More 'human' voice synth (TTS)

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

I'm wondering if there's anything we can do to make TTS sound more
'human'. We'd like to be able to use the XOs to teach English
literacy, but the espeak voices are very robotic.

My understanding is that espeak is optimised for low-power devices
(great for XOs) and clear (if robotic) speech. Would it be feasible to
switch to something else, like festival?

This is some food for thought:
http://braille.uwo.ca/pipermail/speakup/2008-July/046755.html

Sridhar


Sridhar Dhanapalan
Technical Manager
One Laptop per Child Australia
M: +61 425 239 701
E: sridhar at laptop.org.au
A: G.P.O. Box 731
     Sydney, NSW 2001
W: www.laptop.org.au