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The Recognition of Hijaiyah Letter Pronunciation Using Mel Frequency

Cepstral Coefficients and Hidden Markov Model

Article  in  Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience · August 2016

DOI: 10.1166/asl.2016.7769

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RESEARCH ARTICLE Adv. Sci. Lett. 22, 2043-2047, 2016

Copyright © 2016 American Scientific Publishers Advanced Science Letters

All rights reserved Vol. 22, 2043-2047, 2016
Printed in the United States of America

The Recognition of Hijaiyah Letter Pronunciation

using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and
Hidden Markov Model
Rifan Muhamad Fauzi, Adiwijaya, Warih Maharani
School of Computing, Telkom University, Bandung 40257, Indonesia

Learning Hijaiyyah letters is the first stage for someone to read the Holy Qur’an. This process is usually completed by a
learner and an advisor who introduces and teaches how to read and pronounce Hijaiyyah Letter. Speech recognition is a
system that is applied to process voice signal to become data, so it is possible to be recognized by the computer. By applying
this system, it is expected that the function of an advisor who introduces and adjusts the pronunciation of Hijaiyyah Letter
can be replaced, so the process of learning can be done independently. The problem in introducing Hijaiyyah Letter can be
solved by using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients (MFCC) to do the extraction process of every voice signal’s
characteristic and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to form model and classify voice. After the author tests the system using
several scenarios, the best accurate data obtained is 67.75% in recognizing 50 words. This accurate data is taken from the
result of 16kHz sample rate test, the size of the codebook is 64 and state of HMM is 5.

Keywords: MFCC, HMM, Speech Recognition, Hijaiyah

1. INTRODUCTION
Hijaiyyah Letter is letters that are used in Al-Qur’an.
Someone needs to study Hijaiyyah Letter and Tajweed to
be able to read and understand Al-Qur’an. Studying
Hijaiyyah Letter is the very first step in the process of
learning Al-Qur’an. In the practice, a special advisor who
is Al-Qur’an masterly is absolutely needed to introduce
and teach Hijaiyyah Letter. Speech recognition is a
technology that is applied to recognize voice and change
it into data representation that is understood by computer.
By using Speech Recognition System, it is wished that an
advisor/ corrector of Hijaiyyah Study can be replaced, so
the process of study can be completed independently and
*
Email Address: rifan.refun@gmail.com
2043
flexibly.
Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) is a
method to do feature extraction. This method adopts the
system of human’s hearing organ, so it is possible to
catch the characteristic of important sound [11]. Hidden
Markov Model (HMM) is a statistic model where the
modeled system is assumed as Markov process with
unknown parameter process and it is aimed to decide the
other hidden parameters based on the known parameters
[9]. HMM is applied in the process of modeling and
recognition.
Pronouncing hijaiyyah word is bit different with
another. We need to understand tajweed and being able to
recite the letters correctly is the foundation of tajweed,
Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 22, No. 8, 2016 1936-6612/2016/22/2043/005
doi: 10.1166/asl.2016.7769
Adv. Sci. Lett. 22, 2043–2047, 2016
and this is achieved by knowing where the sound
originates (mahkraaij). This can then help in practising
the pronunciation of the letters correctly. So, building
speech recognition system for this case is challenging and
might be different with another language. MFCC is
adopting humans’s hearing organ and it is expected for
good extracting hijaiyyah word voices’s feature.
2. METHODOLOGY
A. Voice data recording
The list of Hijaiyyah Words that will be placed as dataset
for this system will be taken from Qronis curriculum.
Data that is taken is 50 words. Every word is said by 21
people during the recording.
B. Normalization
The aim of the normalization process is to generalize
the maximum amplitude and sample rate voice signal so
there will be no influence of amplitude change in the next
process. The normalization that is applied in this journal
covers conversing process (stereo to mono), resampling
16 kHz, centering of amplitude, and dividing every
amplitude discrete by the maximum amplitude value.
C. Characterization extraction
Characterization extraction is an important process
in Speech Recognition because it is very significant in
characterization extraction process of a voice signal. [7].
Characterization extraction method that is applied in this
journal is Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC)
that can be pictured in Figure 1. First, voice signal is
filtered by using pre-emphasis by the parameter of 0,95.
Next, the result of the pre-emphasise voice signal is
divided into several frames of 240 width and 160 overlap.
Third, frame blocking result will enter the next process
which is windowing using hamming window.
Fig.1. MFCC Block Diagram
Next, the algorithm of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
is applied to find magnitude spectrum from windowed
data[11]. Next phase is mel-filtering, in which this filter
uses bank of triangular filter. In this journal, the
parameter of bank filter is 13 filter linier, 66.6666 space
linier, 27 filter log and 12 cepstral MFCC coefficient.
Next, log module is applied as smoothing function to
RESEARCH ARTICLE
anticipate loss information when filtering process using
mel filter bank is applied. The last phase of MFCC is
Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). This algorithm is
aimed to convert log mel spectrum from frequency
domain to time domain so, it results 12 features of
MFCC. Next, these 12 features will be derivated by using
the first order derivation that will produce 12 other
features. Feature vector that will be produced by MFCC is
24 features (12 features of MFCC and 12 derivative
features).
D. Vector Quantization
Vector Quantization (VQ) that is used in this journal
is divided into two parts; they are the formulation of
codebook and the determination of codebook index. The
formulation of codebook is completed during the training
process by using K-Means Clustering algorithm, while
the determination of codebook index is completed during
training and testing process by changing characterization
vector to become codebook index which has smallest
euclidean distance.
E. Training
Training is a process of voice data modeling to
become a model that can be used in the testing. That that
are used in the training process are strings of codebox
index as a result of vector quantization. These indexes can
be named as HMM symbol of observation. Training
process is done by using Baum-Welch algorithm. The
result of the training is a model of HMM λ = (A,B,π), A
is matrix of transitional probability between, B is matrix
of observation symbol probability, and πis initial state
probability. In this journal, the kinds of HMM is a result
of ergodic discrete, where the parameters of HMM such
as matrix A, B, C and π are resurrected randomly and the
value is nominalized into one. The values of A, B, and π
are then re-estimated by training process to get an optimal
parameter. The process of parameter HMM training is
explained in figure 2.
The initiation of HMM is the initiation of model
HMM λ = (A,B,π) that is aired randomly and the value
can be normalized to one. After that, it is important to
count and using forward and backward
algorithm, and can be counted inductively by using three
forward algorithm step[10]:
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RESEARCH ARTICLE Adv. Sci. Lett. 22, 2043-2047, 2016

Mathematical description
: number of state
: the number of distinct observation symbol per
state
: the state transition probability distribution
: the observation symbol probability distribution
in state
: the initial state distribution
: observation
: number of sequence

The result of HMM parameter re-estimation is new

values of elements in matrix A, B, and π. Iteration to re-
estimation is stopped when it reaches the maximum
points or it can use threshold of minimum development
(new model will not give a significant change). After the
process of re-estimation is finished, the system will save
model λ = (A,B,π). This model will be used in testing
Fig.2. HMM Parameter Training
process. The number of models saved is equal to the word
1. Initialization recognized.
1   ibi  O1  , 1 i  N (1) F. Evaluation
In testing process, every test data will enter the same
2. Induction
normalization, feature extraction, and vector quantization
 t 1 ( j )   i 1 t  i  aij  b j  Ot 1  ,
N
step as in the training step. The different is, in the testing
  step, vector quantization is only the determination of
1 t  T 1 (2) codebook. After that, the system will take model data λ =
1 j  N (A, B, π) that has been stored during the process of
training and recognition. It is completed by counting
3. Termination
likelihood from the string of index as the result of vector
P  O |     i 1T  i 
N
(3) quantization that applied to all λ model. The output of this
process gives index from reference signal model that has
When t  i  , it can be counted inductively using
the maximum likelihood. The Index is fitted with the
backward algorithm, as follow [10]. saved database, so the index that results a corresponding
1. Initialization text is found.
T  i   1, 1 i  N (4) G. System specification
Application is built in matlab 2011 and can recognize
2. Induction
voice audio with format wav. It couldn’t record and
t (i )   j 1 aij b j  Ot 1 t 1  j  ,
N
recognize voice in realtime. And also it couldn’t handle
noise.
t  T  1, T  2, (5) ,1, 1 i  N
Next, the process of re-estimation of HMM 3. TEST RESULT
parameter can be done by using these formulas.
aˆ1  i  ˆ1  i  A. Sample Rate
i  (6) Sample rate shows the value of radio signal that has
 aˆ  j 
N
j 1 t been taken in one second during the voice recording.
Resampling is a process to normalized sample rate in
 aˆ  i  a b O  ˆ  j 
T 1
t 1 t 1 voice signal. The higher sample rate value, the better
a  t 1
(7)
t ij j
audio quality it has. Resampling is completed to make all
  aˆ  i  a b  O  ˆ  j 
ij T 1 T
t 1 t 1
t 1 j 1 t ij j
signals to be in the same sample rate, so the next process
 aˆ  i  ˆ  i   O ,V  will not be influenced by the modification of sample rate
T 1

b k   t 1
(8) in every signal.
t t t k

 aˆ  i  ˆ  i 
j T 1
t 1 t t

2045 Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 22, No. 8, 2016 1936-6612/2016/22/2043/005

doi: 10.1166/asl.2016.7769
Adv. Sci. Lett. 22, 2043–2047, 2016
Figure 3.The influence of sample rate to accuracy
Based on the graphic in figure 3, it can be concluded
that the best accuracy accomplished by system is when it
uses 16000Hz sample rate. It is because the signal for
8000Hz sample rate cannot be able to save all of the voice
characteristics that are needed, so the characteristics that
are extracted does not fit the needed characteristics. But
when sample rateis changed into 44100kHz (higher), the
system does not give any better result. It shows that a
higher sample rate is not the best way to improve the
system's accuracy, it is because the higher sample rate it
has, the bigger the bit representation, and it will make the
system works harder to model a pronunciation. For that
reason, the system tends to produce a worse accuracy, and
longer time to compute. Besides, a research [7] stated that
the best sample rate of human’s voice recognition is
8kHz-20kHz. So, 16000Hz Sample rate is the best value,
in this case.
B. Codebook and State
Codebook is a representation of feature vectorof all
voice signals that have passed the clustering process. The
following figure is a result of accuracy to a number of
state and the size of codebook.
Figure 4.The influence of state and codebook to
accuracy
Based on graphic in figure 4, it can be seen that the
highest accuracy (67.75%) can be achieved in 64
codebookand the number of state is 5, while the lowest
accuracy (44.62%) can be achieved in 16 codebooks and
the number of state is 5. It can also be analyzed when the
size of codebook increases, the system accuracy tends to
improve. However, it is also important to remember that
if the size of codebook is too big, it will ruin the
codebook, which means that the dots that should be in
one cluster will be placed in more than one cluster and
separated from one to another. It will, surely, influence
RESEARCH ARTICLE
the accuracy of system, because this codebook will be
used in the process of vector quantization in deciding the
string of HMM observation.
C. Number of Model
In HMM, every word will be modeled as a model of
HMM. The more words put in train, the more model that
will be shaped. The influence of a number of model to
system accuracy can be seen in figure 5.
Figure 5.The influence of number of model to
Accuracy
Based on graphic in figure 5, it can be seen that the
more model in train, so the accuracy tends to be smaller.
It is maybe because there are models that are alike in
cepstral, so the system missed in doing the classification.
The solution to make HMM achieve a good accuracy is
by adding audio file in every model during training. The
more audio file in every model, the more observation
string during the training. As the consequences, the
process of HMM parameter re-estimation will be better
and it will also result the optimum model. With an
optimum model, system accuracy will be better.
D. MFCC vs LPC
LPC is another feature extraction method and it
could be used for recognition system also. Comparison
between MFCC and LPC in recognize same dataset with
same system can be seen in figure 6.
Figure 6. The accuracy comparison between
MFCC and LPC
Based on graphic in figure 6, it can be concluded
that MFCC is better feature extraction method in this case.
Whatever codebook size used, MFCC has always better
accuracy.
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
4 CONCLUSION
Based on the research, it can be concluded that the
recognition of Hijaiyyah Letter pronunciation using Mel
Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Hidden
Markov Model that has been developed to recognize
Hijaiyyah letter voice/ pronunciation has 67.75%
accuracy. This accuracy is taken from the test result with
codebook size of 64 and 5 state HMM parameter. The size
of codebook in the process of clustering highly influences
the system accuracy. While the best number of state can
be understood from the number of observation done. A
great number of state does not always increase system
accuracy, and vice versa. For further system development,
it is considered important to develop the recognition of
Hijaiyyah letter and its makhraj and the process of
recognition can be running in real time system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by Telkom
University Research Grant.
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Received: 22 September 2010. Accepted: 18 October 2010
Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 22, No. 8, 2016 1936-6612/2016/22/2043/005
doi: 10.1166/asl.2016.7769