This post is co-authored with Qinying Liao, Binggong Ding and Sheng Zhao
Azure Cognitive Services releases new languages and voices for Neural Text-to-Speech
Neural Text-to-Speech (Neural TTS), a powerful speech synthesis capability of Azure Cognitive Services, enables developers to convert text to lifelike speech using AI. Businesses utilize Neural TTS for voice assistants, content read aloud capabilities, accessibility tools, and more. The Azure TTS product team is continuously working on bringing new languages to the world.
In January of 2022, 10 new locales were introduced to reach 129 languages. In addition, 36 new prebuilt voices are available in preview for a growing list of languages. Users can now also choose from multiple pre-set voices or record their own sample with custom neural voice.
With other Cognitive Services including Speech-to-Text, OCR and Translator extended to 100+ languages, Azure AI is one big step closer to its ambition to empower every organization and everyone on the planet to achieve more, without any language barriers.
10 new languages
While there are thousands of spoken languages in the world, the top 1% (~70 language) accounts for the 80%+ of the global population. Within just a few years of development, the TTS technology has been available in many commonly spoken languages and has been updated in these languages with many advanced features available. However, due to the lack of training data or business needs, there is almost nothing available for those less spoken languages. Inspired by the vision to remove the language barrier for everyone and powered by the low resource setting TTS technology, we keep working to expand our capability to support those less touched languages in the world.
Today, we are adding 10 new languages to our neural TTS portfolio. This is just a small portion compared to our goal, but we are on the way!
Check out how the voices in these languages in samples below:
|
Locales |
Languages |
Gender |
Voice name |
Script |
Audio |
|
bn-IN |
Bengali (India) |
Male |
Bashkar |
কানাডার ব্রিটিশ কলাম্বিয়া অঞ্চলের একটি ছোট গ্রাম লিটন। |
|
|
bn-IN |
Bengali (India) |
Female |
Tanishaa |
কর্মচারীদের জন্য ‘কুলিং সেন্টার’ খুলেছে কিছু কিছু সংস্থা। |
|
|
is-IS |
Icelandic (Iceland) |
Female |
Gudrun |
Gífurlegir vatnavextir eru í ám og vötnum á svæðinu. |
|
|
is-IS |
Icelandic (Iceland) |
Male |
Gunnar |
Sótt hefur verið um leyfi til að áfrýja dómi héraðsdóms til Landsréttar. |
|
|
kk-KZ |
Kazakh (Kazakhstan) |
Female |
Aigul |
Қазіргі уақытта сіз қай салада жұмыс істейсіз? |
|
|
kk-KZ |
Kazakh (Kazakhstan) |
Male |
Daulet |
Біз отанымыздан алыс жерде кездесеміз деп кім ойлаған! |
|
|
kn-IN |
Kannada (India) |
Male |
Gagan |
ಹೋಳಿ ವೇಳೆ ಕಣ್ಣು ರಕ್ಷಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ? |
|
|
kn-IN |
Kannada (India) |
Female |
Sapna |
ಶುಂಠಿಯು ಔಷಧೀಯ ಗುಣಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದ್ದು, ಚರ್ಮದ ಆರೋಗ್ಯದ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಕೂದಲಿನ ಆರೋಗ್ಯಕ್ಕೂ ಉತ್ತಮವಾಗಿದೆ. |
|
|
lo-LA |
Lao (Laos) |
Male |
Chanthavong |
ເປັນຫຍັງເຈົ້າຈຶ່ງເລືອກວຽກປະເພດນີ້? |
|
|
lo-LA |
Lao (Laos) |
Female |
Keomany |
ຕ້ອງເລັ່ງລັດການຄ້າຊາຍແດນ. |
|
|
mk-MK |
Macedonian (Republic of North Macedonia) |
Male |
Aleksandar |
Сепак, тие имаат тенденција да летаат во облаците. |
|
|
mk-MK |
Macedonian (Republic of North Macedonia) |
Female |
Маrija |
Гледај ме во очи кога ти зборувам јас! |
|
|
ml-IN |
Malayalam (India) |
Male |
Midhun |
നിങ്ങൾ പൊക്കം കൂടാൻ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നവരാണോ? |
|
|
ml-IN |
Malayalam (India) |
Female |
Sobhana |
എന്തൊരു വലിയ മനുഷ്യൻ! |
|
|
ps-AF |
Pashto (Afghanistan) |
Male |
GulNawaz |
کله ما سره ملاقات کوی؟ |
|
|
ps-AF |
Pashto (Afghanistan) |
Female |
Latifa |
دا وطن مې کور او ګور دی. |
|
|
si-LK |
Sinhala (Sri Lanka) |
Male |
Sameera |
වරාය නගරයේ ව්යාපාරයක් ආරම්භ කිරීමේදී අවම ආයෝජන සීමාවක් පවතිනවාද? |
|
|
si-LK |
Sinhala (Sri Lanka) |
Female |
Thilini |
දෙවන ටෙස්ට් තරඟයත් ජයපරාජයෙන් තොරව අවසන් වෙයි. |
|
|
sr-RS |
Serbian (Serbia) |
Male |
Nicholas |
Колико мало треба да будеш срећан! |
|
|
sr-RS |
Serbian (Serbia) |
Female |
Sophie |
Нећете веровати колико се певачица променила! |
Discover the full list of supported languages for Neural Text to Speech, in addition to Microsoft Edge Read aloud.
36 new voices are in preview for some popular languages
For each languages’ prebuilt voice, we have provided one female and one male voice. However, in the real world, there are scenarios that require one or more voices to reflect diversity and natural conversation. To directly address customer feedback, our English (US) and Chinese (China) have released more than 2 prebuilt voices, we also work rapidly to bring the same experience to more languages. In this release, we are starting to introduce total 36 new voices in preview for English (UK), French (France) and German (Germany).
These new voices will cover different persona and age groups, which can bring more choices and variety for your scenarios. These voices now are in public preview, which is available only in 3 regions: East US, West Europe and Southeast Asia.
We encourage you to try the new languages and voices below. Feedback is encouraged to help inform which voices will be made for General Availability in all regions, depending on customer satisfaction.
| Locales | Languages | Gender | Voice name | Script | Audio |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Amala | Zu mildem Grillgemüse empfiehlt sich dagegen ein fruchtiger Sommerwein. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Bernd | Man kann eigentlich nichts falsch machen, wenn man ein paar grundlegende Dinge beachtet. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Christoph | Hervorragend, Sie können jetzt mit der nächsten Runde fortfahren! | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Elke | Einem Spieler ist es gelungen sechs richtige zu tippen. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Girl | Gisela | Gestern habe ich 3 Stücke Pizza gegessen. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Kasper | Der Spieleinsatz für einen Tipp beträgt einen Euro. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Killian | Lernen wir wirklich eine Sprache in nur 3 Wochen? | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Klarissa | Je würziger das Fleisch, desto würziger und kräftiger sollte auch der Wein sein. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Klaus | Ein Angler zog einen der größten Fische an Land. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Louisa | Die Basis der Berechnungen waren 5 Jahre Haltedauer mit jeweils 15.000 Kilometern Fahrleistung, | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Maja | Eine süße Nachspeise serviert man mit einer süßen Beerenauslese, wobei das Dessert süßer sein sollte als der Wein. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Male | Ralf | Der außergewöhnliche Fang hat sich für die Angelfreude jedenfalls gelohnt. | |
| de-DE | German (Germany) | Female | Tanja | Jetzt äußerte sich der sheriff zu dem Vorfall in seinem District von Jackson County dazu. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Female | Abbi | I normally would have gone grocery shopping. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Alfie | What are the main impediments to a restart? | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Female | Bella | Both were then airlifted to the major trauma centre in Southampton. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Elliot | What matters most to you? | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Ethan | What are the rules on social distancing? | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Female | Hollie | I felt like I'd gone into a Hollywood movie. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Girl | Maisie | There would be music, food, dancing and lots of new people to meet. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Noah | She says her week started mundane but ended up awesome. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Oliver | It’s my birthday so I can do what I want! | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Female | Olivia | We discussed buying a motorhome last night. | |
| en-GB | English (United Kingdom) | Male | Thomas | The docking was a fully automated process. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Male | Alain | Trop de couleurs, ça ne fait pas jolie du tout. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Brigitte | Faire de grands efforts pour surmonter des difficultés fictives. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Celeste | Evitons de mettre tous nos atouts au même endroit, dans un même panier. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Male | Claude | Tu veux bien t'occuper de la cuisson ? | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Coralie | Les enfants aiment bien les sucreries. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Girl | Eloise | Pour aller dehors, il faut chausser ses bottes, mettre son imperméable et un chapeau de pluie. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Jacqueline | Il n'est pas conseillé de se défendre contre une attaque ou une humiliation publique. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Male | Jerome | Ordinateur et Laptop, c'est pareil. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Josephine | À 13h45 min, mon train arrivera. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Male | Maurice | De ma fenêtre, je vois passer les voitures. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Male | Yves | Faites attention quand vous traversez une route. | |
| fr-FR | French (France) | Female | Yvette | Pour mon âge, j’ai lu des livres plus volumineux. |
Neural TTS and Responsible AI
We are excited about the future of Neural TTS with human like, diverse and delightful quality under the high level architecture of XYZ-Code AI framework. Our technology advancements are also guided by Microsoft’s Responsible AI process, and our principles of fairness, inclusiveness, reliability & safety, transparency, privacy & security, and accountability. We put these ethical standards into practice through the Office of Responsible AI (ORA), which sets our rules and governance processes, the AI, Ethics, and Effects in Engineering and Research (Aether) Committee, which advises our leadership on the challenges and opportunities presented by AI innovations, and Responsible AI Strategy in Engineering (RAISE), a team that enables the implementation of Microsoft responsible AI rules across engineering groups.
Get started
Azure AI Neural TTS offers over 330 neural voices across 129 languages and variants. In addition, the Custom Neural Voice capability enables organizations to create a unique brand voice in multiple languages and styles.
For more information:
- Try the demo
- See our documentation
- Check out our sample code
- Check out the code of conduct for integrating neural TTS to your apps
