SpeechDat Cymru: A Large-scale Welsh Telephony Database
Rhys James Jones, John S. D. Mason, Robert Owen Jones, Louise Helliker, Mark Pawlewski · 2001
We describe the collection of SpeechDat Cymru, a 2000-speaker speech recognition database for the Welsh language, recorded over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). It is collected as part of SpeechDat(II), an ELRA project which deals with the creation of databases in over 20 different European languages and dialects. Design issues common to all SpeechDat(II) databases are discussed, in addition to Welshspecific considerations. Speaker recruitment, database recording and annotation are also detailed. It is our belief that with the current interest in multilingual speech recognition, SpeechDat Cymru will lead to an increased awareness of minority languages within the European speech community. It will also increase the status of Welsh in the global technology marketplace. 1