Method, system and computer program product for storing transliteration and/or phonetic spelling information in a text string class

Abstract

A multi-field text string data structure is employed to encapsulating identification, meaning, and pronunciation information for a text string. A first field contains the Unicode characters for the text string in a language in which the text string is entered, which may be latin characters, characters which sound-map to latin characters, or one or more ideographs. A second field contains either the same characters or an intermediate representation of the text string, such as syllabary characters for a phonetic spelling of the characters within the first field. A third field contains either the same characters as the first field or a latin character phonetic spelling of the characters in the first field. The first field thus contains the text string in the language in which the text string was entered, while the second and third field contains information about the meaning and pronunciation of the text string. When the characters in the first field are unrecognizable to a user, or when the characters in the first field have more than one meaning or more than one pronunciation, the contents of the second and third fields allow the user to recognize the text string and/or perceive the correct meaning and pronunciation of the text string.