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

Wed Feb 1 21:32:31 EST 2012

What about Text Assist, the old kind that came budnled with 
Soundblaster Soundcards? There was a German version with mine that 
sounded like little Chinese guys trying to speak German with a heavy 
American accent. i know that the English version of that Text Assist 
very definitley was some sort of DECTAlk speech. I am not sure  if 
the German was another software synth but it definitely attempted to 
sound German but failed pretty miserably and helped me decide in a 
hurry that i rather hadan English than a German synth on my system at the time.

I lost my sight in 1998 and we had bought the soundcard for my system 
in 1996 for a win 95 A box.

Thanks much.

Doris

At 09:19 PM 2/1/2012 -0500, you wrote:
>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: <mailto:beroberts at hughes.net>Blake Roberts
>To: <mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>'DECtalk Discussions'
>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: 
><mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com>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: <mailto:edbruckert at gmail.com>ebruckert Bruckert
>To: <mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>DECtalk Discussions
>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 
><<mailto:musicalman1 at comcast.net>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" 
><<mailto:pitermach at gmail.com>pitermach at gmail.com>
>To: "DECtalk Discussions" 
><<mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>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 <tel:2012-02-01%2013>2012-02-01 13:52, 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" 
><<mailto:pitermach at gmail.com>pitermach at gmail.com>
>To: "DECtalk Discussions" 
><<mailto:dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>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 <tel:2012-02-01%2003>2012-02-01 03:18, 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: 
><mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com>dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
>[mailto:dectalk-bounces at 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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