NAME

       espeak - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.

SYNOPSIS

       espeak [options] [<words>]

DESCRIPTION

       espeak is a software speech synthesizer for English, and some other languages.

OPTIONS

       -h     Show summary of options.

       --version
              Prints the espeak library version and the location of the espeak voice data.

       -f <text file>
              Text file to speak

       --stdin
              Read text input from stdin instead of a file

       If  neither -f nor --stdin, <words> are spoken, or if none then text is spoken from stdin,
       each line separately.

       -q     Quiet, don't produce any speech (may be useful with -x)

       -a <integer>
              Amplitude, 0 to 200, default is 100

       -g <integer>
              Word gap. Pause between words, units of 10mS at the default speed

       -k <integer>
              Indicate capital letters with: 1=sound, 2=the word "capitals", higher  values  =  a
              pitch increase (try -k20).

       -l <integer>
              Line  length.  If  not  zero  (which is the default), consider lines less than this
              length as and-of-clause

       -p <integer>
              Pitch adjustment, 0 to 99, default is 50

       -s <integer>
              Speed in words per minute, default is 160

       -v <voice name>
              Use voice file of this name from espeak-data/voices

       -w <wave file name>
              Write output to this WAV file, rather than speaking it directly

       -b     Input text encoding, 1=UTF8, 2=8 bit, 4=16 bit

       -m     Indicates that the text contains SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup  Language)  tags  or
              other  XML  tags.  Those SSML tags which are supported are interpreted. Other tags,
              including HTML, are ignored, except that some HTML tags such as <hr> <h2> and  <li>
              ensure a break in the speech.

       -x     Write phoneme mnemonics to stdout

       -X     Write  phonemes mnemonics and translation trace to stdout. If rules files have been
              built with --compile=debug, line numbers will also be displayed.

       -z     No final sentence pause at the end of the text

       --stdout
              Write speech output to stdout

       --compile=voicename
              Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the  current  directory.  =<voice
              name> is optional and specifies which language

       --compile=debug
              Compile  the  pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current directory as above,
              but include line numbers, that get shown when -X is used.

       --ipa  Write phonemes to stdout using International Phonetic Alphabet. --ipa=1  Use  ties,
              --ipa=2 Use ZWJ, --ipa=3 Separate with _

       --path=<path>
              Specifies the directory containing the espeak-data directory

       --pho  Write mbrola phoneme data (.pho) to stdout or to the file in --phonout

       --phonout=<filename>
              Write output from -x -X commands and mbrola phoneme data to this file

       --punct="<characters>"
              Speak  the  names  of  punctuation  characters during speaking. If =<characters> is
              omitted, all punctuation is spoken.

       --voices[=<language code>]
              Lists the available voices. If =<language code> is present then only  those  voices
              which are suitable for that language are listed.

       --voices=<directory>
              lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.

AUTHOR

       eSpeak  was  written  by Jonathan Duddington <jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk>. The webpage for this
       package can be found at http://espeak.sourceforge.net/.

       This manual page was written by Luke Yelavich <themuso@ubuntu.com>, for the Ubuntu project
       (but may be used by others).

                                          August 6, 2010                                ESPEAK(1)