Synthesizing and evaluating an artificial language: klingon

The synthesis of an artificial language can provide some interesting extensions for the evaluation of text-to-speech (TTS) systems. For the alternative evaluation of the TTS system DRESS a new module for the artificial language Klingon has been developed. The linguistic and phonetic structure of Klingon can be modeled mainly by rules, with less exceptions. This contribution introduces the multilingual features of the TTS system DRESS, the fundamentals of Klingon, the synthesis approach using an allophone inventory and the integration in the TTS system. Some examples are presented and the evaluation method is shortly discussed. Preliminary listening results validate the TTS approach of synthesizing an artificial language like Klingon and indicate the applicability for evaluation procedures. For a practical use, the speech database for the Klingon synthesis needs to be enlarged.