The Chinese (Cantonese) voice is broken

[kara-louise]

As the title says, this voice is broken.
After a quick look at eSpeak NG's source files, there are a few that start with zhy. I believe these, when compiled, create the Cantonese voice. I couldn't find any zhy files in C:\Program Files (x86)\NVDA\synthDrivers\espeak-ng-data.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open NVDA's speech settings page.
2. In the voice combo box, select "Chinese (Cantonese")

Actual behavior:

NVDA doesn't speak.

Expected behavior:

NVDA should speak with the selected voice.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed, but this also happens with portable installations.

NVDA version:

2019.2.1

Windows version:

10.0.18362 Build 18362

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your PC?

Yes.

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

latest snapshot build (alpha-19004,ab429417) at time of writing.
Same issue occurs.

[Brian1Gaff]

Would you be able to see if the sapi 5 version of espeak has the files? Just wondered if it might be systemic. Brian bglists@blueyonder.co.uk Sent via blueyonder. Please address personal E-mail to:- briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff' in the display name field. Newsgroup monitored: alt.comp.blind-users ----- O

[kara-louise]

eSpeak NG isn't currently SAPI 5 compatible. But I installed the latest stable windows build ( 1.49.2 3ed34d3 released on Sep 24, 2017), and it does include a "zhy_dict" file.
If placed in synthDrivers\espeak-ng-data,, I get speech when selecting the Cantonese voice, but Chinese characters are read as "Chinese letter x" Where x is a number.
I lack the skills to build eSpeak NG from source so can't check the master branch as it stands currently.
So the build included with NVDA's missing a file.

[LeonarddeR]

I can not reproduce this issue.

@feerrenrut May be we should consider a bump of espeak?

[zstanecic]

Maybe we may consider updating espeak to latest master? There were some updates out there for particular languages.

[feerrenrut]

zhy dictionary compilation is intentionally excluded.
If someone wishes to investigate further, see nvdaHelper/espeak/sconscript
Under the comment #Compile all dictionaries
Change the line:
missingDicts=['zhy', ] #'mt','tn','tt']
to:
missingDicts = []
And try to build, the errors are:

espeak_compileDict_buildAction(["include\espeak\espeak-ng-data\zhy_dict"], ["include\espeak\dictsource\zhy_rules"])
espeak_compileDict_action: failed to switch to language b'zhy'
scons: *** [include\espeak\espeak-ng-data\zhy_dict] Error 1

[Qchristensen]

I've had correspondence from another user reporting this. Did we work out what the issue is with the language?

[kara-louise]

The voice's still broken in alpha-20758,0098a31a.

[feerrenrut]

I have a potential fix for this, could you please test this build from #12370

[kara-louise]

@feerrenrut That seems to work.

[feerrenrut]

Fixed via fca3c2d in PR Fix compilation of espeak dictionary for language zhy #12370