This directory contains the BRLTTY speech synthesizer driver for the ViaVoice
[http://www.ibm.com/software/speech/dev/ttssdk_linux.html] text to speech
engine from International Business Machines (IBM) [http://www.ibm.com]. It was
implemented, and is being maintained, by Dave Mielke <Dave@Mielke.cc>.

ViaVoice was its original name. It's currently  known as Voxin
[http://voxin.oralux.net/], and is currently being maintained by the Oralux
Association [http://oralux.org/]. Other names by which ViaVoice has been
known include Eloquence, Outloud, and DecTalk.

This driver can be either dynamically loaded (at run time) or built directly
into a dynamically linked BRLTTY binary (via --with-speech-driver),
but it can't be built into a statically linked BRLTTY binary (via
--enable-standalone-programs) because the Voxin package doesn't contain
static archives.

The sox command must be installed because this driver uses it in order to
resample from one of the underlying speech engine's fixed set of rates (see
the quality parameter, below) to one that's supported by the sound card.

This driver recognizes the following parameters (see below for details):

   Parameter       Value
   Quality         fair, poor, good
   Mode            words, letters, punctuation, phonetic
   Synthesize      sentences, all
   Abbreviations   on, off
   Years           on, off
   Language        dialect-language[-encoding]
   Voice           built-in type or ViaVoice name
   Gender          male, female
   HeadSize        0-100
   PitchBaseline   40-422 [Hertz]
   Expressiveness  0-100 (pitch fluctuation)
   Roughness       0-100
   Breathiness     0-100
   Volume          0-100 [percent]
   Speed           70-1297 [words per minute]

The quality parameter sets the sample rate of the generated audio:

   Value   Rate
   Poor    8000Hz
  *Fair   11025Hz
   Good   22050Hz

The mode parameter determines how the text is spoken:

  Value         Action
  *Words        words are spoken
   Letters      letters are spoken
   Punctuation  letters and punctuation are spoken
   Phonetic     letters are spoken phonetically

The synthesize parameter determines how the text is synthesized:

   Value      Action
  *Sentences  each sentence is synthesized separately
   All        the entire text is synthesized

The abbreviations parameter determines how known abbreviations are spoken:

   Value  Action
  *On     abbreviations are expanded
   Off    abbreviations aren't expanded

The years parameter determines how four-digit numbers are spoken:

   Value  Action            Example
  *On     as year numbers   twenty nineteen
   Off    as other numbers  two thousand nineteen

The language parameter specifies which language is to be synthesized. The
components of a language name are separated from one another by a dash [-].
The first component is the dialect, the second component is the language,
and the optional third component is the encoding (character set). Case
doesn't matter, and each component may be individually abbreviated as
desired. For example, ca-fr means Canadian-French. The following languages
are supported:

  *American-English
   British-English
   Castilian-Spanish
   Mexican-Spanish
   Standard-French
   Canadian-French
   Standard-German
   Standard-Italian
   Standard-Mandarin-GBK
   Standard-Mandarin-PinYin
   Standard-Mandarin-UCS2
   Taiwanese-Mandarin-Big5
   Taiwanese-Mandarin-ZhuYin
   Taiwanese-Mandarin-PinYin
   Taiwanese-Mandarin-UCS2
   Brazilian-Portuguese
   Standard-Japanese-SJIS
   Standard-Japanese-UCS2
   Standard-Finnish
   Standard-Korean-UHC
   Standard-Korean-UCS2
   Standard-Cantonese-GBK
   Standard-Cantonese-UCS2
   HongKong-Cantonese-Big5
   HongKong-Cantonese-UCS2
   Standard-Dutch
   Standard-Norwegian
   Standard-Swedish
   Standard-Danish
   Standard-Thai-TIS620

The voice parameter specifies which type of voice is to be synthesized. It
may be either a built-in voice type or a ViaVoice voice name. The built-in
voice types are: man (the default), woman, child, patriarch (elderly man),
matriarch (elderly woman). The ViaVoice voice names are:

   Language              Type       Name
   American English      Man        Reed
   American English      Woman      Shelley
   American English      Child      Sandy
   American English      Patriarch  Grandpa
   American English      Matriarch  Grandma
   British English       Man        Justin
   British English       Woman      Jane
   British English       Child      Nicky
   British English       Patriarch  Gramps
   British English       Matriarch  Nanny
   Castilian Spanish     Man        Carlos
   Castilian Spanish     Woman      Pilar
   Castilian Spanish     Child      Pepe
   Castilian Spanish     Patriarch  Abuelo
   Castilian Spanish     Matriarch  Abuela
   Standard French       Man        Jacques
   Standard French       Woman      Jacqueline
   Standard French       Child      Marius
   Standard French       Patriarch  Grandpère
   Standard French       Matriarch  Mamie
   Standard German       Man        Max
   Standard German       Woman      Gisela
   Standard German       Child      Matti
   Standard German       Patriarch  Opa
   Standard German       Matriarch  Oma
   Standard Italian      Man        Enrico
   Standard Italian      Woman      Lucia
   Standard Italian      Child      Chicco
   Standard Italian      Patriarch  Nonno
   Standard Italian      Matriarch  Nonna
   Standard Mandarin     Man        Li3 Jing4
   Standard Mandarin     Woman      Wang2 Yan4
   Standard Mandarin     Child      Li3 Dong1 Dong1
   Standard Mandarin     Patriarch  Ye2 Ye
   Standard Mandarin     Matriarch  Nai3 Nai
   Taiwanese Mandarin    Man        Zhi4 Ming2
   Taiwanese Mandarin    Woman      Chun1 Jiao1
   Taiwanese Mandarin    Child      Xiao3 Bu4 Dian3
   Taiwanese Mandarin    Patriarch  A3 Gong1
   Taiwanese Mandarin    Matriarch  A3 Ma4
   Brazilian Portuguese  Man        João
   Brazilian Portuguese  Woman      Cláudia
   Brazilian Portuguese  Child      Chico
   Brazilian Portuguese  Patriarch  Avô
   Brazilian Portuguese  Matriarch  Avó
   Standard Japanese     Man        Taroo
   Standard Japanese     Woman      Hanako
   Standard Japanese     Child      Jiroo
   Standard Japanese     Patriarch  Taroo
   Standard Japanese     Matriarch  Obaachan
   Standard Finnish      Man        Antti
   Standard Finnish      Woman      Tarja
   Standard Finnish      Child      Pekka
   Standard Finnish      Patriarch  Isoisä
   Standard Finnish      Matriarch  Isoäiti