W3C Expands Support for Speech Synthesis of World Languages

Early Draft of SSML 1.1 Published; Workshop in India to Bring More Improvements

 

http://www.w3.org/ -- 10 January 2007 -- Today, W3C took steps to broaden support for the world's languages in voice applications on the Web. This First Public Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) 1.1 incorporates important features and feedback from SSML Workshops held in Beijing, China and Heraklion, Greece. On 13-14 January 2007, W3C conducts a third Workshop on SSML, hosted by Bhrigus Software and the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad, India. This Workshop promises more expert review and contributions to SSML, part of W3C's Speech Interface Framework, a suite of specifications for building voice applications on the Web.

Voice Applications in Many Languages Are Growing on the Web

It is forecast that within three years, the World Wide Web will contain significantly more content from Chinese and Indian language families, among others. In many of the regions where these languages are spoken, people can access the Web more easily through a less expensive mobile handset than through a desktop computer. Today the world has more than ten times as many cellphones as Internet-connected personal computers. With an improved SSML, people worldwide will have an increased ability to listen to synthesized speech through mobile phones, desktop computers and other devices, extending the reach of computation and information delivery to nearly every corner of the globe.

SSML 1.1 Brings Together Needed Support for Variety of Spoken Languages

SSML 1.1 improves on W3C's SSML 1.0 Recommendation by adding support for more conventions and practices of the world's languages. One new feature helps to disambiguate "word boundaries" in languages that do not use whitespace as a word boundary, including Chinese, Thai, and Japanese. SSML 1.1 allows references to language-specific pronunciation alphabets. It clarifies the relationship between the author's specified speaking voice and the language being spoken. It provides finer-grained control over lexicon activation and entry usage.

In addition, SSML 1.1 provides features to better integrate with existing and upcoming Speech Interface Framework specifications.

Hyderabad Workshop Participants to Focus on Indian Language Families, Arabic and Hebrew

The third SSML Workshop brings together experts from India, Pakistan, and other countries to identify and prioritize requirements for SSML extensions and additions that will improve its use for rendering non-English languages including (but not limited to) Arabic, Hebrew, and the Indian languages Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu. The top priorities on the agenda are to describe new requirements, their usage scenarios, and the problems to be solved. The output from this Workshop will be reviewed by the W3C Voice Browser Working Group for possible new features in SSML 1.1 and beyond.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan,and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

 

Contact Americas, Australia --

Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613

Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --

Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94

Contact Asia --

Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170