metaphone


metaphone

(algorithm, text)An algorithm for encoding a word so thatsimilar sounding words encode the same. It's similar tosoundex in purpose, but as it knows the basic rules ofEnglish pronunciation it's more accurate. The higher accuracydoesn't come free, though, metaphone requires morecomputational power as well as more storage capacity, butneither of these requirements are usually prohibitive. It isin the public domain so it can be freely implemented.

Metaphone was developed by Lawrence Philips. It is described in ["PracticalAlgorithms for Programmers", Binstock & Rex, Addison Wesley,1995].