[DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)

Alex H. linuxx64.bashsh at gmail.com
Wed Feb 1 22:53:48 EST 2012


just experiment with the phonemes.

On 2/1/12, Blake Roberts <beroberts at hughes.net> wrote:
> So it's possible to, for example, make an English Dectalk have a Spanish
> accent without having to actually change languages? How is that done? I knew
> that English Dectalk can sing in other languages, but I did not know it is
> also possible to add the relevant accent.
> Blake
>
>   _____
>
> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Jake McMahan
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:32 PM
> To: DECtalk Discussions
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)
>
>
> He didn't get a dectalk with a german or russian accent, he modified the
> phonemes to fit the particular accent.
>
>
> From: Blake Roberts <mailto:beroberts at hughes.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:19 PM
> To: 'DECtalk Discussions' <mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)
>
> I've wondered that myself at times. I guess we'll never know how he got a
> Dectalk 4.3/4.4 with a German accent. It is my understanding that the first
> Dectalk version with foreign languages (in addition to American English) was
> 4.6 something.
> Blake
>
>   _____
>
> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Raymond Grote
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:01 PM
> To: DECtalk Discussions
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)
>
>
> Yes, that definitely brings back memories!
> I just wish his site didn't go down. I wonder where he got that version of
> Dectalk.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: Blake  <mailto:beroberts at hughes.net> Roberts
> To: 'DECtalk Discussions' <mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 6:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)
>
>
> I read somewhere that when Patrick made his Revenge of Borris skit, he used
> a German Dectalk and made it sound Russian. That production still amazes me
> after over 10 years. For fun, I'm attaching Patrick's production so  that
> list members can hear it again. Enjoy!
> Blake
>
>   _____
>
> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Raymond Grote
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 6:35 PM
> To: DECtalk Discussions
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Foreign Languages (was DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?)
>
>
> Wow, interesting thing there. I know Patrick Perdue made Dectalk sound
> Russian once. It sounded exactly like 4.3, with a Russian accent. I say 4.3
> because when it sang, there was vibrato, which 4.4 can't do because of some
> bug I heard. I wonder if he used the Russian language and then used phonemes
> to make it sound English, or if he used English and somehow made it sound
> Russian. I'd bet the former, but either way would be hard. I doubt he used a
> Speak window either, since those older versions of the Speak window had only
> english support.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ebruckert  <mailto:edbruckert at gmail.com> Bruckert
> To: DECtalk Discussions <mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 10:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>
>      just to be clear there are no legal versions of DECtalk in the public
> domain, if there were I wouldn't have gone without a tool for years, and is
> of course I have versions of DECtalk but they weren't able to work with my
> screen reader.
> If there weren't public domain version I would be working to partner up with
> somebody and create some tools which is basically what I did with enable
> cuss I needed a SAPI.
>    Okay as far as versions of DECtalk that were made, there is American
> English, British English, French, German, Chinese, and Korean. The quality
> varies is there a lot of problems in doing this besides just creating the
> phonemes.
>     In addition I did a special version of DECtalk that is used by kinnor
> software which can chant the Torah and other things to prepare one for bar
> mitzvah. It lacks letter to sound rules because both Hebrew and Arabic
> letter to sound rules are extremely difficult because in a lot of texts they
> don't write the vowels, which people can figure out but computers are hardly
> data
> .  As an example right in English sentence remove all the vowels and see if
> her friend can figure it out,
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Raymond Grote <musicalman1 at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>
> Well, the sonic thing wasn't a real big thing at least for me, nor anyone
> else I knew that used it. It sounded strange, and I never did like dectalk
> above rates of400 or so.
> Going off topic here, I wonder if a decent British dectalk was ever made?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pitermach" <pitermach at gmail.com>
> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 8:47 AM
>
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>
>
>
>
> Actually yeah. The driver was written by Tyler and I sort of helped him out
> with it. The first version only did Paul and had sonic to speed the rate up
> even more. I asked him to add voices, and that's the newer version where
> sonic had to be removed because it was crashing things apparently.
>
> On 2012-02-01 13 <tel:2012-02-01%2013> :52, Raymond Grote wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
> I was under the impression that both Dectalks were the same engine, just
> different versions of the driver, and the newer one supported voices but the
> older one didn't?
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pitermach" <pitermach at gmail.com>
> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 5:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>
>
>
>
> About the issue with the second dectalk, what happens is almost every
> parameter is actually changed, except the pitch and inflection, so after you
> change voices you just need to manually raise the pitch or what ever to set
> it straight.
>
> On 2012-02-01 03 <tel:2012-02-01%2003> :18, Blake Roberts wrote:
>
>
> Doris,
> I discovered the other day that two Dectalks for NVDA exist. I was able to
> try both out after obtaining them and reinstalling NVDA. Both NVDA-specific
> Dectalks have issues. In the first one, only Paul is available as a voice.
> To me, that version of Dectalk for NVDA sounds similar to 4.4, though I have
> no idea what DT version it is based on. The second Dectalk for NVDA lists
> all 9 voices, but apparently is based on another version of Dectalk. Some
> of those voices sound, um, different. Example: Kipp sounds like he's going
> through puberty or something similar. If anyone wants to experiment with/use
> Dectalk for NVDA, write me off-list. As far as  I know, Dectalk for NVDA is
> not officially supported by the NVDA developers and I don't know who created
> Dectalks for NVDA.
>
> Regarding Dectalk for Jaws, there is Dectalk Access32. Problem: Freedom
> Scientific broke Dectalk Access32 functionality in an earlier version of
> Jaws. Since a Jaws-specific version of Dectalk Access32 is no longer sold or
> supported by FS, I sort of understand why  Freedom Scientific won't fix the
> problem. Another member of this list found a workaround to make Dectalk
> Access32 work with Jaws which involves uninstalling Eloquence.
> Blake
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.
> <mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com> com
> [mailto:dectalk-bounces@ <mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com>
> bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Doris and Chris
> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:56 PM
> To: DECtalk Discussions
> Subject: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>
> with all the discussion of singing dectalks, it was a couple of times
> mentioned that dectalk version 4.4 is in the public domain.
>
> Is there a version of this or can one be made available that works with
> screenreaders?
>
> I enjoy the dectalk songs I have heard and am amazed at the creativity and
> finesse and perfection that goes into those songs but this is nothing I have
> any interst in persuing myself .
>
> I like dectalk for its clear speech and low footprint on older systems and I
> would love to have a working version to use with my screenreaders, i.e. jaws
> and nvda. For nvda especialy it would be nice to have a free dectalk
> version. nvda comes with espeak, which is free and open source. espeak is
> certainly usable and I like its responsibeness but dectalk has much clearer
> speech and would be much easier to understand for those used to more human
> sounding synths.
>
> With all the time and energy devoted to making dectalk sing and talking
> about this, if there is a public domain version of dectalk available, could
> some of the time and energy be devoted to giving us a free dectalk to just
> use with screenreaders or a free sapi version?
> I do not know what would go into this but I'd like to see something that is
> usable for the broader masses and especialy for nvda users.
> nvda is coming of age and a decent free synth with it would be such a
> blessing!
>
> Doris
>
>
>
>
>
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