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Metaphone Algorithm

String Algorithm

Metaphone is a phonetic algorithm, published by Lawrence Philips in 1990, for indexing words by their English pronunciation, fundamentally improving on the earlier Soundex algorithm by using information about variations and inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation to produce a more accurate encoding for matching similar-sounding words and names. Philips later produced Double Metaphone, extending the technique to spelling peculiarities of other languages, and released Metaphone 3 in 2009, which the algorithm's own account states reaches about 99 percent accuracy for English words, non-English words familiar to Americans, and common first and family names in the United States.

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