Carl Gunnar Michael Fant (October 8, 1919 – June 6, 2009) was a leading researcher in speech science in general and

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

in particular who spent most of his career as a professor at the Swedish

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolog ...

(KTH) in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

. He was a first cousin of the actors and directors

George Fant George Fant (born Georg Fredrik Mikael Fant; 11 July 1916 – 21 February 1998) was a Swedish actor, director and theater manager. He appeared in 50 films between 1936 and 1995. Fant was the son of Captain Tore Fant and Stina Fant (née Gu ...

and

Kenne Fant Carl-Henrik "Kenne" Fant (1 January 1923 – 29 May 2016) was a Swedish actor, director, and writer. Early life Kenne Fant was born in Strängnäs to Captain Tore Fant and Stina Fant (née Gustafsson). He was the younger brother of actor, direc ...

. Gunnar Fant received a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from KTH in 1945. He specialized in the acoustics of the

human voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

, measuring

formant In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmoni ...

values, and continued to work in this area at

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in inform ...

and at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

. He also took the initiative of creating a speech communication department at KTH, unusual at the time. Fant's work led to the birth of a new era of speech synthesis with the introduction of powerful and configurable formant synthesizers. In 1960 he published the source-filter model of speech production, which became widely used. In the 1960s, Gunnar Fant's Orator Verbis Electris (OVE) competed with Walter Lawrence's Parametric Artificial Talker (PAT) in creating lifelike speech synthesis. In later years, Gunnar Fant remained active in the area of speech synthesis, focusing mainly on research on prosody. Fant received honorary doctorates from the Grenoble University (1978) and from

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, ...

(1988), and several other awards. In 1989, he was the inaugural recipient Scientific Achievement Medal of the

International Speech Communication Association The International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) is a non-profit organization and one of the two main professional associations for speech communication science and technology, the other association being the IEEE Signal Processing Societ ...

. He also received the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish language authority. Outside Scandinavia, it is bes ...

Margit Påhlson award, and the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award (2003). He was a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for prom ...

and the

Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences or ''Kungliga Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien'' (IVA), founded on 24 October 1919 by King Gustaf V, is one of the royal academies in Sweden. The academy is an independent organisation, which prom ...

Bibliography

* Gunnar Fant (1970) ''Acoustic Theory of Speech Production''. Mouton De Gruyter. * Gunnar Fant (2006) ''Speech Acoustics and Phonetics: Selected Writings''. Springer. *

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,Dennis H. Klatt Dennis H. Klatt (March 31, 1938 – December 30, 1988) was an American researcher in speech and hearing science. Klatt was the pioneer of computerized speech synthesis and created an interface which allowed for speech for non-expert users for the ...

(1987). "Review of text-to-speech conversion for English". ''The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'', Vol. 82, No. 3, September 1987, pp. 737–793.

External links

Gunnar Fant's web pageAudio clips
from Dennis Klatt's "Review of text-to-speech conversion for English" {{DEFAULTSORT:Fant, Gunnar 1919 births 2009 deaths KTH Royal Institute of Technology faculty Swedish scientists 20th-century Swedish engineers Speech perception researchers Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Phoneticians