Twi Speech Processing: Techniques and Applications

Twi, also known as Akan, is a language spoken in Ghana, specifically by the Akan people. It is one of the principal languages of the Akan group, which includes several dialects such as Asante, Fante, Akuapem, and Brong of which the Asante-Twi dominates them all. Asante-Twi is widely spoken in the southern part of Ghana, particularly in the Ashanti Region, where it serves as the primary language of communication. It is also spoken in almost all other regions of Ghana, including the Eastern, Central, and Western regions. The language uses a system of proverbs and idiomatic expressions, which are an integral part of Ghanaian culture. Feature extraction plays a vital role in Twi speech processing, where relevant linguistic and acoustic characteristics are extracted from the speech signal. Techniques like Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs), Linear Predictive Coding (LPC), and Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are commonly used for feature extraction and speech modeling in the Twi language. The abstract further explores the applications of Twi speech processing across various domains. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems enable the conversion of spoken Twi into written text, facilitating applications such as transcription services, voice assistants, and voice-controlled interfaces in the Twi-speaking community. Speech synthesis techniques, including Text-to-Speech (TTS) systems, are used to generate natural and intelligible speech from written Twi text, benefiting applications like audiobooks, virtual assistants, and accessibility tools.