RE: vocalization and BIDI in SSML (was: RE: Consolidated comments on SSML)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Laura Werner 

> I don't think things are quite so bad.  Since SSML is XML and 
> XML text is
> Unicode, the synthesizer should be able to assume that the text is in
> logical order, not in written / physical order. 

Not my point, though quite a valid one.
The implication is that if you can write it, the ssml engine
can speak it. 
From my experience that's simply not true.
If a user *only* has access to the output of the ssml engine
to get access to information this becomes important.
A badly mispronounced word can impact quite negatively
the comprehension of the information.

Hence my earlier request for an additional user list of
'how to pronounce' words to assist the engine in correct pronunciation.





> 
> This does bring up the interesting question of how you'd 
> *edit* an XML page
> with Hebrew text content in the tags.  I think you'd need a BiDi-aware
> editor, treating the XML tags as LtR and the embedded Hebrew 
> as RtL.  

Ask a Hebrew speaker, not me :-)
I doubt it's magic though. 

regards DaveP




> 
> Laura Werner
> BeVocal VoiceXML architect
> (and former Unicode maven)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David.Pawson@rnib.org.uk [mailto:David.Pawson@rnib.org.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 12:04 AM
> To: w3c-wai-pf@w3.org
> Cc: www-voice@w3.org
> Subject: RE: vocalization and BIDI in SSML (was: RE: Consolidated
> comments on SSML)
> 
> 
> 
> I'm certainly not happy with the response below.
> From our 3 year experience with synthetic speech it is blatantly clear
> that "As long as  there is a way to write the text, the 
> engine can figure
> out
>  how to speak it." produces jibberish in many cases.
> 
> This is the basis for the external 'speak as' file. The synth
> can usually speak a word reasonably if 'taught' by such a 
> method. 
> 
> Fine if the end user can glance at a piece of text, but a lot
> more important if the audio is the only access the user has 
> to information.
> 
> 
> regards DaveP
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Al wrote:
> > I think we may want to consider how these responses fit with 
> > accessibility.
> > from Dan Burnett on behalf of Voice Browser WG:
> > 
> > -- Please quote this citation in follow-ups:
> > http://www.w3.org/mid/ED834EE1FDD6C3468AB0F5569206E6E91AF1CF@M
> > PB1EXCH02.nuance.com
> > 
> > ]
> > 
> > Dear Martin (and the Internationalization Working Group),
> 
> > [VBWG responses follow]
> > 
> > [1] Rejected.  We reject the notion that on principle this is
> > more difficult for some languages.  For all languages supported
> > by synthesis vendors today this is not a problem.  As long as
> > there is a way to write the text, the engine can figure out
> > how to speak it.  Given the lack of broad support by vendors
> > for Arabic and Hebrew, we prefer not to include examples for
> > those languages.
> >  > General:
> >  > [01]  For some languages, text-to-speech conversion is 
> > more difficult
> >  >        than for others. In particular, Arabic and Hebrew 
> > are usually
> >  >        written with none or only a few vowels indicated. Japanese
> >  >        often needs separate indications for pronunciation.
> >  >        It was no clear to us whether such cases were considered,
> >  >        and if they had been considered, what the appropriate
> >  >        solution was.
> >  >        SSML should be clear about how it is expected to 
> > handle these
> >  >        cases, and give examples. Potential solutions we 
> > came up with:
> >  >        a) require/recommend that text in SSML is written in an
> >  >        easily 'speakable' form (i.e. vowelized for Arabic/Hebrew,
> >  >        or with Kana (phonetic alphabet(s)) for Japanese. 
> (Problem:
> >  >        displaying the text visually would not be 
> > satisfactory in this
> >  >        case); b) using <sub>; c) using <phoneme> (Problem: only
> >  >        having IPA available would be too tedious on authors);
> >  >        d) reusing some otherwise defined markup for this purpose
> >  >        (e.g. <ruby> from http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/ for 
> Japanese);
> >  >        e) creating some additional markup in SSML.
> >  >
> 
> - 
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Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2003 02:50:14 UTC