Voices and languages

/v1/speech speaks with one of these voices. Each recording below was made through the API. Press play to hear it: nothing downloads until you do.

Voice	`voice`	Languages	Notes
Nadia	`nadia`	Hausa	The default. Female, warm and patient.
Nadia	`warm`	Hausa	Another name for `nadia`.
Mouhamad	`mouhamad`	Zarma, Hausa	Male. Speaks Zarma unless you send `"language": "ha"`.
French	`fr`	French	The French reference voice.

Every voice is used with its speaker’s consent. The API does not offer voice cloning, and a voice whose consent could not be confirmed was withdrawn: a request that names it gets 400 unknown_voice, never another voice in its place.

Choosing the language

A voice speaks its first language unless you say otherwise. To make Mouhamad speak Hausa:

{ "text": "Sannu! Yaya kuke?", "voice": "mouhamad", "language": "ha" }

Asking a voice for a language it does not speak returns 400 unsupported_language, with the languages it does speak in the message.

Languages

Language	Code	Where people speak it	Speech to text	Text to speech	Translation
Hausa	`ha`	Niger, Nigeria and across West Africa	✓	✓	✓ (with French)
Zarma	`dje`	Western Niger, along the river	✓	✓
French	`fr`	Niger’s official language, and beyond	✓	✓	✓ (with Hausa)

Fulfulde and Tamasheq are part of the Lab’s research, not of the API yet. We add a language to the API when we can measure that it works.

Get the list in code

curl https://api.namuai-lab.com/v1/voices

{
  "data": [
    { "id": "nadia", "languages": ["ha"], "language": "ha", "description": "Warm and patient (female)" },
    { "id": "warm", "languages": ["ha"], "language": "ha", "description": "Alias of nadia" },
    { "id": "fr", "languages": ["fr"], "language": "fr", "description": "French reference voice" },
    { "id": "mouhamad", "languages": ["dje", "ha"], "language": "dje", "description": "Male; Zarma and Hausa" }
  ]
}

No key is needed. Read it when your app starts if you show a voice picker, so a new voice appears without an update.

​Choosing the language

​Languages

​Get the list in code

Choosing the language

Languages

Get the list in code