A very low bit rate communication system. In preferred embodiments, an off-the-shelf module is adapted to convert a speaker's voice to text. A processor is provided to separate the text into individual words. The processor is programmed with a dictionary which provides pre-assigned specific 14-bit numeric values to each word in the dictionary (words used more frequently may be assigned shorter codes). The processor creates a numeric stream from 14-bit numeric values and this numeric stream is then transmitted to a receiver. Typical speech contains 4 words/second, so bit rates as low as 50 bits/second may be achieved with this technique. At the receiving end, the stream of received 14-bit numeric values, representing the speaker's words, are looked up in a dictionary identical to that at the transmitting end and the text of the words reconstructed. Text-to-speech techniques common to the industry are then used to regenerate the speech.