Fw: [TMM] Interesting: Sanskrit speech synthesis s/w

[John Peterson]

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Hello members of VYAKARAN!

Prashant Pardeshi asked me to forward the following message to the list.

John
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Damodar Lele <damodar_lele at hotmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 12:12 PM
> Subject: [TMM] Interesting: Sanskrit speech synthesis s/w
>
>
> > Namaskaar.
> >    Interesting news item from Times of India of 6-Nov-2001.
> >    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1014159671
> >    or as pasted below.
> > Rgds
> > DDLele
> > ----------------------------------------
> >
> > Software for Sanskrit speech synthesis
> >
> > BANGALORE: Academy of Sanskrit Research based at Melukote in Karnataka
is
> > working on an ambitious project to develop a software for Sanskrit
speech
> > synthesis and recognition that could be used for other Indian languages
> too.
> >
> > The 'Ekadantavidya Project' is being undertaken by the academy under a
> Union
> > Ministry of Human Resource Development scheme involving Sanskrit
scholars
> > and experts, academy director Prof M A Lakshmithathachar said.
> >
> > The software is being developed based on the phonetic structure evolved
by
> > ancient Sanskrit grammarian Panini.
> >
> > Speaking to PTI on the sidelines of Bangalore IT.com 2001, a major IT
and
> > telecom tradeshow of Asia now on here, he said the aim of the project
was
> to
> > bring valuable inputs to the field of computer speech recognition,
> available
> > in Sanskrit shastras.
> >
> > "Being the mother of most of the Indian languages, the benefits coming
out
> > of this project could be shared by all of them," he said.
> >
> > He said during the last one year, several Sanskrit scholars and others
had
> > studied 40 siksa texts in great detail and the information available
with
> > regard to phonetics and euphonic combinations were collected and
> reformatted
> > to suit the needs of the programmers.
> >
> > He said computer programmes had been developed to connect the Sanskrit
> > alphabets to relevant sounds. A prototype database of sounds and related
> > information was developed and using these, different models of
> > text-to-speech were developed.
> >
> > Programmes had also been developed with capability to read the Sanskrit
> > sentences displayed in Devanagari script or any other Indian script, he
> > said.
> >
> > Further, a utility tool (computer programme) had been developed which
> could
> > utter a selected sentence in any chosen language and then translate the
> same
> > in another chosen language and utter the translated sentence.
> >
> > A development was also in progress in which any wave form could be
> displayed
> > graphically as well and the joining of two waveforms could be visually
> seen
> > for testing the acceptability of such joining audibly.
> >
> > He said sample elements for speech database had also been prepared and
> > software had been refined to enable studies to be made for comparison
> > between the samples of the same kind as also between samples of
different
> > kinds.
> >
> > Lakshmithathachar said, "it is still a long way to go. But we have
> prepared
> > some ground".
> > ( PTI )
> >
> >
> >
> >
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