Sounds like ‘Sutu’

Abstract

Phonetic string matching involves taking two or more strings to determine if they match. Strings that are often orthographically spelt differently are matchable (nearly equivalent), either as people's names, e.g. Smith and Smythe, or as words, e.g. colour and color. Equivalent examples in various indigenous Southern African languages would be surnames, e.g. Radebe and Hadebe or words, e.g. mpša, mbwa, ntsha which are all equivalent words for ‘dog’; similarly, hlapi, tlhapi, inhlami for ‘fish’. The authors look at two common string matching algorithms, SoundEx and NYSIIS, and show how they are inadequate for Southern African use. Modifications of these algorithms for Southern African use as well as new algorithms are proposed.