Forgive my ignorance; I'm not a Sanskrit speaker (Malayalam is my first language) -- but I love the sound of Sanskrit. I have lots of questions: what's the use case for this? Primarily religious / liturgical? It also seems that the fact that this tool works means that any arbitrary Sanskrit sentence can be translated into a chant by some sort of procedure (dare I say algorithm)? I'm terribly curious and fascinated by…
Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
31–40 of 65 posts
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have tried the word you mentioned along with few other words together and there were no issues. It doesn't have to be a replacement. Anyone who has ever been in the physical presence of an expert reciting sanskrit verses knows that this can never replace that experience. It will only make the language and the chants more accessible.
> I have tried the word you mentioned along with few other words together and there were no issues. I have typed the word in English literals, and it made a horrible pronunciation of the word. > It will only make the language and the chants more accessible. No, it will turn sacred chanting into an AI slop. Entirely due to desire of people wishing to make some quick bucks or cheap reputation.
The frontend accepts Sanskrit and other Indic Language scripts but not made for English and hence your result; GIGO principle.
I tried out the Gayathri Manthra (a simple test) using Sanskrit, Tamil and English scripts and as expected, the first two render fine but not the last.
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#33Forgive my ignorance; I'm not a Sanskrit speaker (Malayalam is my first language) -- but I love the sound of Sanskrit. I have lots of questions: what's the use case for this? Primarily religious / liturgical? It also seems that the fact that this tool works means that any arbitrary Sanskrit sentence can be translated into a chant by some sort of procedure (dare I say algorithm)? I'm terribly curious and fascinated by…
Automating pundits in family functions would be my first guess. Could be more convenient and reliable than having to invite some stranger just for recitation.
You should ask yourself - would most christians prefer baptism in a bathtubs at home or drive in weddings for convenience? No? Exactly.
Hindu Vedic pandits and priests who come in and run priestly events and functions at Hindu homes are usually well known within their communities are not treated as strangers and neither is there an element of inconvenience. If anything their absence adds an element of inconvenience. For one most rituals in sanskrit are available on youtube for those who want to diy. But most discerning Hindus prefer the real thing. Same as Christians.
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#34It was based on an existing TTS, IndicT5. I wonder how different is “Sanskrit Chanting” to languages it could already do, like Hindi. Is it largely the glyph—to-phoneme that needs relearning? Or pitch control? Or more?
The biggest problem with a lot of northern languages is the awful schwa deletion. Even the Marathi of Maharashtra is subject to it. Strangely, the Marathi of Thanjavur has far, far less of it from what little I have heard of it. Sanskrit does not do schwa deletion. So engines must map the phonemes to Kannada/Telugu (which support the full complement of Sanskrit sounds) if they want to get somewhere. A lot of this can…
It's pretty funny reading comments on social media by north Indians whenever something on Sanskrit is posted. 'It's Ram, not Rama, it's yog, not yoga'... And they have no idea what schwa deletion is.
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest problem with a lot of northern languages is the awful schwa deletion. Even the Marathi of Maharashtra is subject to it. Strangely, the Marathi of Thanjavur has far, far less of it from what little I have heard of it. Sanskrit does not do schwa deletion. So engines must map the phonemes to Kannada/Telugu (which support the full complement of Sanskrit sounds) if they want to get somewhere. A lot of this can…
It's pretty funny reading comments on social media by north Indians whenever something on Sanskrit is posted. 'It's Ram, not Rama, it's yog, not yoga'... And they have no idea what schwa deletion is.
> It's Ram, not Rama, it's yog, not yoga'... And they have no idea what schwa deletion is.
It is neither.
The fundamental issue is that there is no way to represent the schwa sound in English[1]. All of a,e,i,o,u have been used to communicate the schwa (or schwa-like) sound in English.
- The `a` in about
- The `e` in taken
- The `i` in cousin
- The `o` in button
- The `u` in upon
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#36Forgive my ignorance; I'm not a Sanskrit speaker (Malayalam is my first language) -- but I love the sound of Sanskrit. I have lots of questions: what's the use case for this? Primarily religious / liturgical? It also seems that the fact that this tool works means that any arbitrary Sanskrit sentence can be translated into a chant by some sort of procedure (dare I say algorithm)? I'm terribly curious and fascinated by…
Learning and figuring out the meter and rhythm of a new passage? If you don’t have someone who knows to chant it for you…
Besides, it’s a fun exercise, so why not?
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty funny reading comments on social media by north Indians whenever something on Sanskrit is posted. 'It's Ram, not Rama, it's yog, not yoga'... And they have no idea what schwa deletion is.
> It's Ram, not Rama, it's yog, not yoga'... And they have no idea what schwa deletion is. It is neither. The fundamental issue is that there is no way to represent the schwa sound in English[1]. All of a,e,i,o,u have been used to communicate the schwa (or schwa-like) sound in English. - The `a` in about - The `e` in taken - The `i` in cousin - The `o` in button - The `u` in upon 1 - https://ashishb.net/linguistics/s…
I wouldn't say 'neither', because by your own example, 'a' in English can represent ⟨ə⟩. That every other vowel letter also can is English's low level of phoneticism with respect to the script it uses. Many other languages using the Latin script (German, Italian, Finnish) don't have this problem, what you see is what get.
Oddly enough amongst the Indic languages, Tamil has precisely the same problem: க, ப, ட may be voiced or voiceless plosives depending on context. Sanskrit loanwords in Tamil are typically pronounced very differently compared to their original in Sanskrit, or even in Telugu.
Personally when transliterating any Indic language I tend to use ISO-15919, and in that scheme, it is Rāma, and 'a' represents the schwa. Or Rāmaḥ, Rāmam, Rāmē, or Rāmasya, whichever grammatical attachment is appropriate.
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#38People seem to be making all sorts of assumptions/conjectures about the project and confusing themselves without reading the paper explaining the project (linked to in the site itself); From the introduction; Classical Sanskrit recitation, parāyaṇa, is a chanted rather than a read register. A faithful synthesizer must hold long vowels, sustain a terminal visarga, articulate retroflex and aspirated consonants, render…
Perhaps you could edit the submission to add this context?
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#39This must be insanely difficult to get right. I was not expecting such an impressive result from a site that looks so vibe coded! The look is underselling how good this is.
I'm curious what exactly makes this vibe-coded?
I've noticed a lot of people seem quick to dismiss something as vibe-coded these days.
Re: Vāgdhenu: A Sanskrit Chanting TTS System
#40This must be insanely difficult to get right. I was not expecting such an impressive result from a site that looks so vibe coded! The look is underselling how good this is.
I'm curious what exactly makes this vibe-coded? I've noticed a lot of people seem quick to dismiss something as vibe-coded these days.
I think they mean that the visual design of the site is vibe coded, as most LLMs use this style while making web pages.