A Malay Dialect Translation and Synthesis System: Proposal and Preliminary System

Malay is a language from the Austronesian family. Malay is the official language in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei. However, Malay spoken in different countries, and even within a country itself might vary in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary from one place to another. The Malay dialects in Malaysia can be grouped according to the states of the country. In this paper, we propose the architecture of a Malay dialect translation and synthesis system, that given a sentence in standard Malay, it translates and synthesizes an utterance in the dialect requested. The system consists of 3 modules, dialect translation system, dialect G2P system, and speech synthesis system. The outcome from this study is two folds. From linguistic viewpoint, it will help us understanding and appreciating the interesting differences in the Malay dialect in Malaysia, which is important to help preserve the dialect and culture in it. Secondly, the proposed system will be useful for people who like to learn a particular dialect or it can be used in places that require this facility. At this stage, we have completed the standard Malay system, and this paper presents our work so far.