Cross-lingual audio search

A method comprising:

• accepting a search query in a first language variety, the search query being in a form of at least one of:
• text and audio;
• accessing a corpus of material in the first language variety;
• determining similarity of a second language variety with respect to a first language variety;
• choosing the second language variety based on determining that the first language variety baseforms can be obtained via data from the second language variety, and at least one selection criterion;
• the at least one selection criterion comprising a ranking from among ranked pairs of language varieties, the ranked pairs being ranked on a basis of determined similarity between language varieties;
• obtaining first language variety baseforms via data obtained from the second language variety;
• thereupon building a first language variety phonetic model, based on the first language variety baseforms obtained via data obtained from the second language variety;
• and
• executing an audio search based on the accepted search query, via employing the first language variety phonetic model and the second language variety.