🌴 Community voice project

Every island. Every accent. One voice for the Caribbean.

We’re crowdsourcing a voice model for the Caribbean — a distinct, natural-sounding text-to-speech voice for every single island. It only works if real Caribbean people record it. That means you.

🎙️ Lend your voiceHow it works →
AnguillaAntigua and BarbudaArubaThe BahamasBarbadosBelizeBermudaBonaireBritish Virgin IslandsCayman IslandsCubaCuraçaoDominicaDominican RepublicGrenadaGuadeloupeGuyanaHaitiJamaicaMartiniqueMontserratPuerto RicoSaint BarthélemySaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint MartinSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSint MaartenSurinameTrinidad and TobagoTurks and CaicosU.S. Virgin IslandsAnguillaAntigua and BarbudaArubaThe BahamasBarbadosBelizeBermudaBonaireBritish Virgin IslandsCayman IslandsCubaCuraçaoDominicaDominican RepublicGrenadaGuadeloupeGuyanaHaitiJamaicaMartiniqueMontserratPuerto RicoSaint BarthélemySaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint MartinSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSint MaartenSurinameTrinidad and TobagoTurks and CaicosU.S. Virgin Islands

Why we’re doing this

The Caribbean is missing from the voices of AI.

Ask any voice assistant to speak, and it answers in a handful of accents — none of them ours. Jamaican Patois, Trinidadian, Bajan, Haitian Kreyòl, Papiamento and dozens more simply aren’t in the datasets these systems learn from.

We’re changing that the only honest way: by recording real people, with consent, one island at a time. Enough clean clips per country and we can train a distinct text-to-speech voice for each — so the next generation of apps, games and assistants can finally sound like home.

32
islands & territories
~90s
per recording
100%
consented & open

“One model per island — because a Bajan voice and a Jamaican voice are not the same voice.”

Contribute in three steps

No account, no app, no special gear. About two minutes of your time.

1🗺️

Pick your island

Choose the country or territory whose accent you actually grew up speaking. One model per island only works if the labels are honest.

2🎙️

Read the script

Tap record and read the shared passage in your natural voice. It takes about 60–90 seconds. A quiet room and any phone mic is plenty.

3✅

Consent & submit

Confirm you are 18+ and agree to donate the clip to the open corpus. Submit — that is it. You can record as many times as you like.

Every island counts

We need voices from all of these. If yours is on the list, we need you.

AnguillaEnglish creoleAntigua and BarbudaEnglish creoleArubaPapiamento / DutchThe BahamasEnglish creoleBarbadosBajan creoleBelizeKriol / EnglishBermudaEnglishBonairePapiamento / DutchBritish Virgin IslandsEnglish creoleCayman IslandsEnglish creoleCubaSpanishCuraçaoPapiamentu / DutchDominicaEnglish / KwéyòlDominican RepublicSpanishGrenadaEnglish creoleGuadeloupeFrench / Antillean creoleGuyanaGuyanese creoleHaitiHaitian Kreyòl / FrenchJamaicaJamaican PatoisMartiniqueFrench / Antillean creoleMontserratEnglish creolePuerto RicoSpanishSaint BarthélemyFrenchSaint Kitts and NevisEnglish creoleSaint LuciaEnglish / KwéyòlSaint MartinFrench / EnglishSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesVincentian creoleSint MaartenEnglish / DutchSurinameSranan Tongo / DutchTrinidad and TobagoTrinidadian creoleTurks and CaicosEnglish creoleU.S. Virgin IslandsEnglish creole
🎙️ Record your voice

Lend your voice

Pick your island, read the script below, and record it right here.

2. Read this script aloud~60–90 seconds

Read the whole passage at a natural, relaxed pace — the way you would actually talk, in your own accent. Do not put on a "neutral" voice. Pause between paragraphs. If you stumble, just keep going.

1Good morning. My name is not important, but my voice is. I grew up on these islands, and the way we speak is part of who we are.

2Please pass me the small blue cup on the shelf by the window. Bring the sugar, a little salt, and three ripe bananas from the yard.

3On Saturday the market opens early. We buy fresh fish, yam, callaloo, and a bag of oranges for about forty-five dollars.

4The weather can change fast. Bright sunshine at eight, heavy rain by noon, then a cool breeze off the sea again in the evening.

5Numbers to read clearly: zero, seven, thirteen, twenty, fifty-two, one hundred, two thousand and twenty-six.

6She asked whether the boat leaves at 6:30 or 7:15, and how much the ticket costs for the children.

7Music, laughter, and good food bring the whole family together — cousins, aunties, uncles, and every neighbour on the street.

8Thank you for listening. Every voice we record helps make sure our accent is never left out of the technology we all use.

3. Record it *

Tap the mic, allow access, and read the script aloud.

Select your island, record a clip, and tick the consent box to submit.

Questions & consent

What are you actually building?+
An open, consented speech dataset covering every Caribbean country and territory, used to train text-to-speech (TTS) voice models — a distinct voice per island, rather than one generic “Caribbean” approximation.
How is my recording used?+
Your clip and its transcript join the training corpus for the island you selected, teaching the model your region’s pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.
Do I need special equipment?+
No. A phone or laptop mic in a quiet room is enough. Avoid fans, TV and background chatter, and keep a steady distance from the mic.
Who can contribute?+
Anyone 18+ who natively speaks a Caribbean accent. Diaspora speakers are very welcome — pick the island your accent comes from.
Is my personal data safe?+
Name and email are optional and are only used to reach you about the project — never published with the audio. Withdraw any contribution by emailing voices@shortcircuited.net.

Your accent belongs in the future of technology.

Two minutes today puts your island’s voice in tools your whole community will use tomorrow.

🎙️ Lend your voiceAbout Short Circuited →