- Source: Caverphone
The Caverphone within linguistics and computing, is a phonetic matching algorithm invented to identify English names with their sounds, originally built to process a custom dataset compound between 1893 and 1938 in southern Dunedin, New Zealand. Started from a similar concept as metaphone, it has been developed to accommodate and process general English since then.
Etymology
The Caverphone was created by David Hood in the Caversham Project at the University of Otago in New Zealand in 2002, revised in 2004. It was created to assist in data matching between late 19th century and early 20th century electoral rolls, where the name only needed to be in a "commonly recognisable form". The algorithm was intended to apply to those names that could not easily be matched between electoral rolls, after the exact matches were removed from the pool of potential matches. The algorithm is optimised for accents present in the study area (southern part of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand).
Procedure
= Caverphone 1.0
=The rules of the algorithm are applied consecutively to any particular name, as a series of replacements.
The algorithm is as follows:
Convert to lowercase
Remove anything not A-Z
If the name starts with...
cough, replace it by cou2f
rough, replace it by rou2f
tough, replace it by tou2f
enough, replace it by enou2f
gn, replace it by 2n
If the name ends with
mb, replace it by m2
Replace
cq with 2q
ci with si
ce with se
cy with sy
tch with 2ch
c with k
q with k
x with k
v with f
dg with 2g
tio with sio
tia with sia
d with t
ph with fh
b with p
sh with s2
z with s
any initial vowel with an A
all other vowels with a 3
3gh3 with 3kh3
gh with 22
g with k
groups of the letter s with a S
groups of the letter t with a T
groups of the letter p with a P
groups of the letter k with a K
groups of the letter f with a F
groups of the letter m with a M
groups of the letter n with a N
w3 with W3
wy with Wy
wh3 with Wh3
why with Why
w with 2
any initial h with an A
all other occurrences of h with a 2
r3 with R3
ry with Ry
r with 2
l3 with L3
ly with Ly
l with 2
j with y
y3 with Y3
y with 2
remove all
2
3
put six 1 on the end
take the first six characters as the code
= Caverphone 2.0
=Start with a word
Convert to lowercase
Remove anything not in the standard alphabet (typically a-z)
Remove final e
If the name starts with
cough make it cou2f
rough make it rou2f
tough make it tou2f
enough make it enou2f
trough make it trou2f
gn make it 2n
If the name ends with
mb make it m2
Replace
cq with 2q
ci with si
ce with se
cy with sy
tch with 2ch
c with k
q with k
x with k
v with f
dg with 2g
tio with sio
tia with sia
d with t
ph with fh
b with p
sh with s2
z with s
an initial vowel with an A
all other vowels with a 3
j with y
an initial y3 with Y3
an initial y with A
y with 3
3gh3 with 3kh3
gh with 22
g with k
groups of the letter s with a S
groups of the letter t with a T
groups of the letter p with a P
groups of the letter k with a K
groups of the letter f with a F
groups of the letter m with a M
groups of the letter n with a N
w3 with W3
wh3 with Wh3
if the name ends in w replace the final w with 3
w with 2
an initial h with an A
all other occurrences of h with a 2
r3 with R3
if the name ends in r replace the final r with 3
r with 2
l3 with L3
if the name ends in l replace the final l with 3
l with 2
remove all 2s
if the name end in 3, replace the final 3 with A
remove all 3s
put ten 1s on the end
take the first ten characters as the code
Examples
= Caverphone 1.0
=Lee -> lee
lee -> l33
l33 -> L33
L33 -> L
L -> L111111
L111111 -> L11111
Thompson -> thompson
thompson -> th3mps3n
th3mps3n -> th3mpS3n
th3mpS3n -> Th3mpS3n
Th3mpS3n -> Th3mPS3n
Th3mPS3n -> Th3MPS3n
Th3MPS3n -> Th3MPS3N
Th3MPS3N -> T23MPS3N
T23MPS3N -> TMPSN
TMPSN111111 -> TMPSN1
= Caverphone 2.0
=Lee -> lee
lee -> le
le -> l3
l3 -> L3
L3 -> LA
LA -> LA1111111111
LA1111111111 -> LA11111111
Thompson -> thompson
thompson -> th3mps3n
th3mps3n -> th3mpS3n
th3mpS3n -> Th3mpS3n
Th3mpS3n -> Th3mPS3n
Th3mPS3n -> Th3MPS3n
Th3MPS3n -> Th3MPS3N
Th3MPS3N -> T23MPS3N
T23MPS3N -> TMPSN
TMPSN1111111111 -> TMPSN11111
See also
Soundex
New York State Identification and Intelligence System
Match rating approach
Metaphone
Cologne phonetics
References
External links
Caversham Project - Caversham data set of names and accents in the southern part of Dunedin, New Zealand in 1893-1938.
Original (2002) Caverphone algorithm
Revised (2004) Caverphone algorithm
Implementations:
C# Revised Implementation
Java implementation in the Apache Commons Codec project
PHP implementation
Python Implementation caverphone algorithm (version 2.0) - AdvaS Advanced Search project