speak (Unix)

{{Short description|Unix utility}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}

{{lowercase title|title=speak}}

{{Infobox software

| name = speak

| logo =

| screenshot =

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| author = Douglas McIlroy

| developer = AT&T Bell Laboratories

| released = {{Start date and age|1973|2}}

| latest release version =

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| operating system = Unix and Unix-like

| genre = Command

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| website =

}}

{{mono|speak}} was a Unix utility that used a predefined set of rules to turn a file of English text into phoneme data compatible with a Federal Screw Works (later Votrax) model VS4 "Votrax" Speech Synthesizer.{{cite journal|author=M. Douglas McIlroy|title=Synthetic English speech by rule|volume=14|journal=The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America|date=March 1974|issue=S1|pages=S55–S56|doi=10.1121/1.1919804|bibcode=1974ASAJ...55R..55M|doi-access=free}}{{cite report|url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/pubs.html|first=M. D.|last=McIlroy|title=Synthetic speech by rule|publisher=Bell Telephone Laboratories technical report|year=1974}} It was first included in Unix v3{{cite web|url=http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/gbaunix/|title=UNIX® on the Game Boy Advance|website=www.kernelthread.com}} and possibly later ones, with the OS-end support files and help files persisting until v6. As of late 2011, the original source code{{cite web|url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002538.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170452/https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002538.html |archive-date=2014-06-20 |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose}}{{cite web |url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002550.html |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose |website=minnie.tuhs.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170426/http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002550.html |archive-date=2014-06-20}} for {{mono|speak}}, and portions of speak.m (which is generated from speak.v){{cite web |url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002546.html |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose |website=minnie.tuhs.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170429/http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002546.html |archive-date=2014-06-20}} were discovered. At least three{{cite web | title=The Unix Tree | website=minnie.tuhs.org | date=24 November 1981 | url=https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl | access-date=31 December 2023}}[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V4/usr/man/man1/speak.1 The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V6/usr/man/man6/speak.6 The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org versions of the man page are known to still exist.

The main program (speak) was around 4500 bytes, the rule tables (/etc/speak.m) were around 11,000 bytes, and the table viewer (speakm)[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/manx/speakm.5.html The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org was around 1900 bytes.