[gnuspeech-contact] Early GNUSpeech observations

[Jason White]

Having run the (very early) GNU/Linux version, I wish to congratulate the
authors of GNUSpeech for having advanced the porting effort this far.

I notice that the version which I built doesn't pronounce names and relatively
uncommon words - perhaps it is restricted to pronouncing words that are in its
dictionary. I hear a "zzz" sound in place of each omitted word.

Have the letter to sound rules not been ported yet, or is it just a bug? I
think it is important for any synthesizer to have good letter to sound rules,
since there will inevitably be words in the text that aren't in the
dictionary.

I also find the intonation pattern interesting, and quite different from the
original samples, but I'm sure that improving it is on the list of tasks to be
completed. It also seems to me that the tonal quality of the voice is better
than that of the sound files that David generously supplied on his Web site,
but this might be entirely my imagination.

Thank you, again, for the excellent work so far.