Posted On: Apr 17, 2019
Amazon Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech. Today, we are excited to announce Zeina, the first Arabic voice for Amazon Polly. Zeina is a clear and natural-sounding female voice.
Used by over 400 million people, Arabic is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It consists of 30 dialects, including its universal form, which is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Zeina follows the MSA pronunciation, which is the common broadcasting standard across the region. MSA might sometimes sound formal because it differs from day-to-day speaking style. However, it’s the linguistic thread that links the Arabic native-speakers worldwide.
Amazon Polly customers who plan to use Zeina’s voice include Emirates NBD - a leading bank in the Middle East who has introduced an AI powered virtual assistant, Duolingo - a globally operating eLearning platform offering a portfolio of 84 language courses for more than 30 distinct languages, and iTranslate - a leading translation and dictionary app that offers text translation as well as voice-to-voice conversations in over 100 languages.
With the addition of Arabic language support, the Amazon Polly portfolio now includes 59 voices across 29 languages. You can check out the full list in the Voices in Amazon Polly section of our documentation.