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Azure Cognitive Services releases new languages and voices for Neural Text-to-Speech

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GarfieldHe
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Feb 17, 2022

 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:

 

Updated Nov 26, 2024
Version 8.0