talk to computers

talk to computers elektor may 1981 — 5-17 — and let them talk to you According to people in the know, the first mass-produced type-writer with speech entry will be available in less than two years" time. In addition, special devices are being developed to read aloud to the blind and to teach the deaf-mute to speak and read. This article will first deal with the principles of speech synthesis and then with methods to develop a computer"s "hearing" and vocal faculties. Once upon a time .. . pronounce the individual sounds, or phonemes, that constitute each word. For example, the word one is made up of three phonemes (w-A-n—, the bilabial "w", the vaguely palatal A (uh) vowel and the nasal "n". Since phonemes are the smaltest possible speech elements, a machine should be able to pronounce any word in a given language once it has mastered all the sounds and, with practice, it could even learn to say whole sentences, which is exactly what Dudley"s voder did way back in the thirti...