NAME

       speak-ng - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.

SYNOPSIS

       speak-ng [options] [<words>]

DESCRIPTION

       speak-ng is a software speech synthesizer for English, and some other languages.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              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 are provided, <words> are spoken, or if no words are provided
       then text is spoken from stdin a line at a time.

       -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 end-of-clause.

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

       -s <integer>
              Speed in words per minute, default is 175.

       -v <voice name>
              Use voice file of this name from espeak-ng-data/voices. A variant can be  specified
              using voice+variant, such as af+m3.

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

       --split=<minutes>
              Used with -w to split the audio output into <minutes> recorded chunks.

       -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

       -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.
              =<voicename< is optional and specifies which language is compiled.

       --compile-debug=voicename
              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 _.

       --tie=<character>
              The character to use to join multi-letter phonemes in -x and --ipa output.

       --path=<path>
              Specifies the directory containing the espeak-ng-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.

       --sep=<character>
              The character to separate phonemes from the -x and --ipa output.

       --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.

EXAMPLES

       speak-ng "This is a test"
              Speak the sentence "This is a test" using the default English voice.

       speak-ng -f hello.txt
              Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.

       cat hello.txt | speak-ng
              Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.

       speak-ng -x hello
              Speak the word "hello" using the default English voice, and print the phonemes that
              were spoken.

       speak-ng -ven-us "[[h@'loU]]"
              Speak the phonemes "h@'loU" using the American English voice.

       speak-ng --voices
              List all voices supported by eSpeak.

       speak-ng --voices=en
              List all voices that speak English (en).

       speak-ng --voices=mb
              List all voices using the MBROLA voice synthesizer.

AUTHOR

       eSpeak NG is maintained by Reece H. Dunn msclrhd@gmail.com.  It  is  based  on  eSpeak  by
       Jonathan Duddington jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk.

       This  manual  page is based on the eSpeak page written by Luke Yelavich themuso@ubuntu.com
       for the Ubuntu project.

                                            April 2024                                SPEAK-NG(1)