Chinese Romanization for Chinese Voice Browsing

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Chinese Romanization for Chinese Voice Browsing

• IBM China Research Lab

2
Index

• Motivations Proposals
• IPA. VS. Chinese Romanization
• Chinese Romanization Standards
• Implementations of Chinese Romanization in SSML
• Extensions for other languages

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Motivations Proposals
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IBM Speech Synthesis System

• IBM speech synthesis system support about 20
  languages.
• For Asian Language, we cover
• Mandarine,
• Cantonese,
• Korean,
• Japanese,
• Thai.

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Pronunciations Annotations are important for
Chinese

• A Chinese character represents a meaning more
  than a pronunciation.
• The homograph phenomenon is very common for
  Chinese characters.
• So it will be very helpful if the pronunciation
  can be given explicitly.

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Proposals

• We propose to use Chinese Romanization to
  annotate Chinese pronunciation in phoneme
  element.
• We also propose SSML to use diverse predefined
  and widely used pronunciation annotation
  standards for different languages.
• Thus SSML can be more easily accepted and used
  around the world.
• Note Chinese Romanization Hanyu Pinyin in this
  PPT.

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IPA. VS. Chinese Romanization
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Comparison Rule Goal of SSML

• The goal of SSML is to provide a rich, XML-based
  markup language for assisting the generation of
  synthetic speech in Web and other applications.
• To reach the goal, we need more and more users of
  SSML, such as ordinary Web applications
  developers, to learn and use the SSML easily.
• So, we need to define the SSML based on ordinary
  peoples knowledge and skill rather than
  professional linguistics knowledge.
• Otherwise, it will be a long way for SSML be
  widely accepted and used around the world.

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IPA is not very fit for Chinese

• IPA tries to collect an exhaustive set of
  pronunciations for all kinds of languages.
• It has become very complicated and difficult to
  input.
• A well educated Chinese adult can not annotate
  Chinese Pronunciation in IPA without special
  training.
• IPA is not very popular in China.
• Special linguistic phenomena in Chinese, such as
  tone, retroflex, can not be conveniently
  described by IPA.

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Chinese Romanization is fit for Chinese

• Chinese Romanization is specially designed only
  for Chinese instead of all languages.
• Adding r in the end to describe a retroflex
  syllable.
• Adding tone attribute to describe the tone.
• Chinese Romanization is widely used and learnt.
• Chinese people learn Chinese Romanization in
  primary school.
• Many foreigners begin to learn Chinese by Chinese
  Romanization.
• Chinese Romanization is widely used to input
  Chinese Characters on computer.
• Chinese government has brought into effect a
  standard for Chinese Romanization.
• It is in effect for education, publishing,
  information processing and other related
  industries in China.

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Chinese Romanization Standards
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Chinese Romanization Standard

• The writing rules of Chinese Romanization conform
  to P.R.C state standard Basic rules for Hanyu
  Pinyin Orthography 1 published by (CSBQTS) in
  1996.
• This Orthography is based on Hanyu Pinyin
  Schema published in 1958.
• According to the naming method of alphabet, we
  propose to use x-CSBQTS-96 to represent Chinese
  Romanization alphabet. However, we also propose
  to use x-Pinyin-96, which is easier to
  remember.
• CSBQTS China State Bureau of Quality and
  Technical Supervision

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Hanyu Pinyin Schema (published in 1958)

• Character Set.
• 25 characters, all from a to z except ü.
• (For easy to input on computer ü is replaced by
  v.)
• Initial Set
• b, p m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch,
  sh, r, z, c, s
• Final Set
• i, u, ü, a , ia, ua, o, uo, e, ie, eü, ai, uai,
  ei, uei,
• ao, iao, ou, iou, an, ian, uan, üan, en, in,
  uen, ün
• ang, iang, uang, eng, ing, ueng, ong, iong,
• Tone Annotation
• ma , má, ma, mà, ma
• Separator '
• piao

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Pinyin VS. IPA
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Basic rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography
(published in 1996)

• 1. Words are the basic units for spelling the
  Chinese Common Language. (Space is used to
  separate Word)
• rén (person/people), péngyou (friends),
  túshuguan (library/libraries)
• worén hé nóngmín (Workers and Farmers)
• 2. Structures of two or three syllables that
  indicate a complete concept are linked
• quánguó (the whole nation), duìbuqi (sorry),
• 3. Separate terms with more than 4 syllables if
  they can be separated into words, otherwise link
  all the syllables
• wúfèng gangbi (seamless pen), Hóngshízìhuì (Red
  Cross)

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Basic rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography
(published in 1996)

• 4. Reduplicated monosyllabic words are linked,
  but reduplicated disyllabic words are separated
• rénrén (everybody), chángshi chángshi (give it a
  try)
• 5. In certain situations, for the purpose of
  making it convenient to read and understand the
  words, a hyphen can be added
• huán-bao (environmental protection), shíqi-ba suì
  (17 or 18 years old)

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Implementations of Chinese Romanization in SSML
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Implementation 1

• lt?xml version"1.0"?gt
• ltspeak version"1.0" xmlns"http//www.w3.org/2001
  /10/synthesis"
• xmlnsxsi"http//www.w3.org/2001/XMLSche
  ma-instance"
• xsischemaLocation"http//www.w3.org/200
  1/10/synthesis
• http//www.w3.org/TR/speech-syn
  thesis/synthesis.xsd"
• xmllang"zh-CH"gt
• ltphoneme alphabet" x-CSBQTS-96" ph"duìbuqi"gt
  ??? lt/phonemegt
• lt!-- This is an example of Chinese Romanization
  
• Standard Tone Annotation--gt
• lt/speakgt

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Implementation 2

• lt?xml version"1.0"?gt
• ltspeak version"1.0" xmlns"http//www.w3.org/2001
  /10/synthesis"
• xmlnsxsi"http//www.w3.org/2001/XMLSche
  ma-instance"
• xsischemaLocation"http//www.w3.org/200
  1/10/synthesis
• http//www.w3.org/TR/speech-syn
  thesis/synthesis.xsd"
• xmllang"zh-CH"gt
• ltphoneme alphabet"x-CSBQTS-96"
  ph"dui4bu0qi3"gt ??? lt/phonemegt
• lt!-- This is an example of Chinese Romanization
  
• using number to describe tone --gt
• lt/speakgt

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Comparison between Two implementations

• Implementation 1
• ltphoneme alphabet" x-CSBQTS-96" ph"duìbuqi"gt
  ??? lt/phonemegt
• Implementation 2
• ltphoneme alphabet"x-CSBQTS-96"ph"dui4bu0qi3"gt
  ??? lt/phonemegt
• Note "x-CSBQTS-96" may be replaced by
  "x-Pinyin-96"

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Extensions for other languages
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Extension for Cantonese

• The Linguistic society of Hong Kong has published
  a simple, easy-to-learn and easy-to-use LSHK
  Cantonese Romanization Scheme in 1993.
• This scheme is widely adopted in various areas
  education, Cantonese information process and
  computer input method, etc.
• So we also propose to use The LSHK Cantonese
  Romanization Scheme to annotate Cantonese
  pronunciation.

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Extension for more languages

• Though it is possible to form up a general
  standard to annotate all languages
  pronunciation, such a standard may become very
  complex to use.
• Another way is to use the predefined and widely
  accepted pronunciation annotation standards for
  different language.
• At least, these diverse standards should be an
  important complement to the general standard.

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Thank you!
25
Korea Romanization
It is used in our Korea Speech Synthesis System.
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Japanese Romanization

• Japanese
• ??????????? ???????
• Japanese Romanization
• mada oboeteiru deshou nami oto ni tsutsumarete
• English meaning
• Do you remember being surrounded by the sound of
  tide?

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Discussion of Word

• What is the definition of Word in Chinese?
• Prosodic Word or Grammar Word
• ???????ni lái háishi bù lái?
• Is ?? a word?
• What is the difference between Word break?
• The misunderstanding problem can be solved by
  adding break.
• Can Word information be handled by Hanyu Pinyin
  Orthography?
• In Hanyu Pinyin Orthography, space is used to
  separate words.