FAQ’s Tips and Tricks
Ekalipi Call
Announcer
FAQs
- Why do I need to type phonetically?
o If
you have used other TTS (Text to Speech) software you will notice that the
pronunciation is frequently atrocious.
o This
is because they use SWAGs (Solid Wild Ass Guesses) or to use a more politically
correct term Machine Intelligence plus Big Data to decide on the pronunciation.
o
This means that the TTSs
can the pronunciation of very popular English names like “John” and “Mary”
correctly (principally because they either have a lot of audio content of the pronunciation or
they have deduced algorithms to predict the pronunciation).
o
But give the same TTS a
simple non-English name like “Kala” and the result is quite horrible (sometimes
hilarious).
A major reason is that there are not enough mentions of “Kala”, so they use
whatever existing rules that they have to pronounce the name.
o
At
the end of the day, this is all guesswork.
o Typing names phonetically
is the only way to do this right!
- Come on, these are big huge rich companies. Surely they can get it right!
o
You
can’t build a house on sand and expect it to be stable and reliable.
o Basing your architecture
on a language/script combination of English+26 Roman characters is
fundamentally flawed.
Important- The problem is not with the spoken English language. It is the spelling and pronunciation rules/exception imposed by an arbitrary 26 character limit.
Important- The problem is not with the spoken English language. It is the spelling and pronunciation rules/exception imposed by an arbitrary 26 character limit.
o
On
the bright side, a lot of linguists and data analysts are laughing all the way
to the bank.
- You need a lot of characters for all the sounds in all the languages. Right?
o
No.
o
Actually
you don’t if you create the phonetic script properly. For example Ekalipi only
needs 38 characters to cover 90-99% of the pronunciations in all the world’s
languages.
o
The
count may expand to 48 eventually but we definitely do not want to go above
that.
FAQs (Continued)
- Why can’t I just use a phonetic language script like German (Roman) or Sanskrit (Devanagari)?
o
In
the case of German, pronunciation changes based on the location of the letter
in the word. (e.g. “d” at the beginning is “d”, at the end it is “t”. It also
has a limited character set.
o
Sanskrit/Devanagari
could have worked but it also has position based rules. It also needs modified
character shapes (especially for conjunct consonants). Plus it requires 3 times
the vertical space of a line written in Roman. The script is familiar to only
5-10%of the world’s population.
o
Ekalipi
being a green-field script has the opportunity to fix all these issues.
- So, will a phonetic script will get all the pronunciations right?
o Pretty much.
o
If
it doesn’t, it’s either a bug in our software or our TTS partner’s.
Please let us know so that we can fix it ASAP.
Please let us know so that we can fix it ASAP.
- Names are pronounced correctly but don’t sound like how a native would say it. Is that correct?
o Yes, that’s because of
the local person’s accent.
o
Pronunciation
is one thing, accent is something else.
o
Many
people confuse the two.
o
The
voice that we currently have is a Marathi voice. So, It‘s great for Indian
names.
o
However
it will not sound natural for foreign names.
o
We
are negotiating with our TTS voice to provide additional voices which can be
purchased from within the app.
o
Stay
tuned …
- What is this Ekalipi anyway?
o Ekalipi is a simple world
simplifying idea but needs you to make it happen.
o The basic idea is that it
is “dumb” to have 1400 or more scripts being used in the world, when just one
will suffice.
o
To
learn more about Ekalipi please visit our website http://www.ekalipi.org.
o
Please
watch this video : Ekalipi for the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPO00-iEJw8&t=7s
o
If
you understand Marathi please watch this video too : Ekalipi Bharat Marathi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH3wR1ob9k4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH3wR1ob9k4
FAQs (Continued)
- What’s the connection between Ekalipi and the Call Announcer?
o
We
think that the Call Announcer is a real nifty cool app and that you will enjoy
using it.
o
We
hope you see how Call Announcer can be tremendously important in your daily
lives.
o
It
does require a little bit of “behavior modification” on your part but we hope
that the rewards make it worthwhile.
o
But
we hope that it will serve as a gateway to help us reach our real goal.
Increase the adoption of our Ekalipi script to make the world a “simpler”
place.
- I am too set in my ways. I know all the scripts, I need to know. Why bother?
o
Please
give it a try. We think you will like the app and find it very useful.
o
If
you find any bugs or suggest improvements, we will act on them ASAP.
o
After
trying the app, if you still feel that way, please inform us and we will remove
your name from the beta trial
If
you have any other questions about Ekalipi Call Announcer, please do not
hesitate to contact me at kishorbapat9@gmail.com.
FAQs,Tips and
Tricks
Ekalipi Call
Announcer
TIPS
- Phonetic and non-phonetic input
o Names
and Greetings are written in the phonetic Ekalipi script.
o English
Names and phone numbers are written in the Roman script.
o The
Ekalipi keyboard appears when the cursor is placed on a phonetic field.
o If
phonetic input is not expected, your regular keyboard appears.
- Before typing a phonetic name, please view the following video a few times
- If you are stuck on the pronunciation on a particular letter or letter combinations while typing a name, please visit this site: http://wikilipi.com/pronc.html
- Quick overview of letter pronunciation. If you are reading this for the first time just skim through this section. You can study it in detail at a later time.
- We will explain the letters in their order of appearance on the keyboard.
TIPS (Continued)
- Consonants
o
Most
consonants are pronounced in their root form. The letters are :
- w - the root sound e.g. William, वसंत
- r - the root sound e.g. Robert, रवी
- t – the root sound e.g. Terry, टकले
- y – the root sound e.g. Yolanda, यमुना
- p – the root sound e.g. Pam, परिक्षित
- ŋ – the root sound e.g. Bing, अंकिता
- s – the root sound e.g. Sam, समीर
- d – the root sound e.g. David, डावरे
- f – the root sound e.g. Fanny, फोंडा
In Indian names use the p-h combination e.g. फडके - g – the root sound e.g. Gail, गणेश
- h – the root sound e.g. Harry, हरी
- j – the root sound e.g. John, जवाहर
- k – the root sound e.g. Ken, कमल
- l – the root sound e.g. Lord, लता
- z – the root sound e.g. Zoltan, झरिना
- c – the root sound e.g. Charles, चंदन
- v – root sound e.g.
Victor, व्हिक्टर
Note – For most Indian names, use w instead of v - b – root sound e.g. Ben, बबन
- n - root sound e.g. Nancy, नम्रता
o
These
letter sounds occur most often in Marathi and in Middle Eastern languages
- č – used in the Marathi name च़ांदणी.For Hindi names use “c”.
- ɉ - used in the Marathi word ज़ोशी.For Hindi names use “j”.
o
The
following letters are useful for pronouncing words in non-English languages
(especially Indian)
- đ – the Hindi letter द e.g. दवे. In English word “they”.
- ŧ – the Hindi letter त e.g. तन्वी. In Spanish name “Antonio”.
- л– the Hindi letter ण. e.g. कर्ण
- φ – Marathi φ and Tamil . e.g. बाळासाहेब
TIPS (Continued)
o
The following letters have no sound by themselves but
they are very important to Ekalipi and to the TTS software in particular. You will need them a lot
- - : the dash (hyphen) is used to represent conjunct consonants. The sound of the consonant preceding the dash is cut into half and pronounced with the second consonant.
- Ø : the no-sound connector is used to pronounce consecutive consonants without a gap. Both the consonants are pronounced except that there is no “a” sound between them.
- Example- “Oslo(Ösølo)” as opposed to “Slow(s-low)”.
- Vowels
o
The
pronunciation rules of vowels in English are an unmitigated disaster. So we
will not even try to map the English vowels to Ekalipi vowels. Here’s a quick
overview of Ekalipi vowels and their associated sounds. For long sounds please
double the vowel character e.g. ee as in cheese
- a as in Underwood or in अदित्य
- ā as in Archie or in पाटील
- å as in out or in औदुंबर
- Δ as in Eileen or in वैशंपायन
- ö as in Audrey or in ऑरेन्ज
- λ as in Edward or in एकता
- e as in England or in इशा
- u as un unter (German) or in उत्सव
- o as in Oldsmobile or in ओक
- Misc
o
Try
different combinations till you hear it right. Use the play button to hear the
name. When you are satisfied, press save/update.
o
These
letters (q, I and x) are not in Ekalipi but are
retained on the keyboard to ease typing of English, They are especially useful
for typing URLs, email addresses etc.
FAQs,Tips and
Tricks
Ekalipi Call
Announcer
TRICKS
1. If
you are unable to figure out how to type your own phonetic name:
a.
please tap “record your
name” on the My Contact Info screen using the record feature
b.
Send us the recording
(preferably as an email attachment).
c.
We will mail send you the
phonetic name which you can then copy paste into the phonetic name field.
2.
You can of course modify
this phonetic name further if you like.
To stress a specific syllable (or syllables) in a name, put an apostrophe after the vowel. For example in my last name “bāpat” to put the stress on “bā”, I would write it as ‘bā’pat”.
Note – This capability is presently not a part of Ekalipi but it is a special feature available in the bundled TTS software.
To stress a specific syllable (or syllables) in a name, put an apostrophe after the vowel. For example in my last name “bāpat” to put the stress on “bā”, I would write it as ‘bā’pat”.
Note – This capability is presently not a part of Ekalipi but it is a special feature available in the bundled TTS software.
3.
Hearing the same call
announcements and names is something can get boring after a while. You can
change them to something more fun. There is more information about this in the
document that you received earlier “Ekalipi Call Announcer Script”.
4.
To stress a specific
syllable (or syllables) in a name, put an apostrophe after
the vowel. For example in my last Name “bāpat” to put the stress on “bā”, I
would write it as ‘bā’pat”.
Note – This capability is presently not a part of Ekalipi but it is a special feature available in the bundled TTS software.
Note – This capability is presently not a part of Ekalipi but it is a special feature available in the bundled TTS software.
The next two items are totally voluntary but we hope,
you will participate and help us further the cause of Ekalipi.
5.
You can get some ekalipi
phonetic names from our community website http://www.wikilipi.com.
a.
Click on the “Proper Name
Pronunciation Dictionary”.
b.
Enter the name in English
and press the convert button.
c.
If someone else has already
stored a part of your name, you can take advantage of that. Copy that part of
your name and paste it in the phonetic name field.
d.
If a name is missing, the
site allows you to add phonetic names that future visitors can search for. In
this way the dictionary grows organically.
e.
We currently only have
2500 names. So every name you provide will help us increase the probability of
finding a phonetic name.
f.
The name that you obtain
may need some tweaking to pronounce correctly in Call Announcer app. If you do
make any changes we request you to update the wikilipi.com dictionary with your
new phonetic spelling.
Note- The phone friendly version of this site will be ready by August 1, 2018. We also intend to add an auto lookup of the “Proper Name Dictionary as an option in the Ekalipi Call Announcer at a future date.
Note- The phone friendly version of this site will be ready by August 1, 2018. We also intend to add an auto lookup of the “Proper Name Dictionary as an option in the Ekalipi Call Announcer at a future date.
6.
If you have or make a list
of your contact names in a language with a rules based phonetic script (e.g. Hindi,
Marathi, Tamil, German), you can automatically convert these names into our
uniform Ekalipi script. Please visit our website http://www.ekalipi.com
and click on the LT2E (Language Text to Ekalipi) tab.
a.
You can select the
language that you wish to convert from.
Note - the input should be in the original script not its Romanized version.
Note - the input should be in the original script not its Romanized version.
b.
Paste the list of names in
the input box and press convert.
c.
You can now use these
phonetic names in the Call Announcer app to update phonetic name field in your
contacts of your contacts.
Note- You can also add them to the wikilipi.com site for use by others.
Note- You can also add them to the wikilipi.com site for use by others.
d.
We have limited support
for English names written in Roman script but if you add them to the
wikilipi.com database we can also add them to the ekalipi.com database.
… More to come …
