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Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning
Speech Synthesis Workshop (SSW)

Speech Synthesis Workshop (SSW) (Picture: Ria/Pixabay)

Speech Synthesis Workshop Blizzard Challenge 2025: 'Digital voice for Bildts'

Speech technology

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Mercator

Campus Fryslân of the University of Groningen and the University of Helsinki are organising the Speech Synthesis Workshop (SSW) in Leeuwarden from 22 to 27 August, a satellite event of the larger InterSpeech in Rotterdam. The final day of SSW will be devoted to the development of the first digital voice in the Bildts language. This Blizzard Challenge is co-organised by the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning (part of the Fryske Akademy).

The theme of this edition of the Speech Synthesis Workshop in Leeuwarden is “Scaling down: sustainable synthesis for language diversity”. The Blizzard Challenge, on the last day of the workshop week, fits in with this theme and takes on the challenge of developing and applying a digital voice in Bildts. This is remarkable, because Bildts is only a very small language in the Netherlands (Fryslân) with approximately 10,000 first and second language speakers.

For the Blizzard Challenge 2025, in which scientists from all over the world participate, a dataset has been compiled of high-quality audio recordings with accompanying linguistic resources. The choice of Bildts presents participants with the challenge of developing synthesis capabilities for a well-documented but data-poor language variant that is representative of the thousands of smaller languages that could benefit from speech technology.

More information about the Blizzard Challenge, the rules for participation, the training data and the organisation can be found on the special Speech Synthesis Workshop / Blizzard Challenge website.

 

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