Phonetic Database of the Russian Speech Variability

Database of contemporary Russian speech is being created for the Computer Fund of the Russian Language. Database consists of the corpus of sound files and their descriptions. Database sound material is formed by recordings of the Phonetically Representative Texts pronounced by 1) standard Russian speakers, 2) regional Russian speakers, 3) speakers from the former USSR republics to which Russian is a second language, and 4) foreigners from European, Asian and American countries. The detailed description is being made for each syllable of the database. It comprises in particular the "real" transcription, "ideal" phonemic and phonetic transcriptions, attributes of the sound, duration of the signal segments, acoustic features, phonetic and paralinguistic comments. Database may be used in phonetic and related studies, for building of speech algorithms, and evaluation of speech resources, speech technologies and products.