BBBBBBBB ZZZZZZZZZZ 111 B B ZZ ZZ 1111 B B Z ZZ 11 11 B B ZZ 11 B B ZZ 11 BBBBBBBB ZZ 11 B B ZZ 11 B B ZZ 11 B B ZZ Z 11 B B ZZ ZZ 11 BBBBBBBB ZZZZZZZZZZ 111111 release 0.99 -------------------------------------------------------------- Diaz titouroù difonemoù evit ar Brezhoneg -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of the BZ1 database 2.0 Files 3.0 Installation, and tests 4.0 Authors Appendice: BZ1 FAQ -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of BZ1 -------------------------------------------------------------- BZ1 0.98 release is a Breton diphone database provided for MBROLA by the KGB (Kenaoz ar Gomz e Brezhoneg) project (part of IRISA research institute located at Lannuon Computing Labs) It provides a Breton female voice (great artist Annie Ebrel's) whose central pitch is about 180-200Hz. Phoneme coding is close to SAMPA conventions, '~' marks nazalisation and ':' long vowels. Long and short vowels are considered different (and the long version is obtained from an accentuated segment), lot of diphtongs are considered so the database is quite large. Size should decrease in the future as undistinguishable "phonemes" will be identified. Some diphtongs have a quite bad recording, and sound as two consecutive vowels. Then, unfortunately some xx to silence transitions are missing, so phrase endings can sound bad. For more informations about SAMPA, and ascii-coding of IPA charset look at : http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/x-sampa.htm SAMPA EXAMPLES A dall A: bazh A~ lann A~: man e bet e: ker e~ bensel e~: E lemm E: bered E~ peñse E:~ deñved 2 meurzh 2: 2~ 2~: 9 feulz 9: meuleudi 9~: i hili i: hir i~ riñsoñ i~: fiñv, hiñvis j yar o pok o: rod o~ plom o~: soñj O koll O: lovr u toull u: tour y pulluc'h y: mul y~ [loc] puñs y~: puñs w war H ui [It seems that y~ (i.e. ÿ), long or normal, is missing, We have recorded it, wait for 0.99 !] Diphtongs : Aj Aw A~w ew e~w Ej Ew iw oj ow 2j 2~j 9j 9~j b berr d du f fust g gar, genoù g' [ missing in 0.98 ] h had, ar c'har J poaniañ, pign k kalon k' [ missing in 0.98 ] l lenn L dilhad m mamm n nann Nk onkl [ missing in 0.98 ] p pri r ruz s sort S choual t ti v van x dic'houennañ z jeu Z bezañ Not all diphones are present (of course !), some do not occur in breton (nor any language), others can be rendered easily by substitution of a close phoneme. Look at labels.txt to know which transitions are defined or not. -------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 Files -------------------------------------------------------------- bz1.txt : this file bz1 : the (huge) diphone database labels.txt : the complete diphone list mbrola.pho : Example : "Va mouezh a zo adsavet gant ar benveg nevez anvet MBROLA" aman.pho : another example : "Amañ emañ ma zad ha ma mamm" galleg.pho : french sentence, with breton accent. cafe.pho : french sentence, with breton accent and syntax. doctor.pho : french sentence, with typical breton syntax. -------------------------------------------------------------- 3.0 Installation and Tests -------------------------------------------------------------- [part mostly cut&paste from MBROLA help files] If you have not copied the MBROLA software yet, please consult the MBROLA project homepage and get it at http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html Copy bz1.zip into the mbrola directory and unzip it : unzip bz12.zip (or pkunzip on PC/DOS) (don't forget to delete the .zip file when this is done) Try mbrola bz1 TEST/mbrola.pho mbrola.wav to create a sound file for a phrase. In this example the audio file follows the RIFF Wav format. But depending on the extension bonjour.au, bonjour.aif, or bonjour.raw you can obtain other file formats. Listen to it with your favorite sound editor, and try the other command files (*.pho) to have a better idea of the quality of speech you can synthesize with the MBROLA technique. On Unix systems you can pipe the audio ouput to the sound player as on a HP : mbrola bz1 TEST/mbrola.pho - | splayer -srate 16000 -l16, on Linux : mbrola bz1 TEST/mbrola.pho - | vplay -s 16000 -b 16 (vplay is part of snd-kit package). Also refer to the readme.txt file provided with the mbrola software for using it. To improve quality, use -l, -t and -f controls (and initialization files), such as : -l 13000 -t 0.8 -------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 Author -------------------------------------------------------------- This database was recorded by Annie Ebrel, a well known breton traditional singer, in TooT studio at St-Brieuc. This work is only a part of the whole KGB project, whose goal is to provide high quality Breton speech synthesis for language acquisition and teaching. Main partners in the team are : - Lannion Computing Labs (IRISA labs) KGB team (mercier@enssat.fr) http://www.enssat.fr, http://www.irisa.fr - TES (Ti-Embann ar Skolioù Brezhonek) (tes@tes.c-si.fr) http://www.ac-rennes.fr/crdp/tes/ For complaints, remarks, etc. about this specific work (the phoneme database) write to Jean-Pierre.Messager@enssat.fr or Herve.Gourmelon@enssat.fr Adress flames to /dev/null (or nul on dos/windoz sytems) ------------------------------------------------------------- Appendice: BZ1 FAQ ------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Are you working on a complete Text-To-Speech system for breton ? A: Yes, we are. Q: Is there any application using this database yet ? A: There is: a vocal dictionnary (from F. Favereau "Geriadur ar Brezhoneg a-vremañ") on CD-ROM for Windoze'95 will be released soon (editors TES for schools and Skol Vreizh for individual users). A web version is planed too. Q: Bz1 and "dialects"... A: Our reference is center Brittany, Annie Ebrel's native place, and phonologic scheme from Goelo (F. Favereau's work). It's not difficult to adapt for K.L.T. "dialects". Breton from Bro-Gwened will need more work, probably recording another voice and (for TTS) building a specific accentuation scheme.