Recent advances in speech synthesis have enabled many useful applications
like audio directions in Google Maps, screen readers, and automated content
generation on platforms like TikTok. However, these systems are mostly
dominated by voices sourced from data-rich geographies with personas
representative of their source data. Although 3000 of the world's languages are
domiciled in Africa, African voices and personas are under-represented in these
systems. As speech synthesis becomes increasingly democratized, it is desirable
to increase the representation of African English accents. We present Afro-TTS,
the first pan-African accented English speech synthesis system able to generate
speech in 86 African accents, with 1000 personas representing the rich
phonological diversity across the continent for downstream application in
Education, Public Health, and Automated Content Creation. Speaker interpolation
retains naturalness and accentedness, enabling the creation of new voices.

Afro-TTS 是第一个能够在 86 种非洲口音中生成语音的泛非洲口音英语语音合成系统，包含了代表该大陆丰富的音韵多样性的 1000 个人物形象，可用于教育、公共卫生和自动内容创作。说话者插值保持了自然和口音特点，使得能够创造新的声音。