I don't know about tonal languages. But you're definitely right about the artifacts of concatenative speech synthesis. It's worth noting that purely synthetic

I don't know about tonal languages. But you're definitely right about the artifacts of concatenative speech synthesis. It's worth noting that purely synthetic speech, while lacking the superficial lifelike quality, doesn't have these little inconsistencies. Perhaps that's one reason why many blind people, particularly power users, prefer pure synthetic text-to-speech engines, such as ETI-Eloquence (commercial) and eSpeak (open source). These systems especially sound better at high speeds than the newer "lifelike" ones. Just for fun, here's a side-by-side comparison between a concatenative system, IVONA (acquired by Amazon): http://mwcampbell.us/tmp/derefr_comment_ivona.mp3 http://mwcampbell.us/tmp/derefr_comment_ivona.mp3 And a purely synthetic system, Eloquence: http://mwcampbell.us/tmp/derefr_comment_eloquence.mp3 http://mwcampbell.us/tmp/derefr_comment_eloquence.mp3 The latter is the text-to-speech engine I use every day, and that clip was synthesized at the speaking rate I normally use. Edit: It appears the word I was looking for when I said "purely synthetic" is "parametric".