There are multiple options for text to speech under freebsd , for example espeak and festival . This tutorial is about festival .

To install festival , issue the following command :

root$ pkg install festival 

After installing festival , you must also install one of the voices , you can search for available voices using :

$ pkg search festvox
# Search for available festival voices 
# to install . 
festvox-cmu_us_awb_arctic-0.95 CMU US English Scottish male voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_bdl_arctic-0.95 CMU US English male voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_clb_arctic-0.95 CMU US English female voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_jmk_arctic-0.95 CMU US English Canadian male voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_ksp_arctic-0.95 CMU US English Indian male voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_rms_arctic-0.95 CMU US English male voice for festival
festvox-cmu_us_slt_arctic-0.95 CMU US English female voice for festival
festvox-el11-1.4.0_2           Castilian Spanish male voice for Festival
...
...
festvox-russian-0.5            Russian male voice for Festival speech synthesis system

As an example to install festvox-cmu_us_bdl_arctic-0.95 , issue the following command :

root$ pkg install festvox-cmu_us_bdl_arctic-0.95

After having installed festival , and one of the sounds under freeBSD , to configure festival, edit the siteinit.scm and voices.scm files :

root$ nano /usr/local/share/festival/lib/siteinit.scm
# Edit the siteinit.scm
# and add the following line :
(Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'freebsd16audio)

root$ nano /usr/local/share/festival/lib/voices.scm
# Edit the voices.scm , and search
# using ctrl-w , if you are using 
# nano for :
# (defvar default-voice-priority-list
# and add after '(
# the name of the voice , you just 
# downloaded , for example for
# cmu_us_bdl_arctic_clunits :
(defvar default-voice-priority-list
  '(cmu_us_bdl_arctic_clunits
    kal_diphone
    .....

Now to use festival , to read a file , you can just issue the command :

$ festival --tts nameOfFile 

If you want to make festival read , a selection of text , then you can do it like so :

root$ pkg install xsel-conrad 
# Install a program , to access 
# selection  from the x windowing 
# system , from the command 
# line . 

$ mkdir ~/bin && cd ~/bin
# As a regular user , 
# create a bin directory in 
# your  home folder and 
# cd into it . 

$ echo '#!/bin/sh' > festival.sh
$ echo 'xsel | festival --tts' >> festival.sh
$ chmod +x festival.sh
# Create a script , which will 
# pipe what is selected to
# festival .
# Make the script executable .

Launch , the application finder using ALT+F3 , and type in Keyboard , and select the Edit Keyboard Setting .

Next select application shortcuts , Add , and select the script that was just created . On the next screen , assign a shortcut to , this script , for example Alt+1.

Now when you select some text , and press the assigned shortcut keys , festival will read the text .

In the same manner , you can create another shortcut to make festival stop reading , in this case , the command to be executed is pkill audsp .

If you want to save the output of festival , as an audio file , edit siteinit.scm , and add the following :

root$ nano /usr/local/share/festival/lib/siteinit.scm
# Open the siteinit file and  
# comment out the line :
# (Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'freebsd16audio)
# like this :
;(Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'freebsd16audio)


# And add these three lines .
# These lines , will set the audio
# method , to be a command , and
# the format , to be sound , and
# the command to be executed  ,
# is to copy the generated sound , 
# into a file called tmp.wav ,
# in the same directory , where 
# the festival command is executed .
(Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'Audio_Command)
(Parameter.set 'Audio_Required_Format 'snd)
(Parameter.set 'Audio_Command "cp $FILE tmp.wav")

Now to create a wav file , you can just issue the following commands :

$ festival --tts nameOfFile
# Will create a tmp.wav file 
# from the provided text file . 

$ xsel | festival --tts 
# Will create a tmp.wav file 
# from the selection .

It seems when using this method , festival will only convert one line , so it will stop conversion on periods . , colons : , new lines , and possibly on other punctuation marks .

As such , a solution to this problem , is to convert all periods , colons , new lines … to commas , before the start of the audio conversion .

$ tr ".:\n" "," nameOfFile | festival --tts
# Convert periods , colons and 
# new lines , to commas  , and create 
# a tmp.wav file from the 
# provided file . 

$ xsel | tr ".:\n" "," | festival --tts 
# Convert periods , colons and
# new lines , from the selected 
# text , into commas .
# Pipe the converted selection ,
# into festival , to convert it , 
# into a wav file  , named 
# tmp.wav .

There is no option , to set the speed rate of text to speech using festival , but this can be done using any audio player .

root$ pkg install mplayer 
# install mplayer 

$ mplayer -speed 1.20 tmp.wav
# play the tmp.wav file at 
# speed of 1.20 .

To create a keyboard shortcut for this , it can be done like this :

$ mkdir ~/bin && cd ~/bin
# Create a bin directory in 
# your  home folder 
# and cd into it . 

$ echo '#!/bin/sh' > festival-wav-player-rate.sh
$ echo 'xsel | tr ".:\n" "," | festival --tts'  >> festival-wav-player-rate.sh
$ echo 'mplayer -speed 1.20 tmp.wav' >> festival-wav-player-rate.sh
$ chmod +x festival-wav-player-rate.sh
# Create a script which will 
# pipe the selected text , into 
# the tr command , to translate 
# punctuations into commas . 
# Next the output , is piped 
# into festival , which will create
# a tmp.wav file in the directory
# where the script is executed .
# Next the mplayer command , 
# will play the tmp.wav file , 
# at a speed of 1.20 . 

Assign a shortcut for this script , as shown earlier . You can also create a shortcut to stop the playing , by creating a script containing the command pkill mplayer , and assigning a shortcut to it .

# cd into ~/bin , and issue the 
# following commands . 
$ echo '#!/bin/sh' > festival-wav-player-stop.sh
$ echo 'pkill mplayer' >> festival-wav-player-stop.sh
$ chmod +x festival-wav-player-stop.sh