A hyphenation algorithm is a set of computational rules for deciding where a word may be broken across two lines with a hyphen, so that typeset text can be justified without excessively uneven spacing. The hyphenation algorithm built into the TeX typesetting system, developed by Donald Knuth from Franklin Mark Liang's dissertation, is the most widely adopted, and combines pattern-based rules covering common letter combinations with a short list of hardcoded exceptions for words the patterns get wrong. Hyphenation is complicated by dialect: American English hyphenation tends to follow pronunciation, while British English hyphenation tends to follow a word's etymology, so no single rule set works perfectly for all readers. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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Wikipedia: Hyphenation algorithm
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