commonvoice-utils 0.2.2

Linguistic processing for languages in Common Voice

Common Voice Utils

This repository collects together basic linguistic processing data for using dataset dumps from the Common Voice project. It aims to provide a one-stop-shop for utilities and data useful in training ASR and TTS systems.

Tools

• Phonemiser:
  • A rudimentary grapheme to phoneme (g2p) system based on either:
    • a deterministic longest-match left-to-right replacement of orthographic units; or
    • a weighted finite-state transducer
• Validator:
  • A validation script that can be used with import_cv2.py from coqui-ai/STT
  • It checks a sentence to see if it can be converted and if possible normalises the encoding, removes punctuation and returns it
• Alphabet:
  • The relevant alphabet of the language, appropriate for use in training ASR
• Segmenter:
  • A deterministic sentence segmentation algorithm tuned for segmenting paragraphs from Wikipedia
• Corpora:
  • Contains metadata for different corpora you may be interested in using with Common Voice

Installation

The easiest way is with pip:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/ftyers/commonvoice-utils.git

How to use it

Command line tool

There is also a command line tool, covo /ˈkəʊvəʊ/ which aims to expose much of the functionality through the command line. Some examples on the next lines:

Use a Wikipedia dump to get text for a language mode in the right format:

$ covo dump mtwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 | covo segment mt | covo norm mt
x'inhi l-wikipedija
il-wikipedija hi mmexxija mill-fondazzjoni wikimedia fondazzjoni mingħajr fini ta' lukru li tospita proġetti oħra b'kontenut ħieles u multilingwi
il-malti huwa l-ilsien nazzjonali tar-repubblika ta' malta
huwa l-ilsien uffiċjali flimkien mal-ingliż kif ukoll wieħed mill-ilsna uffiċjali tal-unjoni ewropea

Get a list of URLs for a particular language from the OPUS corpus collection:

$ covo opus mt | sort -gr
23859 documents,69.4M tokens	https://object.pouta.csc.fi/OPUS-DGT/v2019/mono/mt.txt.gz
8665 documents,25.8M tokens	https://object.pouta.csc.fi/OPUS-JRC-Acquis/v3.0/mono/mt.txt.gz
5388 documents,8.9M tokens	https://object.pouta.csc.fi/OPUS-JW300/v1b/mono/mt.txt.gz
...

Get the grapheme to phoneme output for some arbitrary input:

$ echo "euskal herrian euskaraz" | covo phon eu
eus̺kal erian eus̺kaɾas̻

$ echo "قايتا نىشان بەلگىلەش ئورنى ئۇيغۇرچە ۋىكىپىدىيە" | covo phon ug
qɑjtɑ nɪʃɑn bɛlɡɪlɛʃ ornɪ ujʁurtʃɛ vɪkɪpɪdɪjɛ

Python module

The code can also be used as a Python module, here are some examples:

Alphabet

Returns an alphabet appropriate for end-to-end speech recognition.

>>> from cvutils import Alphabet
>>> a = Alphabet('cv')
>>> a.get_alphabet()
' -абвгдежзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщыэюяёҫӑӗӳ'

Corpora

Some miscellaneous tools for working with corpora:

>>> from cvutils import Corpora
>>> c = Corpora('kpv')
>>> c.dump_url()
'https://dumps.wikimedia.org/kvwiki/latest/kvwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2'
>>> c.target_segments()
[]
>>> c = Corpora('cv')
>>> c.target_segments()
['нуль', 'пӗрре', 'иккӗ', 'виҫҫӗ', 'тӑваттӑ', 'пиллӗк', 'улттӑ', 'ҫиччӗ', 'саккӑр', 'тӑххӑр', 'ҫапла', 'ҫук']
>>> c.dump_url()
'https://dumps.wikimedia.org/cvwiki/latest/cvwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2'

Grapheme to phoneme

For a given token, return an approximate broad phonemised version of it.

>>> from cvutils import Phonemiser
>>> p = Phonemiser('ab')
>>> p.phonemise('гӏапынхъамыз')
'ʕapənqaməz'

>>> p = Phonemiser('br')
>>> p.phonemise("implijout")
'impliʒut'

Validator

For a given input sentence/utterance, the validator returns either a validated and normalised version of the string according to the validation rules, or None if the string cannot be validated.

>>> from cvutils import Validator
>>> v = Validator('ab')
>>> v.validate('Аллаҳ хаҵеи-ԥҳәыси иеилыхны, аҭыԥҳацәа роума иалихыз?')
'аллаҳ хаҵеи-ԥҳәыси иеилыхны аҭыԥҳацәа роума иалихыз'

>>> v = Validator('br')
>>> v.validate('Ha cʼhoant hocʼh eus da gendercʼhel da implijout ar servijer-mañ ?')
"ha c'hoant hoc'h eus da genderc'hel da implijout ar servijer-mañ"

Sentence segmentation

Mostly designed for use with Wikipedia, takes a paragraph and returns a list of the sentences found within it.

>>> from cvutils import Segmenter 
>>> s = Segmenter('br')
>>> para = "Peurliesañ avat e kemm ar vogalennoù e c'hengerioù evit dont da vezañ heñvel ouzh ar vogalennoù en nominativ (d.l.e. ar stumm-meneg), da skouer e hungareg: Aour, tungsten, zink, uraniom, h.a., a vez kavet e kondon Bouryatia. A-bouez-bras evit armerzh ar vro eo al labour-douar ivez pa vez gounezet gwinizh ha legumaj dreist-holl. A-hend-all e vez gounezet arc'hant dre chaseal ha pesketa."
>>> for sent in s.segment(para):
...     print(sent)
... 
Peurliesañ avat e kemm ar vogalennoù e c'hengerioù evit dont da vezañ heñvel ouzh ar vogalennoù en nominativ (d.l.e. ar stumm-meneg), da skouer e hungareg: Aour, tungsten, zink, uraniom, h.a., a vez kavet e kondon Bouryatia.
A-bouez-bras evit armerzh ar vro eo al labour-douar ivez pa vez gounezet gwinizh ha legumaj dreist-holl.
A-hend-all e vez gounezet arc'hant dre chaseal ha pesketa.

Language support

Language	Autonym	Code	(CV)	(WP)	Phon	Valid	Alphabet	Segment
Abkhaz	Аԥсуа	abk	ab	—	✔	✔	✔
Amharic	አማርኛ	amh	—	am	✔	✔	✔
Arabic	اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ	ara	ar	ar	—	✔	✔
Assamese	অসমীয়া	asm	as	as
Azeri	Azərbaycanca	aze	az	az		✔	✔
Bashkort	Башҡортса	ba	ba	ba	✔		✔
Basaa	Basaa	bas	bas	—	✔		✔
Breton	Brezhoneg	bre	br	br	✔	✔	✔	✔
Bulgarian	Български	bul	bg	bg	✔		✔
Catalan	Català	cat	ca	ca			✔
Czech	Čeština	ces	cs	cs	✔	✔	✔
Chukchi	Ԓыгъоравэтԓьэн	ckt	—	—	✔	✔	✔
Chuvash	Чӑвашла	chv	cv	cv	✔	✔	✔	✔
Hakha Chin	Hakha Lai	cnh	cnh	—		✔	✔
Welsh	Cymraeg	cym	cy	cy	✔		✔
Dhivehi	ދިވެހި	div	dv	dv	✔	✔	✔	✔
Greek	Ελληνικά	ell	el	el	✔	✔	✔
German	Deutsch	deu	de	de		✔	✔
English	English	eng	en	en	—	✔	✔
Esperanto	Esperanto	epo	eo	eo			✔
Spanish	Español	spa	es	es	✔		✔
Estonian	Eesti	est	et	et	✔	✔	✔
Basque	Euskara	eus	eu	eu	✔	✔	✔
Persian	فارسی	pes	fa	fa	—	✔	✔
Finnish	Suomi	fin	fi	fi	✔	✔	✔
French	Français	fra	fr	fr	—		✔
Frisian	Frysk	fry	fy-NL	fy		✔	✔	✔
Irish	Gaeilge	gle	ga-IE	ga		✔	✔
Galician	Galego	glg	gl	gl	✔		✔
Guaraní	Avañeʼẽ	gug	gn	gn	✔		✔
Hindi	हिन्दी	hin	hi	hi
Upper Sorbian	Hornjoserbšćina	hsb	hsb	hsb		✔	✔	✔
Hungarian	Magyar nyelv	hun	hu	hu	✔	✔	✔
Armenian	Հայերեն	hye	hy-AM	hy	✔		✔
Interlingua	Interlingua	ina	ia	ia	✔		✔
Indonesian	Bahasa indonesia	ind	id	id	✔	✔	✔
Italian	Italiano	ita	it	it	✔		✔
Japanese	日本語	jpn	ja	ja	—		—
Georgian	ქართული ენა	kat	ka	ka	✔	✔	✔
Kabyle	Taqbaylit	kab	kab	kab	✔		✔
Kazakh	Қазақша	kaz	kk	kk	✔		✔
Kyrgyz	Кыргызча	kir	ky	ky	✔	✔	✔	✔
Kurmanji Kurdish	Kurmancî	kmr	ku	ku	✔		✔
Komi-Zyrian	Коми кыв	kpv	kv	kv	✔		✔
Luganda	Luganda	lug	lg	lg	✔	✔	✔
Lithuanian	Lietuvių kalba	lit	lt	lt	✔	✔	✔
Latvian	Latviešu valoda	lvs	lv	lv	✔	✔	✔
Mongolian	Монгол хэл	khk	mn	mn	✔	✔	✔	✔
Maltese	Malti	mlt	mt	mt	✔	✔	✔	✔
Dutch	Nederlands	nld	nl	nl	✔		✔
Oriya	ଓଡ଼ିଆ	ori	or	or		✔	✔	✔
Punjabi	ਪੰਜਾਬੀ	pan	pa-IN	pa		✔	✔
Polish	Polski	pol	pl	pl	✔	✔	✔
Portuguese	Português	por	pt	pt		✔	✔
Kʼicheʼ	Kʼicheʼ	quc	—	—	✔	✔	✔
Romansch (Sursilvan)	Romontsch	roh	rm-sursilv	rm		✔	✔	✔
Romansch (Vallader)	Rumantsch	roh	rm-vallader	rm		✔	✔	✔
Romanian	Românește	ron	ro	ro	✔	✔	✔
Russian	Русский	rus	ru	ru		✔	✔
Kinyarwanda	Kinyarwanda	kin	rw	rw	✔		✔
Sakha	Саха тыла	sah	sah	sah	✔	✔	✔	✔
Slovak	Slovenčina	slk	sk	sk	✔		✔
Slovenian	Slovenščina	slv	sl	sl	✔	✔	✔
Swahili	Kiswahili	swa	—	sw	✔	✔	✔
Swedish	Svenska	swe	sv-SE	sv	✔		✔
Tamil	தமிழ்	tam	ta	ta	✔	✔	✔
Thai	ภาษาไทย	tha	th	th	✔	✔	✔
Turkish	Türkçe	tur	tr	tr	✔	✔	✔
Tatar	Татар теле	tat	tt	tt	✔	✔	✔	✔
Ukrainian	Українська мова	ukr	uk	uk	✔	✔	✔
Urdu	اُردُو	urd	ur	ur	✔	✔	✔
Uyghur	ئۇيغۇر تىلى	uig	ug	ug	✔		✔
Vietnamese	Tiếng Việt	vie	vi	vi	✔	✔	✔	✔
Votic	Vaďďa tšeeli	vot	vot	—			✔
Wolof	Wolof	wol	—	wo	✔	✔	✔
Yoruba	Èdè Yorùbá	yor	—	yo	✔	✔	✔
Chinese (China)	中文	cmn	zh-CN	zh	—		—
Chinese (Hong Kong)	中文	cmn	zh-HK	zh	—		—
Chinese (Taiwan)	中文	cmn	zh-TW	zh	—		—

Frequently asked questions

Why not use [insert better system] for [insert task here] ?

There are potentially a lot of better language-specific systems for doing these tasks, but each one has a slightly different API, so if you want to support all the Common Voice languages or even a reasonable subset you have to learn and use the same number of language-specific APIs.

The idea of these utilities is to provide adequate implementations of things are are likely to be useful when working with all the languages in Common Voice. If you are working on a single language or have a specific setup or are using more data than just Common Voice, maybe this isn't for you. But if you want to just train coqui-ai/STT on Common Voice, then maybe it is :)

Why not just make the alphabet from the transcripts ?

Depending on the language in Common Voice, the transcripts can contain a lot of random punctuation, numerals, and incorrect character encodings (for example Latin ç instead of Cyrillic ҫ for Chuvash). These may look the same but will result in bigger sparsity for the model. Additionally some languages may have several encodings of the same character, such as the apostrophe. These will ideally be normalised before training.

Also, if you are working with a single language you probably have time to look through all the transcripts for the alphabetic symbols, but if you want to work with a large number of Common Voice languages at the same time it's useful to have them all in one place.

Hey aren't some of those languages not in Common Voice ?

That's right, some of the languages are either not in Common Voice (yet!) or are in Common Voice but have not been released yet. If I've been working with them I've included them anyway.

See also

• epitran: Great grapheme to phoneme system that supports a wide range of languages.

Licence

All the code, aside from that explicitly licensed under a different licence, is licensed under the AGPL v 3.0.

Acknowledgements

• Grapheme to phoneme correspondences for the following languages from epitran:
  • vi, uk, kk, ky, ta
• Code for transducer lookup from Måns Huldén.
• Code for Wikipedia extraction from Apertium.