2-3 November 2005
Title: SSML
Extension for Korean
Source:
Information
and
Author: Sang-Jin
Kim*, Myoung-Wan Koo, Jae-In Kim, and Minsoo Hahn*
1. Introduction
The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification Version 1.0 (SSML) is designed to provide a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. However, SSML doesn't fully consider non-English languages, so enhancements of internationalization extensions are required. This document specifies the SSML extension for Korean.
2. Characteristic
of Korean
The Korean character, Hangul, consists of forty letters. Twenty-one of them represent vowels, including thirteen diphthongs, and nineteen represent consonants. Phonemes are combined to form a syllable, and several syllables are combined to form a word phrase (Eojeol in Korean) which is different from a phrase in English. The syllable structures of Korean are V, CV, VC, and CVC, where C and V stands for consonant and vowel, respectively.
Korean and Japanese are completely different languages except for the grammatical structure. Korean is also completely different from Chinese, even though Korean has borrowed many Chinese words and some Chinese characters.
3. SSML Extension for Chinese Characters in Korean
3.1 Chinese Characters in Korean
Present
Korean and Japanese use many Chinese characters. Pronunciation of the
characters, however, is different. For example, äñ(love) is said as /ä/ in Korean, but /ai/ in Japanese. And in many cases, same character is represented
differently according to the country. For example, ó³(car), ù¦(wind) is used in Korea, but
simplified character, 车(car), 风(wind) is used in China, respectively. These simplified characters
are not used in
Although we can write text only with Korean characters, still it is not unusual to use Chinese characters as well. For example,
¡°ÀÌ ¾ð¾î´Â Çѱ¹¾îÀÔ´Ï´Ù¡±(This language is Korean),
¡°ÀÌ åëåÞ´Â ùÛÏÐåÞÀÔ´Ï´Ù¡±(This language is Korean),
¡°ÀÌ ¾ð¾î(åëåÞ)´Â Çѱ¹¾î(ùÛÏÐåÞ)ÀÔ´Ï´Ù¡±(This language is Korean).
The
pronunciations of them are exactly same. Chinese characters are semantic
symbols, but Korean characters are phonetic symbols. Chinese word ùÛÏÐåÞ(Korean) is read as /Çѱ¹¾î(Korean)/ and its phonetic list
is ¤¾+¤¿+¤¤+¤¡+¤Ì+¤¡+¤Ã. The input text for text-to-speech(TTS)
system has to be converted into a phonetic list, so if Chinese characters are
mixed with Korean characters, they have to be substituted to Korean. We don¡¯t
use all Chinese characters, rather there is a
frequently-used-Chinese-character-list recommended by our Korean government and
its size is 2000. Since the pronunciations of them are different from Chinese
and Japanese, we need to utilize this list and their pronunciations in the
Korean TTS system.
3.2 Chinese Characters Problem for a Person¡¯s Name, Place Name, or Proper Noun
Ôøá³øÁ: µî¼ÒÆò, µ¢»þ¿ÀÇÎ |
ÝÁÌÈ: ºÏ°æ, º£ÀÌ¡ |
ðÈìí: Á¶ÀÏ, ¾Æ»çÈ÷ |
ÔÔÌÈ: µ¿°æ, µµÄì |
Although
we use Chinese characters, the pronunciations are different from Chinese, and
Japanese. In case of proper noun, such as person¡¯s names, place names, it is
recommended to pronounce in original way. For example, ÝÁÌÈ is the capital city of China.
Chinese says is as /Beijing/, but Korean says /Bookgyoung/
in Korean way. If the words are not a proper noun, we don¡¯t need to fix the
pronunciation, because the Korean way of Chinese pronunciation is a part of
Korean language. However, in cases of proper nouns originated from
3.3 SSML Extension for Chinese characters in Korean
There is a lexicon element in SSML recommendation. This element specifies the location of the pronunciation lexicon file. If the Chinese characters have to be pronounced in Korean pronunciation, lang=¡±ko-CN¡± tag has to be specified, lang=¡±ja-CN¡± tag for Japanese pronunciation, and so on.
<lexicon lang=¡±ko¡±
uri=¡±http://www.multilingual.org/lexicon.file¡±> <lexicon lang=¡±ko-CN¡±
uri=¡±http://www.multilingual.org/Chinese_lexicon_freq_KR.file¡±> <lexicon lang=¡±ja-KR¡±
uri=¡±http://www.multilingual.org/Chinese_lexicon_JP.file¡±> <lexicon lang=¡±cn-KR¡±
uri=¡±http://www.multilingual.org/Chinese_lexicon_CN.file¡±> |
4. SSML Extension for Homograph Words in Korean
4.1 Same word, different pronunciation, different meaning in Korean
Some words can be pronounced with different durations in Korean although they have same characters. And the meaning of the word becomes different one according to its duration. For example, ¡®´«¡¯(/nun/) in Korean means ¡®human eye¡¯ while the same word ¡®´«¡¯ (/nu:n/) with a longer duration of /u:/ sound becomes a confusing word, that means, ¡®snow¡¯. Since characters are same, additional information is required for TTS to synthesize speech appropriately.
´«(/nun/ =¡±eye¡±) or ´«(/nu:n/=¡±snow¡±),
¸»(/mal/=¡±horse¡±) or ¸»(/ma:l/=¡±speech¡±),
ÈÀå(/whajang/=¡±make-up, toilet¡±) or ÈÀå(/wha:jang /=¡±cremation¡±),
°¡Àå(/kajang/=¡±most, exceedingly¡±) or °¡Àå(/ka:jang /=¡±disguise, feint¡±).
4.2 SSML Extension for Homographs Words in Korean
Only the difference for these words is the duration in pronunciation. It is necessary to give the duration information to a TTS system for these kinds of words. SSML recommendation supports ¡°say-as¡± element and ¡°sub¡± element, these elements cannot handle the above problem successfully. This is different from the Kanji and Kana problem in Japanese. We suggest ¡°tone¡± tag for this problem. Attribute values for tone element are ¡®long¡¯, ¡®short¡¯ and ¡®default¡¯ would be enough for Korean.
»ç¶÷ÀÇ ¸»ÀÌ ´Þ¸®´Â ¸»º¸´Ù ºü¸£´Ù. (=Speech is
faster than a running horse) »ç¶÷ÀÇ <tone type=¡±long¡±
>¸»</tone>ÀÌ ´Þ¸®´Â <tone type=¡±default¡± >¸»</tone>º¸´Ù ºü¸£´Ù. |
5. Conclusion
Present Korean usually uses Chinese words and the characters, pronunciations are different from Japanese and Chinese. We need a pronunciation lexicon of Chinese characters for successful Korean TTS systems. That is why we are proposing the ¡°lang¡± attribute in the ¡°lexicon¡± element. And we also propose type=¡°long¡± attribute for ¡°tone¡± element if this element would be accepted as a new element for the tonal language.
References
[1] Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0 W3C Recommendation 7 September 2004.
[2] ¸»¼Ò¸®ÀÇ ÀÌÇØ(Understanding of Korean Speech), Ji-young Shin, Hankook-moonwhasa, 2000.