Saudi Arabic text to speech with eight Saudi voices

What a Saudi audience hears

Saudi Arabia is the largest market of the Gulf, and a Saudi listener hears the difference between their own speech and the Modern Standard Arabic of the news at once. MSA is right for formal content meant for the whole Arab world. An advert, a social video, a phone menu or an onboarding clip made for Saudis is another matter: in a Saudi voice it sounds like someone talking to them rather than reading at them. The differences are in sound and rhythm. In much of Saudi speech ق is said as a g, the vowels are broader, and the melody of a sentence is that of the Peninsula, not of Cairo or Damascus.

Saudi Arabia is not one accent, and the voices show it. Layan has a composed Najdi quality, the speech of Riyadh and the centre; Amal and Hana carry the lighter Hijazi lilt of Jeddah and Mecca, Amal rich and elegant for advertising, Hana casual and friendly; Noorah has the soft accent of the Eastern Province. Among the men, Jeddawi is a deep, confident voice from Jeddah and the most used Saudi voice in the library, Nasser speaks the "white dialect" any Gulf listener follows, Raed is an older, slightly hoarse voice with both Saudi and Khaliji colour, and Saud is deep and formal for serious content.

Write it the way Saudis say it

A voice reads your words as written, so the script decides half of how local it sounds. Text in Modern Standard Arabic comes out as MSA with a Saudi colour. Write the dialect and the words are Saudi too: وش or إيش for what, أبغى for I want, الحين for now, زين for good. A script translated into formal Arabic and voiced by a Saudi speaker still sounds like a translation; try a line or two in dialect before a long run.