This post is co-authored with Qinying Liao, Binggong Ding, Garfield He and Sheng Zhao
Neural Text to Speech (Neural TTS), a powerful speech synthesis feature of Azure Cognitive Services for Speech, enables you to convert text to lifelike speech which is close to human-parity.
Today we are glad to announce that Speech Service’s Neural TTS is now extended to support 49 new languages/variants, which includes more variants for those languages being used across many countries/regions such as: Arabic, English, Spanish, Tamil, etc. and new languages such as Afrikaan, Khmer, Burmese, Persian, Uzbek, Zulu, etc. With this update, Azure Neural TTS now supports 119 languages/variants with 278 voices out-of-box. With other Cognitive Services including Speech-to-Text, OCR and Translator extended to 100+ languages, Azure AI is one big step closer to its ambition to empower every organization and everyone on the planet to achieve more, without the language barrier.
12 new languages
While there are thousands of spoken languages in the world, the top 1% (~70 language) accounts for the 80%+ of the global population (check reference here). With years’ development, the TTS technology has been available in many common spoken languages and has been updated in these languages with many advanced features available. However, due to the lack of training data or business needs, there’s almost nothing on TTS available for those less spoken languages. Inspired by the vision to remove the language barrier for everyone and powered by the low resource setting TTS technology, we keep working to expand our capability to support those less touched languages in the world.
Today, we are adding 12 new languages to our neural TTS portfolio.
Check out how the voices in these languages sound like with the samples below.
| Locale code | Locale name | Voice name | Gender | Sample text | Audio |
| af-ZA | Afrikaans (South Africa) | Adri | Female | Bepaal die formaat en die styl waarin jy gaan skryf. | |
| af-ZA | Afrikaans (South Africa) | Willem | Male | Besluit op ’n persoonlike skryfstyl vir jouself. | |
| am-ET | Amharic (Ethiopia) | Ameha | Male | የፌዴራልና የክልሎች ቅንጅት እንዴት ይገለጻል? | |
| am-ET | Amharic (Ethiopia) | Mekdes | Female | ከሚመለከታቸው አካላት ጋር እንዲስተካከሉ እያደረግን ነው። | |
| bn-BD | Bangla (Bangladesh) | Nabanita | Female | তুমি কি আগামীকাল বিকেলে আসতে পারবে? | |
| bn-BD | Bangla (Bangladesh) | Pradeep | Male | সে কেন সময়মতো সেখানে যেতে পারেনি? | |
| fa-IR | Persian (Iran) | Dilara | Female | افزایش قیمت ارز در بازار همواره یکی از دلایل اصلی افزایش قیمت طلا و سکه بوده است. | |
| fa-IR | Persian (Iran) | Farid | Male | مردم چشم دارند، می‌بینند! | |
| fil-PH | Filipino (Philippines) | Angelo | Male | Pagbaba sa paliparan, titingnan ang temperatura ng turista. | |
| fil-PH | Filipino (Philippines) | Blessica | Female | Ano ang kasalukuyang nangungunang palabas sa telebisyon? | |
| gl-ES | Galician (Spain) | Roi | Male | Onte me dixeches que non había clase. | |
| gl-ES | Galician (Spain) | Sabela | Female | Teño un compañeiro de escola que busca traballo. | |
| jv-ID | Javanese (Indonesia) | Dimas | Male | Banyu segara ing sacedhake kali duwe kandungan uyah sing sithik. | |
| jv-ID | Javanese (Indonesia) | Siti | Female | Adik kulo ingkang jaler pinter matematika. | |
| km-KH | Khmer (Cambodia) | Piseth | Male | តើអ្នកចង់ទិញផ្លែឈើអ្វី? | |
| km-KH | Khmer (Cambodia) | Sreymom | Female | អាគារទីស្នាក់មានចំនួន ៥ នៅភ្នំពេញ។ | |
| my-MM | Burmese (Myanmar) | Nilar | Female | ပြည်တွင်းစစ် ရပ်သွားအောင် အိုင်ဗရီကို့စ် အသင်းခေါင်းဆောင် ဒရော့ဘာ ဘယ်လို ကူညီခဲ့လဲ။ | |
| my-MM | Burmese (Myanmar) | Thiha | Male | ရိုဆန်သယ်လ် ကနေ မီနာမီနိုအထိ ပေါင် တစ်ဒသမလေးခုနစ် ဘီလျံကို ဘယ်လိုသုံးခဲ့လဲ။ | |
| so-SO | Somali (Somalia) | Muuse | Male | Sidee ku baratay luqadda? | |
| so-SO | Somali (Somalia) | Ubax | Female | Waxaana lagu tiriyaa tababaraha soo hoyiyay guusha ugu badan caalamka. | |
| su-ID | Sundanese (Indonesia) | Jajang | Male | Lamun leungeun katuhu mere, ulah nepika leungeun kenca apaleun. | |
| su-ID | Sundanese (Indonesia) | Tuti | Female | Abdi hoyong ngabagjakeun kanu jadi sepuh. | |
| uz-UZ | Uzbek (Uzbekistan) | Madina | Female | Kuniga yarim soat kitob oʻqib turaman. | |
| uz-UZ | Uzbek (Uzbekistan) | Sardor | Male | Har kuni ertalab sport bilan shugʻullanaman. | |
| zu-ZA | Zulu (South Africa) | Thando | Female | Isiko lamaZulu ngelinye lamasiko ase-Afrika athokozisa kakhulu. | |
| zu-ZA | Zulu (South Africa) | Themba | Male | Umbuso wakwaZulu nawo uhamba ngegama lamaZulu umbuso noma uMbuso wakwaZulu. |
37 variants for more popular languages
Beside the new languages above, some languages like Arabic, English, Spanish are widely spoken across different countries and regions, and they have their own accent and linguistic specialties. We have supported some main markets, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia for Arabic; United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, India, etc. for English; and Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia for Spanish, etc. There are still more variants, and that is the one of the main goals we are trying to achieve with this update.
Check out the new voices with the audio samples below in these language variants.
| Locale code | Locale name | Voice name | Gender | Sample text | Audio |
| ar-AE | Arabic (United Arab Emirates) | Fatima | Female | ما أهي أكبر دولة في العالم؟ | |
| ar-AE | Arabic (United Arab Emirates) | Hamdan | Male | اصبر لكل مُصِيبةٍ وتجلد واعلم بأن الدهر غير مُخلد. | |
| ar-BH | Arabic (Bahrain) | Ali | Male | أنا مشغول بالي كتير عليك حبيبي. | |
| ar-BH | Arabic (Bahrain) | Laila | Female | إلهي كم هذا رائع! | |
| ar-DZ | Arabic (Algeria) | Amina | Female | الجمال جمال النفس الطيبة وليس جمال الوجه والقلب مسود بالأحقاد. | |
| ar-DZ | Arabic (Algeria) | Ismael | Male | الورود حياة المحبين فاحرص على اقتناء وردتك البيضاء. | |
| ar-IQ | Arabic (Iraq) | Bassel | Male | شرفت والله طمني كيف كانت رحلتك؟ | |
| ar-IQ | Arabic (Iraq) | Rana | Female | سيء جداً أن تُمارس السعادة وأنت مُرهق من الداخل. | |
| ar-JO | Arabic (Jordan) | Sana | Female | عن جد عم تحكي شو حلو هالخبر! | |
| ar-JO | Arabic (Jordan) | Taim | Male | قرأت عن أهمية التمارين الرياضية البسيطة لكبار السن. | |
| ar-KW | Arabic (Kuwait) | Fahed | Male | على قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم. الأفعال أبلغ من الأقوال. | |
| ar-KW | Arabic (Kuwait) | Noura | Female | عامل الناس كما تحب أن يعاملوك. | |
| ar-LY | Arabic (Libya) | Iman | Female | لولا الأمل في الغد لما عاش المظلوم حتى اليوم. | |
| ar-LY | Arabic (Libya) | Omar | Male | ما أجمل الربيع وأحلى نسماته! | |
| ar-MA | Arabic (Morocco) | Jamal | Male | يا ليت لنا مثل ما أوتي قارون! | |
| ar-MA | Arabic (Morocco) | Mouna | Female | أنا مشغول بالي كتير عليك حبيبي. | |
| ar-QA | Arabic (Qatar) | Amal | Female | هل تمكنت ماليزيا وغيرها من دول العالم من محاربة الفساد؟ | |
| ar-QA | Arabic (Qatar) | Moaz | Male | يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة! | |
| ar-SY | Arabic (Syria) | Amany | Female | عامل الناس كما تحب أن يعاملوك. | |
| ar-SY | Arabic (Syria) | Laith | Male | يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة! | |
| ar-TN | Arabic (Tunisia) | Hedi | Male | ما أجمل الربيع وأحلى نسماته! | |
| ar-TN | Arabic (Tunisia) | Reem | Female | ما يأتي بسهولة يذهب بسهولة، ما تجلبه الرياح تأخذه الزوابع. | |
| ar-YE | Arabic (Yemen) | Maryam | Female | سنبدأ العمل عند الساعة 3 بعد الظهر. | |
| ar-YE | Arabic (Yemen) | Saleh | Male | يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة! | |
| en-KE | English (Kenya) | Asilia | Female | We packed a lot of food for the trip. | |
| en-KE | English (Kenya) | Chilemba | Male | Where have you been? | |
| en-NG | English (Nigeria) | Abeo | Male | You're very much welcome! | |
| en-NG | English (Nigeria) | Ezinne | Female | I'm having so much fun! | |
| en-TZ | English (Tanzania) | Elimu | Male | Let's meet tomorrow at 6 pm. | |
| en-TZ | English (Tanzania) | Imani | Female | The capital of Tanzania is spelled as D O D O M A. | |
| es-BO | Spanish (Bolivia) | Marcelo | Male | ¿Qué ventajas le dio a usted como cirujana ese sistema? | |
| es-BO | Spanish (Bolivia) | Sofia | Female | Quiero conocer más rincones de Bolivia. | |
| es-CL | Spanish (Chile) | Catalina | Female | ¡Estoy orgulloso de ti! | |
| es-CL | Spanish (Chile) | Lorenzo | Male | ¿Cuál es la palabra que menos te gusta? | |
| es-CR | Spanish (Costa Rica) | Juan | Male | ¿Qué tienes que nadie más tiene? | |
| es-CR | Spanish (Costa Rica) | Maria | Female | Me encantan los desafíos, me apasiona ser gestora de cambios. | |
| es-CU | Spanish (Cuba) | Belkys | Female | ¡Estoy orgulloso de ti! | |
| es-CU | Spanish (Cuba) | Manuel | Male | No tenemos límites, cada uno define su techo. | |
| es-DO | Spanish (Dominican Republic) | Emilio | Male | El trabajo que realizo me enamora todos los días. | |
| es-DO | Spanish (Dominican Republic) | Ramona | Female | ¡Fue genial!, como una película | |
| es-EC | Spanish (Ecuador) | Andrea | Female | ¡Seguinos en nuestras redes sociales, no te pierdas de nada! | |
| es-EC | Spanish (Ecuador) | Luis | Male | Aprendió a tocar guitarra con su abuelo. | |
| es-GQ | Spanish (Equatorial Guinea) | Javier | Male | Mejorando la calidad de vida de la mujer. | |
| es-GQ | Spanish (Equatorial Guinea) | Teresa | Female | La casa que está al borde del mar es luminosa. | |
| es-GT | Spanish (Guatemala) | Andres | Male | ¿Cuantas veces a la semana vas al gimnasio? | |
| es-GT | Spanish (Guatemala) | Marta | Female | ¿Quien gano las elecciones? | |
| es-HN | Spanish (Honduras) | Carlos | Male | El cheesecake que comimos estaba delicioso. | |
| es-HN | Spanish (Honduras) | Karla | Female | ¿A que horas llega el vuelo de Miami? | |
| es-NI | Spanish (Nicaragua) | Federico | Male | ¡Que bueno verte de nuevo! | |
| es-NI | Spanish (Nicaragua) | Yolanda | Female | El bacon de pavo es mas sano que el de cerdo. | |
| es-PA | Spanish (Panama) | Margarita | Female | Nuestra maestra de mecanografía era la mejor de todas. | |
| es-PA | Spanish (Panama) | Roberto | Male | ¡Cuanto frio hace, me estoy congelando! | |
| es-PE | Spanish (Peru) | Alex | Male | Explica una vez más la tarea, por favor. | |
| es-PE | Spanish (Peru) | Camila | Female | ¡Que buena sorpresa me diste! | |
| es-PR | Spanish (Puerto Rico) | Karina | Female | ¡Felicidades por tu bebe! | |
| es-PR | Spanish (Puerto Rico) | Victor | Male | Estoy pensando en pedir hamburguesas para que todos almorcemos. | |
| es-PY | Spanish (Paraguay) | Mario | Male | ¡Détente y ten cuidado! | |
| es-PY | Spanish (Paraguay) | Tania | Female | Los gatos son mascotas altamente independientes. | |
| es-SV | Spanish (El Salvador) | Lorena | Female | ¿Has visto mis llaves? | |
| es-SV | Spanish (El Salvador) | Rodrigo | Male | Desde sus seis años mostró talento para la música. | |
| es-UY | Spanish (Uruguay) | Mateo | Male | Es un beneficio directo para todos los usuarios. | |
| es-UY | Spanish (Uruguay) | Valentina | Female | ¿Cuáles son los feriados laborables para este año en Uruguay? | |
| es-VE | Spanish (Venezuela) | Paola | Female | ¡No te preocupes por todos ellos! | |
| es-VE | Spanish (Venezuela) | Sebastian | Male | Nos tomará 3 horas llegar a la playa. | |
| sw-TZ | Swahili (Tanzania) | Daudi | Male | Nidhamu ni sababu kuu ya mafanikio. | |
| sw-TZ | Swahili (Tanzania) | Rehema | Female | Lugha unaridhisha ukitumiwa kwa ufasaha. | |
| ta-LK | Tamil (Sri Lanka) | Kumar | Male | எவ்வளவு அருமையான பாடல் அது! | |
| ta-LK | Tamil (Sri Lanka) | Saranya | Female | இது நல்ல நிறம் தான். | |
| ta-SG | Tamil (Singapore) | Anbu | Male | கீழடி அகழாய்வு இந்திய வரலாற்றை திருத்தி எழுதும்? | |
| ta-SG | Tamil (Singapore) | Venba | Female | என்ன ஒரு பெரிய ஆச்சரியம்! | |
| ur-IN | Urdu (India) | Gul | Female | میرے پاس چھپانے کے لیے کچھ نہیں ہے۔ | |
| ur-IN | Urdu (India) | Salman | Male | دنیا بھر میں صحت کے شعبے میں بہتری کے لیے اقدامات کیے جا رہے ہیں۔ |
Get started
With these updates, we’re excited to be powering natural and intuitive voice experiences for more customers. Text to Speech offers over 270 neural voices across 119 languages and locales, which can serve you and your customers in different markets around the world. In addition, the Custom Neural Voice capability enable organizations to create a unique brand voice in multiple languages and styles.
For more information:
- Try the demo
- See our documentation
- Check out our sample code
