1SPEAK-NG(1) General Commands Manual SPEAK-NG(1)
2
6 speak-ng - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.
7
9 speak-ng [options] [words]
10
12 speak-ng is a software speech synthesizer for English, and some other
13 languages.
14
16 -h, --help
17 Show summary of options.
18 --version
20 Prints the espeak library version and the location of the espeak
21 voice data.
22 -f <text file>
24 Text file to speak.
25 --stdin
27 Read text input from stdin instead of a file.
28 If neither -f nor --stdin are provided, <words> are spoken, or if no
30 words are provided then text is spoken from stdin a line at a time.
31 -q Quiet, don’t produce any speech (may be useful with -x).
33 -a <integer>
35 Amplitude, 0 to 200, default is 100.
36 -g <integer>
38 Word gap. Pause between words, units of 10ms at the default
39 speed.
40 -k <integer>
42 Indicate capital letters with: 1=sound, 2=the word "capitals",
43 higher values = a pitch increase (try -k20).
44 -l <integer>
46 Line length. If not zero (which is the default), consider lines
47 less than this length as end-of-clause.
48 -p <integer>
50 Pitch adjustment, 0 to 99, default is 50.
51 -s <integer>
53 Speed in words per minute, default is 160.
54 -v <voice name>
56 Use voice file of this name from espeak-ng-data/voices. A vari‐
57 ant can be specified using voice+variant, such as af+m3.
58 -w <wave file name>
60 Write output to this WAV file, rather than speaking it directly.
61 --split=<minutes>
63 Used with -w to split the audio output into <minutes> recorded
64 chunks.
65 -b Input text encoding, 1=UTF8, 2=8 bit, 4=16 bit.
67 -m Indicates that the text contains SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup
69 Language) tags or other XML tags. Those SSML tags which are sup‐
70 ported are interpreted. Other tags, including HTML, are ignored,
71 except that some HTML tags such as <hr> <h2> and <li> ensure a
72 break in the speech.
73 -x Write phoneme mnemonics to stdout.
75 -X Write phonemes mnemonics and translation trace to stdout. If
77 rules files have been built with --compile=debug, line numbers
78 will also be displayed.
79 -z No final sentence pause at the end of the text.
81 --stdout
83 Write speech output to stdout.
84 --compile=voicename
86 Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
87 directory. =<voicename> is optional and specifies which language
88 is compiled.
89 --compile-debug=voicename
91 Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
92 directory as above, but include line numbers, that get shown
93 when -X is used.
94 --ipa Write phonemes to stdout using International Phonetic Alphabet.
96 --ipa=1 Use ties, --ipa=2 Use ZWJ, --ipa=3 Separate with _.
97 --tie=<character>
99 The character to use to join multi-letter phonemes in -x and
100 --ipa output.
101 --path=<path>
103 Specifies the directory containing the espeak-ng-data directory.
104 --pho Write mbrola phoneme data (.pho) to stdout or to the file in
106 --phonout.
107 --phonout=<filename>
109 Write output from -x -X commands and mbrola phoneme data to this
110 file.
111 --punct="<characters>"
113 Speak the names of punctuation characters during speaking. If
114 =<characters> is omitted, all punctuation is spoken.
115 --sep=<character>
117 The character to separate phonemes from the -x and --ipa output.
118 --voices[=<language code>]
120 Lists the available voices. If =<language code> is present then
121 only those voices which are suitable for that language are
122 listed.
123 --voices=<directory>
125 Lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.
126
128 speak-ng "This is a test"
129 Speak the sentence "This is a test" using the default English
130 voice.
131 speak-ng -f hello.txt
133 Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
134 cat hello.txt | speak-ng
136 Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
137 speak-ng -x hello
139 Speak the word "hello" using the default English voice, and
140 print the phonemes that were spoken.
141 speak-ng -ven-us "[[h@´loU]]"
143 Speak the phonemes "h@’loU" using the American English voice.
144 speak-ng --voices
146 List all voices supported by eSpeak.
147 speak-ng --voices=en
149 List all voices that speak English (en).
150 speak-ng --voices=mb
152 List all voices using the MBROLA voice synthesizer.
153
155 eSpeak NG is maintained by Reece H. Dunn ⟨msclrhd@gmail.com⟩ . It is
156 based on eSpeak by Jonathan Duddington ⟨jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk⟩ .
157 This manual page is based on the eSpeak page written by Luke Yelavich
159 ⟨themuso@ubuntu.com⟩ for the Ubuntu project.
160 July 2018 SPEAK-NG(1)