to-Speech system developed by MIMOS Berhad, which can read unrestricted Malay text in four emotions: anger, sadness, happiness and fear. In this paper however, concentration is given to the first two emotions. eXTRA is evaluated through open perception tests by both native and non-native listeners. The results show more than sixty percent of recognition rate, which confirmed the satisfactory performance of the approaches

Malay Speech Intelligibility Test (MSIT) for Deaf Malaysian Children

This paper presents a novel approach to objectively measure speech intelligibility of deaf Malaysian children using nonsense syllables as test words. In this study, speech intelligibility of deaf children is measured through the ability to say simple syllables (consisting of a consonant and a vowel) for all the 22 Malay consonants. The MSIT score should indicate how well these children can produce speech; the higher the score, the better their speech intelligibility. The MSIT have been tested with twenty deaf and ten normal hearning Malaysian children and has been verified by five naïve and two expert listeners. The application of the test is presented as speech intelligibility index for deaf children in a deaf school. The successful development of the MSIT system serves to assist speech pathologist, therapist, teachers and parents of deaf children to determine the level of Malay speech deficiencies and the effectiveness of corrective measures taken

Newton Goes East: Natural Philosophy in the First Malay Grammar (1736) and the First Malay Bible (1733)

George Henrik Werndly’s work in Malay grammar, literature, and Bible translation can be understood and explained in the context of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century natural philosophy, especially natural philosophy in the spirit of Newton. The Dutch natural philosopher Lambert ten Kate, who was deeply influenced by Isaac Newton, is one of the main channels through which the ideas of the natural philosophy tradition reached Werndly. Ten Kate had applied the methodologies of natural philosophy to linguistics in ways that inspired Werndly to follow the same approach in his grammar of Malay

Study on phonetic context of Malay syllables towards the development of Malay speech synthesizer [TK7882.S65 H233 2007 f rb].

Pensintesis sebutan Bahasa Melayu telah berkembang daripada teknik pensintesis berparameter (pemodelan penyebutan manusia dan pensintesis berdasarkan formant) kepada teknik pensintesis tidak berparameter (pensintesis sebutan berdasarkan pencantuman). Speech synthesizer has evolved from parametric speech synthesizer (articulatory and formant synthesizer) to non-parametric synthesizer (concatenative synthesizer). Recently, the concatenative speech synthesizer approach is moving towards corpusbased or unit selection technique