Abstract: The invention relates to a method and apparatus for training a multilingual speech model set. The multilingual speech model set generated is suitable for use by a speech recognition system for recognizing spoken utterances for at least two different languages. The invention allows using a single speech recognition unit with a single speech model set to perform speech recognition on utterances from two or more languages. The method and apparatus make use of a group of a group of acoustic sub-word units comprised of a first subgroup of acoustic sub-word units associated to a first language and a second subgroup of acoustic sub-word units associated to a second language where the first subgroup and the second subgroup share at least one common acoustic sub-word unit. The method and apparatus also make use of a plurality of letter to acoustic sub-word unit rules sets, each letter to acoustic sub-word unit rules set being associated to a different language.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and apparatus for generating transcriptions suitable for use in a speech-processing device. The invention provides processing the vocabulary item to derive a characteristic from the vocabulary item allowing to divide a pool of available languages in a first sub-group and a second sub-group. The vocabulary item manifests a higher probability of belonging to any one of the languages in the first sub-group than belonging to any language in the second sub-group. The invention further provides processing the vocabulary item to generate a group of transcriptions, the group of transcriptions being characterized by the absence of at least one transcription belonging to a language in the second sub-group of languages established for the vocabulary item. The group of transcriptions is then released for use by a speech-processing device.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and apparatus for generating transcriptions suitable for use in a speech-processing device. The invention provides processing the vocabulary item to derive a characteristic from the vocabulary item allowing to divide a pool of available languages in a first sub-group and a second sub-group. The vocabulary item manifests a higher probability of belonging to any one of the languages in the first sub-group than belonging to any language in the second sub-group. The invention further provides processing the vocabulary item to generate a group of transcriptions, the group of transcriptions being characterized by the absence of at least one transcription belonging to a language in the second sub-group of languages established for the vocabulary item. The group of transcriptions is then released for use by a speech-processing device.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and apparatus for generating phrasal transcriptions. The invention provides generating a group of word transcriptions for each vocabulary item in an orthographic phrase. According to a first embodiment, the invention further provides permuting the word transcriptions to generate a plurality of phrasal transcriptions and computing a score for each phrasal transcription in the plurality of phrasal transcriptions. The set of phrasal transcriptions is then selected from the plurality of phrasal transcriptions at least in part on a basis of the score data elements and stored in a format suitable for use by a speech recognition dictionary. As a variant, the phrasal transcriptions may be released in a format suitable for use by a speech synthesizer.