Text to Speech on Linux With espeak-ng
Convert text to spoken audio entirely offline with an open synthesizer.
Run espeak-ng "your text" to hear it spoken through the default audio output.
01Command
Command
$ espeak-ng "Hello from the Linux terminal"02What it does
espeak-ng is a compact offline speech synthesizer that supports more than a hundred languages and accents. Choose a voice with -v en-us, change speed with -s and write a WAV file with -w out.wav instead of playing. It is handy for accessibility and spoken script notifications.
03Risk
!Warning: The synthetic voice is robotic by design; for natural voices use a larger neural TTS engine.
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- Debian package: espeak-ngEvidence: Installs espeak-ng, an offline text-to-speech synthesizer supporting many languages.
- espeak-ng/espeak-ngEvidence: Documents voices, -v, -s speed and -w WAV output.
Last verified: 2026-09-20 · Category: Media