Development of language resources for speech application in Gujarati and Marathi

Abstract

This paper discusses development of resources using linguistics and signal processing aspects for two low resource Indian languages, viz., Gujarati and Marathi. Speech resource development discusses the details of data collection, transcription at phone and syllable level and corresponding linguistic units such as phones and syllables. In order to analyze the performance at different fluency levels, three types of recording modes, viz., read, conversation and lecture are considered in this paper. Manual annotation of speech in terms of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols is presented. In the later section, we discuss speech segmentation at syllable level and prosodic level marking (pitch marking). Short-term Energy contour is smoothened using group-delay-based algorithm in order to detect syllable units in the speech signal. Detection rate obtained for syllable marking within 20 % agreement duration is of the order of 60 % in case of read mode speech. Prosody pitch marks are analyzed via Fo pattern of a speech signal. The key strength of this study is the analysis for different kinds of recording modes, viz., read, conversation and lecture mode. It is found that CV (where, Consonant is followed by Vowel) type of syllables have highest occurrence (more than 50 %) in both the languages. Read speech is observed to perform better than spontaneous speech in terms of automatic prosodic marking.