Gespeaker is a project realized with Python and PyGTK libraries which allows the system to speak and read a written text or loaded from an external file.

Gespeaker is a GTK+ frontend for espeak. It allows to play a text in many languages with settings for voice, pitch, volume, speed and word gap. The text played can also be recorded to WAV file.
Since version 0.6 it supports mbrola voices, it will require mbrola package and one or more mbrola voices from Debian repository or Ubuntu Trucchi repository.

Multiple languages are supported, currently English, Italian, French and Spanish. It works well with both Gnome, XFCE, LXDE environments.

Gespeaker is a project realized with Python and PyGTK libraries which allows the system to speak and read a written text or loaded from an external file.

Gespeaker is a nice interface for espeak system that will be automatically installed if not present.
Its use is fairly simple, just to enter the text to listen or load it from an external file using the Open button and press the Play button to listen.

It’s possible to change various parameters such as pitch, volume, speed reading and gap between a word and the next. Also speaking language can be chosen.

It’s designed for multilingual environments, so that if you run on a system with Italian language the user interface will be shown in Italian, on a system with english language the user interface will be in english. The system is opened to various localizations, it’s just needed the corresponding language file.

The installation does not damages the system in any way neither it installs unnecessary dependencies. It’s fully compatible with Gnome, XFCE and LXDE environment on either Ubuntu or Debian, both 32 and 64 bit.

For recorded demo voices please look the DemoVoices page.

eSpeak is derived from the "Speak" speech synthesizer for British English for Acorn RISC OS computers which was originally written in 1995 by Jonathan Duddington.
A rewritten version for Linux appeared in February 2006 and a Windows SAPI 5 version in January 2007. Subsequent development has added and improved support for additional languages.
Because of its small size and many languages, it is included as the default speech synthesizer in the NVDA open source screen reader for Windows, and on the Ubuntu and other Linux installation discs.
The quality of the language voices varies greatly. Some have had more work or feedback from native speakers than others. Most of the people who have helped to improve the various languages are blind users of text-to-speech.
eSpeak provides two methods of synthesis: the original eSpeak synthesizer and a Klatt synthesizer. In addition, eSpeak can be used as a front-end, providing text-to-phoneme translation and prosody, to MBROLA diphone voices.
The eSpeak and Klatt synthesizers use different types of formant synthesis.
The eSpeak synthesizer creates voiced speech sounds such as vowels and sonorant consonants by adding together sine waves to make the formant peaks. Unvoiced consonants such as /s/ are made by playing recorded sounds. Voiced consonants such as /z/ are made by mixing a synthesized voiced sound with a recorded unvoiced sound.
The Klatt synthesizer mostly uses the same formant data as the eSpeak synthesizer. It produces voiced sounds by starting with a waveform which is rich in harmonics (simulating the vibration of the vocal cords) and then applying digital filters in order to produce speech sounds.

source: Wikipedia

Installation.
Current version is 0.8.1 with the new added mbrola voices support for a new speech experience. Version changes are available on the Changelog page.
Just download the latest version package and install it with gdebi or dpkg.
New version 0.8.1 has plugins support to add external activities as well interaction with aMSN, Kopete, Emesene, Pidgin, Empathy messenger. You can get them from the Download page.
Ubuntu users please follow the RepositoryUbuntuUsers instructions.
Install Gespeaker in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install gespeaker

As said you can try the “Mbrola” voices which are slightly better than the built in ones. For installing them, use the below commands in your command-line window.

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntutrucchi.list http://www.ubuntutrucchi.it/repository/ubuntutrucchi.list

wget -O -- http://www.ubuntutrucchi.it/repository/ubuntutrucchi.asc | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mbrola

Now we have installed the Mbrola engine. It has few built in voices in different languages (American English, Italian, French, etc) that you have to install manually. For instance if you want the default Male voice in US English, then use the below command.