Daniel Challis was born and raised near Walsall, surrounded by family members with distinctive regional accents. Yet his means of communication does not sound like them, instead he vocalizes in a robotic version of the resulting pronunciation. The 18-year-old, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak, is urging people to audition to give him a new voice – if they have the right accent.
“I feel uncomfortable using my current voice and I want to sound like the people around me,” Chalis said. “This is very important to me, because if I were not disabled, I would not use a computer to communicate.”
He was inspired to release his appeal by comedian and winner of Britain’s Got Talent Lee Ridley, known for his stage name Lost Voice Guy, who last year changed his voice in his Jordy Accent speech app.
“When you look at Lee speaking with that accent, it’s as if he’s part of it,” said Challis’ mother, Sarah. “I think Daniel just wants to sound the same as the people around him as he should have sounded. He would go to the local school and take on a local accent, but he has this robot instead.
Challis, a big Harry Potter fan, asked anyone interested to send an audio clip reading the first few lines of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. He will then reduce them to a short list before deciding which one he thinks is best.
“It’s about finding what he believes sounds because it may be different from what I think,” his mother said. “I’m quite open because I think he should be able to choose what he wants.
The selected person will have to spend several hours in a recording studio in order for his voice to be recorded in sufficient detail to be loaded into the speech program.
Sign up for the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am
“It’s a long process, so everyone who gave their vote to Daniel obviously also takes the time to create that voice. Whoever he is, it will be really special for Dan, “said Sarah Chalis. “I think it may sound rather strange if they manage to meet afterwards and the two talk together.
Daniel Chalis said he thought his new voice “would feel weird at first and take time to get used to, but it will feel amazing”.
He lives with his family in Aldridge, northeast of Walsall, and said he was looking for a local accent and a “more natural voice that suits me.”
The communication assistant he uses to speak works with the help of sight technology, which means that he chooses letters, words and common phrases with his eyes, which are then converted into spoken sentences.
“There must be people all over the country who all have the means to communicate, who maybe everyone wants to look to have their own accent and their own identity,” his mother said. “Daniel goes to a residential college in September, where there will be people from different parts of the country, and he wants to sound like he comes from where he comes from, not like a robot.”
Add Comment