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espeak-ng

next-generation formant-based speech synthesis

TLDR

Speak text
$ espeak-ng "[Hello world]"
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Use specific voice
$ espeak-ng -v [en-gb] "[Hello]"
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Read from file
$ espeak-ng -f [document.txt]
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Output to WAV
$ espeak-ng -w [output.wav] "[Hello]"
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Adjust speaking rate
$ espeak-ng -s [175] "[Hello]"
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List voices
$ espeak-ng --voices
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Use phoneme input
$ espeak-ng -x "[h@l'oU]"
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SYNOPSIS

espeak-ng [options] [words]

DESCRIPTION

espeak-ng (eSpeak New Generation) is a fork of eSpeak with active development, additional features, and improved voice quality. It's a formant-based speech synthesizer supporting 100+ languages.The tool provides text-to-speech capabilities for accessibility, voice assistants, and applications. It includes improvements in pronunciation rules, language support, and phoneme handling over the original eSpeak.espeak-ng is the default TTS engine in many Linux distributions and speech synthesis frameworks.

PARAMETERS

WORDS

Text to speak.
-v VOICE
Select voice/language.
-f FILE
Read from file.
-w FILE
Write to WAV file.
-s SPEED
Words per minute.
-p PITCH
Pitch adjustment.
-p PITCH
Pitch adjustment (0 to 99, default 50).
-a AMPLITUDE
Amplitude/volume (0 to 200, default 100).
-g GAP
Word gap, in units of 10 ms.
-x
Write the translated phoneme mnemonics to stdout instead of speaking.
--ipa
Write phonemes using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
--stdout
Write the audio as WAV data to standard output.
--voices[=lang]
List available voices, optionally filtered by language.
--help
Display help information.

INSTALL

sudo apt install espeak-ng
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sudo dnf install espeak-ng
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sudo pacman -S espeak-ng
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sudo apk add espeak-ng
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sudo zypper install espeak-ng
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brew install espeak-ng
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nix profile install nixpkgs#espeak-ng
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CAVEATS

Still sounds robotic (formant synthesis). Some advanced SSML features unsupported. Voice quality varies by language. Output format options limited.

HISTORY

espeak-ng was forked from eSpeak by Reece H. Dunn to continue development after the original project became inactive. It's now the actively maintained version used in most Linux distributions.

SEE ALSO

espeak(1), festival(1), mimic(1), pico2wave(1)

RESOURCES

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