Language and Dialect

The ETI-Eloquence text-to-speech engine is available in a number of languages, and we are adding more all the time.  A language and dialect are selected either by choosing a speaker in the General Dialog box or by inserting a tag into the text.

Language and Dialect Tags

There is one tag for specifying a language, \Vce=Language=language\, and another tag for specifying a dialect of that language, \Vce=Dialect=dialect \.   You can combine the two as follows:

\Vce=Language=language, Dialect=dialect\
For example: 

\Vce=Language=Spanish, Dialect=Castilian\
Default Language and Dialect 

	If you do not select a language, ETI-Eloquence will determine the default language for you.  
	If you do not select a dialect, the default dialect will be used.  Refer to the following table for the default dialect.  

	Tag	Annotation 	Dialect or Language 
1	\Vce=Language=English\	`l1	English
	\Vce=Dialect=American\	`l1.0	American English (default)
	\Vce=Dialect=British\	`l1.1	British English
			
2	\Vce=Language=Spanish\	`l2	Spanish
	\Vce=Dialect=Castilian\	`l2.0	Castilian Spanish (default)
			
3	\Vce=Language=French\	`l3	French
	\Vce=Dialect=Standard\	`l3.0	Standard French (default)
			
4	\Vce=Language=German\	`l4	German
	\Vce=Dialect=Standard\	`l4.0	Standard German (default)
			
5	\Vce=Language=Italian\	`l5	Italian
	\Vce=Dialect=Standard\	`l5.0	Standard Italian (default)
			
6	\Vce=Language=Chinese\	`l6	Chinese
	\Vce=Dialect=Standard\	`l6.0	Mandarin Chinese (default)
			
7	\Vce=Language=Portuguese\	`l7	Portuguese
	\Vce=Dialect=Brazilian\	`l7.0	Brazilian Portuguese (default)

In order for the language and dialect tags to work properly, you must have installed the text-to-speech engine of the language you wish to use.  For example, you must install the Standard German text-to-speech engine in order for the \Vce=Language=German\ tag to work.

If you specify a dialect that does not exist for the current language, the tag will be ignored.  For example, if the current language is French (\Vce=Language=French\) and you input the tag \Vce=Dialect=British\, it will be ignored because there is no text-to-speech engine for a British dialect of French.

One way to determine which languages are correctly installed on your system is to click on the light blue examples below to hear them synthesized:

	If you hear the text being pronounced using the accent of your default language, then the language of the text has not been installed.
	If you get an error message, then the language you want to hear has probably been installed incorrectly.

Examples:

\Vce=Language=English\ \Vce=Dialect=American\

I'm from America.  Do you speak English?  



\Vce=Language=English\ \Vce=Dialect=British\

I'm from the United Kingdom.  Do you speak English?  



\Vce=Language=Spanish\  \Vce=Dialect=Castilian\	

Soy de Espaa.  Habla usted el espaol?  



\Vce=Language=French\  \Vce=Dialect=Standard\

Je suis franais.  Parlez-vous franais?  



\Vce=Language=German\ \Vce=Dialect=Standard\

Ich komme aus Deutschland.  Sprechen Sie Deutsch?  



\Vce=Language=Italian\ \Vce=Dialect=Standard\

Sono italiano.  Parla italiano?  



\Vce=Language=Chinese\ \Vce=Dialect=Standard\

Wo3 shi0 Zhong1guo2ren2.  Ni3 hui4 shuo1 Han4yu3 ma0? 



\Vce=Language=Portuguese\ \Vce=Dialect=Brazilian\

Sou do Brasil. Fala portugus? 





