9. A method according to claim 1 comprising marking up the text to be spoken by rendering the text in lines, marking the intelligibility pronunciation notations above the text, marking the prosodic graphical symbols beneath the text, marking a pitch reference line above the intelligibility pronunciation notation line and marking further prosodic symbols above the pitch reference line to indicate desired pitch changes and emphasis.
1. A computer-implemented method of synthesizing speech from text, the method comprising: inputting text to be synthesized to a computerized system; electronically marking the text with electronic versions of one or more prosodic graphical symbols, the electronically marked text being displayable or printable as human-readable text marked with the prosodic graphical symbols, to indicate to a speaker desired speech characteristics to be employed in speaking the text, wherein the prosodic graphical symbols indicate a desired prosody and include intelligibility pronunciation notations in sequence with the text and pitch change notations in sequence with the text; and generating a synthesized speech output comprising phonetic data corresponding with the marked up text and having the prosody indicated by the prosodic graphical symbols.