Project Summary

Speech synthesis has been present in ICT domain for many years. However, high-quality solutions that can overcome specific and less common language syntax are rare, even for widespread languages such as English and Spanish. Croatian language is rather complex in the context of speech synthesis. Probably this is one of the reasons why there is still no high-quality speech synthesis for Croatian. When observing the great potential of speech synthesis in various application areas, which have several solutions for widespread languages, the need for Croatian speech synthesis becomes obvious. To ensure the successful implementation of the proposed project, a research group needs to be established with the tasks of project management, achieving visibility of the research group and dissemination of results of the project. Dissemination of project results is essential for further connecting with domain experts and researchers to ensure the sustainability of research and evolution of the proposed solution for speech synthesis, during and after the completion of the proposed project. The proposed project has several objectives, but above all it is first necessary to systematically analyse and evaluate existing methods of speech synthesis for all languages with an emphasis on languages like Croatian. The results of analysis and evaluation will help form a decision regarding implementation of new methods that could overcome the issues of Croatian language in the context of speech synthesis. The proposed methods will be implemented as an integrated solution for speech synthesis of the Croatian language in a distributed and centralized environment, on selected application areas. Finally, evaluation of the developed speech synthesis will be performed to ensure high-quality of the solution that will be able to meet the needs of speech synthesis in the long-term, as well as evolution and application in various fields during and after the completion of the proposed project.