W3C publishes Pronunciation Lexicon Specification Candidate Recommendation

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published the Candidate 
Recommendation of "Pronunciation Lexicon specification (PLS) Version 
1.0". W3C publishes a technical report as a Candidate Recommendation to 
indicate that the document is believed to be stable, and to encourage 
implementation by the developer community.  The PLS candidate 
Recommendation document is located at 
http://www.w3.org/TR/pronunciation-lexicon/

The Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) is designed to enable 
interoperable specification of pronunciation information for both speech 
recognition and speech synthesis engines. The language is intended to be 
easy to use by developers while supporting the accurate specification of 
pronunciation information for international use.  The language allows 
one or more pronunciations for a word or phrase to be specified using a 
standard pronunciation alphabet or if necessary using vendor specific 
alphabets. Pronunciations are grouped together into a PLS document which 
may be referenced from other markup languages, such as the Speech 
Recognition Grammar Specification [SRGS] and the Speech Synthesis Markup 
Language [SSML].   Pronunciation lexicons are not only useful for voice 
browsers; they have also proven effective mechanisms to support 
accessibility for persons with disabilities as well as greater usability 
for all users. They are used to good effect in screen readers and user 
agents supporting multimodal interfaces.

Jim Larson and Scott McGlashan
Co-chairs, W3C Voice Browser Working Group

Received on Thursday, 13 December 2007 15:33:44 UTC