Patent ID: 7406408
Filing Date: 2008-07-29
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. A method of recognizing phones in speech of any language, comprising the steps of: (a) acquiring phones for all languages, including information on the phones that indicate in which languages the phones are valid; (b) acquiring phones for each of a user-definable number of languages; (c) acquiring a pronunciation dictionary for said user-definable number of languages for which phones where acquired in step (b), and performing a statistical analysis of each pronunciation dictionary acquired to determine the probability of occurrence of each phone in the pronunciation dictionary; (d) acquiring at least one transcript of speech for each of said user-definable number of languages, where each of the at least one transcript identifies the phones included therein, and performing a statistical analysis of each transcript acquired to determine the probability of occurrence of each phone in the transcript; (e) acquiring speech for a user-definable number of the at least one transcript acquired in step (d) and performing a statistical analysis of each speech acquired to determine the probability of occurrence of each phone in the speech; (f) receiving speech for which phones contained therein are not identified; (g) if the language of the received speech is not known then comparing the received speech to the phones acquired in step (a) and declaring the received speech to include the phones acquired in step (a) to which the received speech most closely matches and stopping, otherwise proceeding to the next step; (h) if the language of the received speech is known but no phones were acquired in step (b) in the language then comparing the received speech to the phones acquired in step (a) and declaring the received speech to include the phones acquired in step (a) to which the received speech most closely matches and stopping, otherwise proceeding to the next step; (i) if phones were acquired in step (b) in the language of the received speech but no pronunciation dictionary was acquired in step (c) for the phones acquired in step (b) then comparing the received speech to the phones acquired in step (a) that are valid in the language of the received speech and declaring the received speech to include the phones acquired in step (a) that are valid in the language of the received speech to which the received speech most closely matches and stopping, otherwise proceeding to the next step; and (j) if a pronunciation dictionary was acquired in step (c) for the phones acquired in step (b) in the language of the received speech but no transcript was acquired in step (d) in the language of the received speech then comparing the received speech to the phones acquired in step (a) that are valid in the language of the received speech and declaring the received speech to include the phones acquired in step (a) that are valid in the language of the received speech to which the received speech most likely matches considering the probability of occurrence of each phone in the pronunciation dictionary and stopping.