Amazon has announced five new Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) protocols for developers in the US, UK and Germany to control pronunciation, intonation, timing and emotion.

This will give developers the ability to mould Alexa’s speech patterns to create a more natural voice experience.

The new SSML support is employed through the skill’s code and will humanise Alexa, allowing developers to add pauses, change pronunciation, spell out a word, add short audio snippets and insert special words and phrases into their skill.

The five new SSML tags are:

• Whispers
• Expletive beeps
• Sub (to say something other than what’s written)
• Emphasis
• Prosody (to control volume, pitch and rate of speech)

For more information about the new SSML features, visit https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference.