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.
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. 6. A method according to claim 1 comprising marking the text to be spoken with one, more than one or all of the prosodic graphical symbols selected from the group consisting of: graphical symbols indicating pitch control required for pronunciation of a letter, diphthong, syllable or other speech element according to a desired prosody; an upglide to indicate rising pitch; a downglide to indicate descending pitch; a circumflex to indicate a rising then descending pitch or a descending then rising pitch; a level sustention to indicate unchanged pitch; a forward slash through a first letter followed by a closely related or identical sounding consonant to indicate that the first letter is prepared; a shallow U-shaped liaison hammock to indicate that letters separated from each other by other letters are to be pronounced in a continuous manner, without pause between them; a single underline to mark as playable percussives including tympani drumbeats, D, B and G and snare, bass and tom-tom drumbeats, T, P and K, respectively, unmarked consonants being not playable; a double underline to mark as playable strings N, M, V and Z woodwinds, L, NG, TH and ZH and sound effects F, S, SH and th, unmarked consonants being not playable; the letter combination “hw” marked over or adjacent to the letter combination WH in the text to be spoken to indicate that the H should be sounded first, followed by the W, and that neither should be played; and Y and W connectives to indicate that speech continuity should be maintained from one word to the next or from one syllable to the next when a [Y] or a [W] occurs before another vowel, the Y and W connectives each comprising a hammock-like shallow-U looping from beneath the Y or the W respectively to the following vowel, together with a small Y or W letter respectively marked in, near or through the U; wherein consonants before a vowel are ruled as to be spoken but are not marked as playable.