overyourhead

The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly On The Plain...
The BBC has selected HTK for it's updated pronunciation database. HTK has added its speech synthesis system to an existing BBC database, creating a computer generated voice which accurately pronounces foreign words and names in English Broadcasting context so presenters can hear how to say them correctly before going live on air.

Shame. I quite liked it when news readers trip up over long foreign words. Jan Lemming's 'Robert Moo-gar-bay' was always a favourite.

HTK worked closely with BBC's in-house pronunciation research team to adapt the database, which has been compiled over 80 years of broadcasting and includes over 200,000 pronunciations. The original database relied on modified spelling, a technical language that shows each preferred pronunciation as a sequence of individual sounds and intonations in a simple format, much like a spelling. HTK has enabled the system with a spoken output that renders the pronunciation, so anyone with a networked computer can not only see the ?spelling? but hear it as well.

So it'll just be ITV who still pronounce Uranus as 'your anus', then?