SAPI – FAQ

Can I use the voices for free?

The voices are free to use for non-commercial purposes. If you want to use any of the voices in a commercial system please contact the ABAIR team at:

abair.tcd@gmail.com

Will you cater for all dialects of Irish?

Yes. The ABAIR project is committed to catering for all three major dialects of Irish: Connaught, Munster and Ulster.

Can I use the SAPI voices on other platforms than Windows?

No. SAPI is Microsoft only. You cannot use these voices on machines that don't have the Windows operating system installed.

Why are the SAPI voices 32bit?

Most software commonly used in text-to-speech applications are still 32bit. Thus, the priority are 32bit voices. See also our list of applications the voices have been tested with.

Why do the voices read certain things differently?

Different programs break text up differently. If you take a date like "12.05.2005", for example, Microsoft Word in combination with Read&Write break it up into its components: "12", "05", "2005" and send it on to the SAPI voice. Thus, our speech engine receives the numbers "12", "05" and "2005" one after the other and reads them out as they come in. Balabolka and ClaroRead on the other hand will leave it as "12.05.2005", which in turn enables our speech engine to analyze it correctly as a date and read it out as an dara lá déag de mhí na Bealtaine....

The same happens in other cases like e.g. "an t-athair". In some applications it will be analyzed as "t-" and "athair", whereas in others it is preserved as "t-athair" and thus will be read out as one word "tahair".