The computer program Praat is a research, publication, and productivity tool for phoneticians.Supported platformsThis comprehensive speech analysis, synthesis, and manipulation package includes general numerical and statistical stuff, is built on a general-purpose GUI shell for handling objects, and produces publication-quality graphics.
Some of the things in Praat's phonetics library:
Speech analysis:
- spectrograms
- pitch analysis
- formant analysis
- intensity analysis
- measuring jitter and noise
- cepstrum
- cochleagram
- excitation pattern
- wavelets
Speech synthesis:
- from pitch, formant, and intensity
- from spectrum
- articulatory synthesis
Labelling and segmentation:
- label intervals and time points on multiple tiers
- use phonetic alphabet
- use sound files up to 2 gigabytes (3 hours)
Speech manipulation:
- change pitch and duration contours
- filtering
- by pitch-synchronous overlap-and-add
- by linear predictive coding
Learning algorithms:
- neural nets
- principles & parameters
- discrete and stochastic Optimality Theory
- adaptive resonance
Numerics:
- point processes
- polygons (travelling salesperson)
- eigensystems
Statistics:
- multidimensional scaling
- principal component analysis
- analysis of variance
The Praat program is built on the general-purpose Praat shell:
Graphics:
- high quality for your articles and thesis
- produce Encapsulated PostScript files
- integrated mathematical and phonetic symbols
Configurability:
- grow or shrink menus
- save prefs for fonts, views, sound devices
Portability:
- machine-independent binary files
- read and write many sound and other file types
Programmability:
- easy programmable scripting language
- communicate with other programs
- (the sendpraat source code)
- create hypertext manuals with sound I/O