Guide to Understanding festival-te
==================================

A description of the festival modules which were modified/written in Scheme for
Telugu language are given here. Creating festival TTS for other languages,
especially Indian languages is very similar and will mostly require language specific
changes to be made to the code in these modules.

festival-te Package Information
===============================
Modules
=======
The package consists of the following modules:

Text Normalization (telugu_scm/telugu_token.scm)
------------------------------------------------
This module provides the rules to map tokens in an utterance to Telugu words.
It defines the rules required to map numbers, dates, currencies, symbols,
abbreviations etc. to words.

Phoneset Definition (telugu_scm/telugu_phones.scm)
--------------------------------------------------
This module defines the complete set of phones used in Telugu speech. It also 
includes feature definitions (ex. vowel/consonant, lip rounding) of these phones.

***Any new voice built for Telugu language, should comply with this phoneset.***

Lexical Analysis (telugu_scm/telugu_lex.scm)
--------------------------------------------
Lexical analysis is used to arrive at the phones that make up the pronounciation of a
particular word. Since Telugu is phonetic in nature, we do not require a dictionary
for lexical analysis. Instead, this module defines letter-to-sound rules (lts) which are 
used to arrive at the speech phones based on the spelling of the word. 

Prosody Modeling (telugu_scm/telugu_NSK_int.scm)
------------------------------------------------
Prosodic phrasing in speech synthesis makes the whole speech more understandable. Phrasing 
is done based on punctuation. The module also defines accent and F0 prediction methods.


Telugu Diphone Voice
====================
telugu_NSK_diphone voice is available for use with festival-te. It consists of
a voice definition given in FESTIVAL_DIR/voices/telugu/festvox/telugu_NSK_diphone.scm
and a diphone database located at FESTIVAL_DIR/voices/telugu/group/NSKlpc.group

Using Telugu Diphone Voice for Other Languages
==============================================
The voice database NSKlpc.group is a generic voice, not specific to Telugu. The phoneset
covers most Indian languages, so it can very well be used for other Indian languages. 
Please contact DONLab, Dept. of CS&E, IIT Madras <speech@lantana.tenet.res.in>
for queries on using it for other Indian languages. 
