ESPEAK(1)

💖 ESPEAK — a whole software speech synthesizer, bestie 💖

okay so this is the page for espeak from the General Commands Manual (that's the manual section situation, she's in section 1) and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

espeak — a multi-lingual software speech synthesizer. she talks. in languages. plural. periodt. 🗣️

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

espeak [options] [<words>]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. options first, words after, and if you're feeling spicy you can just skip the words entirely (more on that in a sec 👀)

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

espeak is a software speech synthesizer for English, and also some other languages. ngl she's out here doing the absolute most for a command-line girlie 💅

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• -h — show a summary of the options. your little cheat sheet, your lil crib notes, we love her 🫶
• --version — prints the espeak library version and the location of the espeak voice data. two for one, slay ✨
• -f <text file> — the text file to speak. feed her a file, she reads it out loud.
• --stdin — read the text input from stdin instead of from a file. pipes?? we love pipes 🧚
• no -f, no --stdin? — then the <words> get spoken. and if there are no words either, then the text is spoken from stdin, each line separately. she'll go line by line, no cap.
• -q — quiet mode, don't produce any speech at all. sounds fake but it's genuinely useful with -x (may be useful with -x — that's literally what the page says and she's right)
• -a <integer> — amplitude, 0 to 200, default is 100. volume check 🔊
• -g <integer> — word gap. pause between words, in units of 10mS at the default speed. give the girl some breathing room 😮‍💨
• -k <integer> — indicate capital letters with: 1=sound, 2=the word "capitals", higher values = a pitch increase (try -k20). yes really, try -k20, it's a whole moment 🔥
• -l <integer> — line length. if it's not zero (and zero is the default), then lines less than this length count as and-of-clause. (that's what the page says, we're keeping it, we don't ask questions 🙈)
• -p <integer> — pitch adjustment, 0 to 99, default is 50. higher = more main character energy 💜
• -s <integer> — speed in words per minute, default is 160. slow it down for the drama or speed it up for the chaos ⭐
• -v <voice name> — use the voice file of this name from espeak-data/voices. pick your girl 🌈
• -w <wave file name> — write the output to this WAV file instead of speaking it directly. save it for later, bestie 🎀
• -b — input text encoding, 1=UTF8, 2=8 bit, 4=16 bit.
• -m — indicates that the text contains SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) tags or other XML tags. those SSML tags which are supported get interpreted. other tags, including HTML, are ignored, except that some HTML tags such as <hr> <h2> and <li> ensure a break in the speech. so she'll pause for those, cute 🦋
• -x — write phoneme mnemonics to stdout. peek behind the curtain 👀
• -X — write phoneme mnemonics and translation trace to stdout. if the rules files have been built with --compile=debug, line numbers will also be displayed. full lore drop 📖
• -z — no final sentence pause at the end of the text. she just… stops. abrupt queen 💀
• --stdout — write the speech output to stdout.
• --compile=voicename — compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current directory. =<voice name> is optional and specifies which language.
• --compile=debug — compile the pronunciation rules and dictionary in the current directory as above, but include line numbers, that get shown when -X is used. debugging but make it ✨visible✨
• --ipa — write phonemes to stdout using International Phonetic Alphabet. --ipa=1 use ties, --ipa=2 use ZWJ, --ipa=3 separate with _. pick your flavour 🍓
• --path=<path> — specifies the directory containing the espeak-data directory.
• --pho — write mbrola phoneme data (.pho) to stdout or to the file in --phonout.
• --phonout=<filename> — write output from -x -X commands and mbrola phoneme data to this file.
• --punct="<characters>" — speak the names of punctuation characters during speaking. if =<characters> is omitted, all punctuation is spoken. comma?? spoken. period?? spoken. obsessed.
• --voices[=<language code>] — lists the available voices. if =<language code> is present then only those voices which are suitable for that language are listed.
• --voices=<directory> — lists the voices in the specified subdirectory.

⚠️ heads up bestie: -q gives you literally no speech, so don't be shocked when she's silent. that's the whole point.

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

eSpeak was written by Jonathan Duddington <jonsd@jsd.clara.co.uk>. the webpage for this package can be found at http://espeak.sourceforge.net/.

this manual page was written by Luke Yelavich <themuso@ubuntu.com>, for the Ubuntu project (but may be used by others). 🫶

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and that's the whole thing, no notes 💅 this page lives in the General Commands Manual as ESPEAK(1), and it was last touched on August 6, 2010 — vintage, honestly, and still serving. go make your computer talk, bestie 🎀✨