I'm happy to report that after upgrading my computer's main board, CPU, RAM, optical drive and various software packages, the bug seems to be fixed.
The first time I tried it after upgrading, the following test script successfully looped over a thousand times. counter=0; while echo $counter | festival --language americanenglish -b --tts ; do counter=$(( counter + 1 )) ; done ; echo Crashed after $(( $counter -1 )) runs. I suspect that I had a bad CPU chip. Just before I upgraded, it failed several stress tests, and I suspect that festival may have stumbled across the same CPU bug. If it's OK with you, I suggest closing this bug report. Thanks, Kingsley -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]