Speech synthesis and analysis of dialects

A method of operating a speech recognition system comprising the steps of:

• providing a digitized speech sample of human speech;
• selecting a set of melodic intervals in the digitized speech sample;
• retrieving a first set of dialect intervals for a first selected dialect, the first set of dialect intervals being melodic intervals which are indicative of the first selected dialect and stored in a dialect table;
• and
• comparing the set of melodic intervals to the first set of dialect intervals to determine whether the digitized speech sample is from human speech of the first selected dialect.

A computer program product on a computer readable medium for speech synthesis, the computer program product executable in a computer system comprising:

• program code means for generating a string of linguistic units containing pitch data by selecting linguistic units from a first memory segment of the system which correspond to characters in a text string and concatenating the selected linguistic units together in a second memory segment of the system;
• program code means for selecting locations within the pitch data of the string of linguistic units;
• program code means for retrieving a first set of dialect intervals for a first selected dialect, the first set of dialect intervals selected from a set of melodic intervals as being indicative of the first selected dialect stored in a dialect table in a third memory segment of the system;
• and
• program code means for applying the first set of dialect intervals to the set of melodic intervals.

A computer program product in a computer readable medium for speech recognition, the computer program product executable in a computer system, comprising:

• program code means for providing a digitized speech sample of human speech;
• program code means for selecting a set of melodic intervals in the digitized speech sample;
• program code means for retrieving a first set of dialect intervals for a first selected dialect, the first set of dialect intervals being melodic intervals which are indicative of the first selected dialect and stored in a dialect table in a third memory segment of the system;
• and
• program code means for comparing the set of melodic intervals to the first set of dialect intervals to determine whether the digitized speech sample is from speech of the first selected dialect.

A speech synthesis system comprising:

• a memory for storing set of instructions to perform speech processing and speech data;
• a processor coupled to the memory for executing the sets of instructions;
• means for generating a string of linguistic units containing pitch data by selecting dialect neutral linguistic units from a first memory segment of the system which correspond to characters in a text string and concatenating the selected linguistic units together in a second memory segment of the system;
• means for selecting locations within the pitch data of the string of linguistic units;
• means for retrieving a first set of dialect intervals for a first selected dialect, the first set of dialect intervals selected from a set of melodic intervals as being indicative of the first selected dialect and stored in a dialect table in a third memory;
• and
• means for applying the first set of dialect intervals to the pitch data at the selected locations so that synthesized speech of the first selected dialect produced.

A speech recognition system comprising:

• a memory for storing set of instructions to perform speech processing and speech data;
• a processor coupled to the memory for executing the sets of instructions;
• means for providing a digitized speech sample of human speech;
• means for selecting a set of melodic intervals in the digitized speech sample;
• means for retrieving a first set of dialect intervals for a first selected dialect, the first set of dialect intervals being melodic intervals which are indicative of the first selected dialect and stored in a dialect table;
• and
• means for comparing the set of melodic intervals to the first set of dialect intervals to determine whether the digitized speech sample is from human speech of the first selected dialect.