Morphological/phonetic method for ranking word similarities

A computer method for ranking the similarity of an input word from an input word string, to words stored in a dictionary storage, comprising the steps of:

• reading a first word from the input word string and writing the consonants of the input in a first storage location and writing the vowels of the input word in a second storage location;
• deleting adjacent duplicate consonants in the first storage location and deleting adjacent duplicate vowels in said second storage location;
• concatenating said consonants in said first storage location with said vowels in said second storage location to form an input key word;
• reading a dictionary word from a dictionary of stored words and writing the consonants of the dictionary word in said third storage location and writing the vowels of the dictionary word in said fourth storage location;
• deleting adjacent duplicate consonants in said third storage location and deleting adjacent duplicate vowels in said fourth storage location;
• concatenating said consonants in said third storage location with said vowels in said fourth storage location to form a dictionary key word;
• comparing said input key word with said dictionary key word in a first comparison step by counting the number of change operations in said input key word necessary to make said input key word identically match with said dictionary key word, said count being a first scoring factor;
• matching in a second step said input key word with said dictionary key word by measuring the length of identical character segments in said input key word and said dictionary key word, to form a second scoring factor;
• combining said first scoring factor and said second scoring factor to obtain a score for ranking the degree of similarity of said input word with said dictionary word.

A computer method for ranking the similarity of an input word from an input word string, to words stored in a dictionary storage, using a combined morphological/phonetic approach comprising the steps of:

• reading a first word from the input word string and creating an input key word;
• reading a dictionary word from a dictionary of stored words and creating a dictionary key word;
• generating a morphological score by combining:
• (1) a first scoring factor consisting of the number of change operations required to make said input key word with said dictionary key word, and (2) a second scoring factor generated by measuring the length of identical character segments in said input key word and said dictionary key word;
• creating an input phonetic key word by replacing the characters of the input word with corresponding phonetic characters expressed in a set of rewrite rules;
• creating a dictionary phonetic key word by replacing the characters of said dictionary word with corresponding phonetic characters expressed in a set of rewrite rules;
• generating a phonetic score by combining (1) a first scoring factor consisting of the number of change operations required to make said input phonetic key word with said dictionary phonetic key word, and (2) a second scoring factor generated by measuring the length of identical character segments in said input phonetic key word and said dictionary phonetic key word;
• selecting the lower of the morphologic or phonetic score as a measure of the distance between said input word and said dictionary word.