[Athen] technology support for Arabic

[Jeffrey Dell]

Using the TTS ro VO on Mac will not do the automatic switching that
R&WG will for european languages.  When I was trying TTS on Mac using
Asian voices it would read the english but not the Chinese or Japanese
characters.  You might run into the same problems with Arabic.  If you
set the Mac for the specific language it would probably do better with
identifying characters and words.  The language handling on Mac is not
as efficient as it is on iOS.  Which I think is kind of amusing.
I've had better luck with nonwestern languages on Windows.  NeoSpeech
and Acapela sell voices that run as SAPI 5.  Acapela if I remember
right has a great Arabic voice.  This can then run as a SAPI 5 voice
with R&WG, WordTalk, and many other programs that use SAPI 5 Voices.
You will not have all the writing support that the programs offer but
it will read it.  If you are running XP on the computer you will need
to set up Complex Right to Left Scripting Languages in the Regional
and Language Options.  For Vista and 7 There are specific versions
that will support Arabic.  Microsoft has that info on their website.
http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html
Jeff

On 4/30/12, Sean J Keegan <skeegan at stanford.edu> wrote:

> Hi Wink,

>

>  > A student on the campus told me today that she would like

>  > to take Arabic and asked if there is any text-to-speech

>  > technology available in Arabic.

>

> There is a TTS voice in Arabic that is available as a free download in

> Apple OS X Lion.  If you go to the System Preferences > Speech > System

> Voice and then choose "Customize" you will be able to find many

> different languages.  Just download the preferred voice and you are all

> set.

>

> Here is the note from Apple:

> http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html#accessibility

>

> Here is a YouTube video of the TTS voice:

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gut0-dZs2I

>

> Take care,

> Sean

>

> --

> Sean Keegan

> Associate Director, Assistive Technology

> Office of Accessible Education - Stanford University

> http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae

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