The Speech Accent Archive
Matt Haughey, August 14th, 2003
A great new audio project worth highlighting is the Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University. It features 264 native and non-native speakers reading the same paragraph in english. Ever wonder what a Romanian from Bucharest sounds like in relation to a Boston accent? Look no further, as it is all released under a Creative Commons License.
J. Grant
April 12th, 2004 at 7:23 pmUnfortunately this uses embedded Apple QuickTime files, which are a proprietary format incomprehensible by anything other than the proprietary Apple QuickTime software. Further Apple QuickTime software is only available on a select few OS not including GNU/Linux. Also there are no contact details to request an upgrade to ogg vorbis, or any other modern open standard format.
Lets hope one of the GMU Accent team see this post and improve things. As I would really like to find out the difference between a Bucharest, Romania and Boston USA accent :)
Regards
JG
musicus
January 4th, 2006 at 2:56 pmGreat use of the cc-license!