Text to Speech Synthesis System in Yoruba Language

Abstract

Previous and existing studies convert texts to speech (English Language) without consideration for indigenous languages. This project work is an effort to design a speech extension that can convert the highlighted text displayed by a web browser to speech considering the indigenous Yoruba language through a designed software tool specifically attached to Mozilla internet as a plug-in. This software tool allows the user to highlight the text on the web page with the mouse. The selected text provides an input to the speech program that runs in the back end. The objective of this project work is to design a program that will help people with weak eyesight, those that lack in pronunciation skills and those learning the Yoruba language as an additional language skill; it is also designed to solve problems that exist when using the manual system which include difficulty in reading and misinterpretation of information. The methodology used to convert the text to speech are the API (Google-translate, speech’.org and ttsyoruba.com) and the programming language used for the web is JavaScript. A text to speech extension is an application that converts the highlighted texts into spoken words by analyzing and processing the text in the Yoruba language. The use of the text to speech is to read out the highlighted text to the user in the Yoruba language which can be saved as an audio file.