Welcome to the Hong Kong Waitou and Hakka text-to-speech (Text-to-Speech) reader!
Waitou dialect and Hakka dialect are both intangible cultural heritage of Hong Kong. However, the inheritance of these local languages has been broken due to urbanization. The new generation in Wai Village has very few opportunities to come into contact with Waitou dialect and Hakka dialect, or they may only know how to listen but not speak.
Using this text-to-speech (TTS) reader can be used as a resource for learning Waitou and Hakka. It can also be used as a tool to communicate with elders in surrounding villages, continuing the language inheritance of families and communities.
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Just enter text into the program and the program will generate a natural and smooth voice in Waitou or Hakka. How to use it:
➀ Enter text in the input box
➁ Select language: Waitou/Hakka
➂ Select voice: male/female
➃ Click [Add sentence]
➄ Press the play button【▶︎】
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This program was developed by the Hong Kong Vernacular Language Conservation Association. We would like to thank the Intangible Cultural Heritage Funding Scheme of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department for funding this project, and the Center for Linguistics and Language Studies of the Education University of Hong Kong for providing venue rental assistance.
The front end of this program is developed with TypeScript and React frameworks, using the VITS2 language model provided by hon9kon9ize. Please refer to the source code for details.
If you have any inquiries, please email to info@hkilang.org or lchaakming@eduhk.hk.