Praatscript

Praatscript is a scripting language specifically designed for use with Praat, an open-source software package for phonetic analysis. Praat is widely used by phoneticians, linguists, and speech scientists for tasks such as speech synthesis, acoustic analysis, and perception experiments. Praatscript allows users to automate repetitive tasks within Praat, perform complex analyses, and create custom workflows that are not easily achievable through the graphical user interface alone.

The language shares similarities with other scripting languages but is tailored to the specific data structures and functions available within Praat. Scripts can manipulate acoustic features like pitch and formants, segment audio files, extract phonetic measurements, and even generate synthetic speech. It supports conditional statements, loops, and procedures, enabling the development of sophisticated analytical tools.

Users can write Praatscripts using the built-in Praat editor or any external text editor. Once written, scripts are executed within the Praat environment. This capability is invaluable for researchers working with large datasets or requiring consistent and reproducible analysis methods. The scripting capabilities of Praat significantly extend the software's power and flexibility, making it a cornerstone tool in speech research.