DictionaryMaker 
==============
version 2.16 Beta (October 2009)


The purpose of the DictionaryMaker system is to facilitate the creation of an electronic pronunciation dictionary 
in a target language, as originally described in M. Davel and E. Barnard, "Bootstrapping for language resource 
generation"(http://www.meraka.org.za/pubs/davelm03bootstrapping.pdf). 

Such a pronunciation dictionary consists of a list of words, each associated with one phonetic pronunciation. 
The developed pronunciation dictionary can be formatted for use by various speech processing applications, 
such as speech synthesis and speech recognition systems.The system is designed to allow a speaker fluent in the 
target language to develop a pronunciation dictionary without requiring expert linguistic knowledge or 
programming expertise. Along with the pronunciation dictionary, a related set of grapheme-to-phoneme (g-to-p) 
rules is created automatically.

The system utilises a bootstrapping approach: improving models according to a controlled set of increments, 
at each increment utilising the previous model to generate the next. The system balances machine learning and 
human intervention with the aim to simplify and minimise the human intervention required during the bootstrapping 
process.

Only a word list, a grapheme set,  phoneme set and applicable sound files for the target language are required as inputs to the system. 

Once initialised with these items, the system guides the target language speaker through the dictionary creation 
process.
