1ESPEAK-NG(1) General Commands Manual ESPEAK-NG(1)
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6 espeak-ng - A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer.
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9 espeak-ng [options] [words]
10
12 espeak-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 till to the end of a stream at once.
28 If neither -f nor --stdin are provided, then <words> from parameter are
30 spoken, or text is spoken from stdin, read separately one line by line
31 at a time.
32 -d <device>
34 Use the specified device to speak the audio on. If not speci‐
35 fied, the default audio device is used.
36 -q Quiet, don´t produce any speech (may be useful with -x).
38 -a <integer>
40 Amplitude, 0 to 200, default is 100.
41 -g <integer>
43 Word gap. Pause between words, units of 10ms at the default
44 speed.
45 -k <integer>
47 Indicate capital letters with: 1=sound, 2=the word "capitals",
48 higher values = a pitch increase (try -k20).
49 -l <integer>
51 Line length. If not zero (which is the default), consider lines
52 less than this length as end-of-clause.
53 -p <integer>
55 Pitch adjustment, 0 to 99, default is 50.
56 -s <integer>
58 Speed in words per minute, default is 175.
59 -v <voice name>
61 Use voice file of this name from espeak-ng-data/voices. A vari‐
62 ant can be specified using voice+variant, such as af+m3.
63 -w <wave file name>
65 Write output to this WAV file, rather than speaking it directly.
66 --split=<minutes>
68 Used with -w to split the audio output into <minutes> recorded
69 chunks.
70 -b Input text encoding, 1=UTF8, 2=8 bit, 4=16 bit.
72 -m Indicates that the text contains SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup
74 Language) tags or other XML tags. Those SSML tags which are sup‐
75 ported are interpreted. Other tags, including HTML, are ignored,
76 except that some HTML tags such as
77 -x Write phoneme mnemonics to stdout.
79 -X Write phonemes mnemonics and translation trace to stdout. If
81 rules files have been built with --compile=debug, line numbers
82 will also be displayed.
83 -z No final sentence pause at the end of the text.
85 --stdout
87 Write speech output to stdout.
88 --compile=voicename
90 Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
91 directory. =<voicename< is optional and specifies which language
92 is compiled.
93 --compile-debug=voicename
95 Compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current
96 directory as above, but include line numbers, that get shown
97 when -X is used.
98 --ipa Write phonemes to stdout using International Phonetic Alphabet.
100 --ipa=1 Use ties, --ipa=2 Use ZWJ, --ipa=3 Separate with _.
101 --tie=<character>
103 The character to use to join multi-letter phonemes in -x and
104 --ipa output.
105 --path=<path>
107 Specifies the directory containing the espeak-ng-data directory.
108 --pho Write mbrola phoneme data (.pho) to stdout or to the file in
110 --phonout.
111 --phonout=<filename>
113 Write output from -x -X commands and mbrola phoneme data to this
114 file.
115 --punct="<characters>"
117 Speak the names of punctuation characters during speaking. If
118 =<characters> is omitted, all punctuation is spoken.
119 --sep=<character>
121 The character to separate phonemes from the -x and --ipa output.
122 --voices[=<language code>]
124 Lists the available voices. If =<language code> is present then
125 only those voices which are suitable for that language are
126 listed. If xx-yy language code is passed, then voices with yy of
127 xx language variants are shown with higher priority than just
128 xx. If variant is passed, then all voice variants are shown. If
129 mb or mbrola is passed, then all voices using the MBROLA voice
130 synthesizer are shown. If all is passed, then all eSpeak NG
131 voices, voice variants and MBROLA voices are shown.
132 --voices=<directory>
134 Lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.
135
137 espeak-ng "This is a test"
138 Speak the sentence "This is a test" using the default English
139 voice.
140 espeak-ng -f hello.txt
142 Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
143 cat hello.txt | espeak-ng
145 Speak the contents of hello.txt using the default English voice.
146 espeak-ng -x hello
148 Speak the word "hello" using the default English voice, and
149 print the phonemes that were spoken.
150 espeak-ng -ven-us "[[h@´loU]]"
152 Speak the phonemes "h@´loU" using the American English voice.
153 espeak-ng --voices
155 List all voices supported by eSpeak.
156 espeak-ng --voices=en
158 List all voices that speak English (en).
159 espeak-ng --voices=mb
161 List all voices using the MBROLA voice synthesizer.
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164 eSpeak NG is maintained by Reece H. Dunn msclrhd@gmail.com. It is based
165 on eSpeak by Jonathan Duddington jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk.
166 This manual page is based on the eSpeak page written by Luke Yelavich
168 themuso@ubuntu.com for the Ubuntu project.
169 June 2022 ESPEAK-NG(1)