Say

The <Say> verb reads the supplied text back to the caller. It is useful for text that is difficult to pre-record. The gender and language in which the text will be read is customizable.

Verb attributes

Supported voices and languages

The supported voices and languages can be found here.

Nouns

The noun of a cXML verb is nested within the verb upon which the verb acts. <Say> has the following noun:

Speech synthesis markup language (SSML)

Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is an XML-based markup language that provides a standard way to mark up text for synthesized speech.

SSML is usually wrapped within <speak> tags. But, when using SSML with the <Say> verb, you can ignore those <speak> tags. The rest of the SSML tags will be placed inside the <Say> verb.

Below are the supported SSML tags. When using an Amazon Polly voice, please refer to Amazon Polly SSML Documentation instead.

strength attribute

The strength attribute has the following values. Default is medium.

level attribute

The level attribute has the following values. Default is moderate.

alphabet attribute

The alphabet attribute has the following values.

volume attribute

The volume attribute has the following values. Set the volume with one of the values below. Then, you can specify a percentage to increase or decrease the volume of the speech. See here for more information.

pitch attribute

The pitch attribute has the following values. Set the pitch with one of the values below. Then, you can specify a percentage to increase or decrease the pitch of the speech. See here for more information.

rate attribute

The rate attribute has the following values. Set the rate with one of the values below. Then, you can specify a percentage to increase or decrease the speed of the speech. See here for more information.

interpret-as attribute

The interpret-as attribute has the following values.

Example

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<Response>
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  <Say>
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    Welcome to SignalWire
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    <break strength="x-weak" time="100ms"/>
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    <emphasis level="moderate">Emphasized words</emphasis>
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    <p>Words in a paragraph</p>
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    <phoneme alphabet="x-sampa" ph="pɪˈkɑːn">Phonetic pronunciation</phoneme>
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    <prosody pitch="-10%" rate="85%" volume="-6dB">Words to speak</prosody>
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    <s>Words in a sentence.</s>
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    <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">Words</say-as>
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    <sub alias="alias">Words to be substituted</sub>
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  </Say>
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</Response>

Here is an example of how to use some of the SSML tags within the Say verb.

Nesting

No other verbs can be nested within <Say>. However, <Say> can be nested within <Gather>.

Examples

A simple message to be read

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<Response>
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     <Say>Hello World.</Say>
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</Response>

‘Hello World’ will be read once in a male voice.

A simple message to be read using Amazon Polly voice

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<Response>
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     <Say voice="Polly.Joanna">Hello World.</Say>
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</Response>

‘Hello World’ will be read once using the Amazon Polly “Joanna” voice.

A simple message to be read using Amazon Polly Neural voice

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<Response>
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     <Say voice="Polly.Joanna-Neural">Hello World.</Say>
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</Response>

‘Hello World’ will be read once using the Amazon Polly “Joanna” Neural voice. Amazon Polly Neural voices are charged a premium price compared to Amazon Polly Standard voices.

A simple message to be read using Google Cloud text-to-speech voice

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<Response>
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     <Say voice="gcloud.en-US-Standard-A">Hello World.</Say>
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</Response>

‘Hello World’ will be read once using the Google Cloud text-to-speech en-US-Standard-A voice.

Repetition of a message in a foreign language

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<Response>
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     <Say voice="alice" language="fr-CA" loop="5">Bonjour.</Say>
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</Response>

‘Hello’ will be repeated 5 times in Canadian French.

Notes on usage

• There is a 4,096 Unicode character limit on the text
• Numbers are spoken, or read, based on context. For example, ‘234’ is read as “two hundred thirty-four”, whereas ‘2 3 4’ is read as “two three four”.
• Short pauses in spoken text are accomplished by inserting punctuations, i.e. commas and periods, in the written text. For longer pauses, place text in a separate <Say> verbs and place a <Pause> verb in between them.
• Dates, times, money amounts, and abbreviations may not follow intuitive pronunciations. Test these situations to ensure they are pronounced to your liking.

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