Patent Document ID: 8244534
Application ID: 11841637

Base Claim:
1. A method for generating speech based on text in one or more languages, implemented at least in part by a computer, the method comprising: providing a phone set for a plurality of languages, the phone set comprising a union of phones of the plurality of languages; training, for the plurality of languages, a multilingual hidden Markov model (HMM) comprising state level sharing across the plurality of languages based on language sentences in each of the plurality of languages without any sentences including a mixture of more than one language; tying states of the multilingual HMM across the plurality of languages and clustering the tied states across the plurality of languages into a single decision based at least in part on a language independent question and a language specific question; receiving text in one or more of the plurality of languages of the multilingual HMM; and generating speech, for the received text, based at least in part on the multilingual HMM.

---

Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of languages comprise English and/or Mandarin.