Is there any logic to validate whether a group of letters could be considered a phonetic word?

Question

Basically, if I'm given a random jumble of letters, I need to check to see if this could phonetically be considered a word.

I'm not looking to validate against a dictionary list, since I don't really care if the letters form an actual word or not. I just need to determine whether or not those letters are in the correct format to be considered a word.

For example:

aaaaaa // Not valid, because there are no consonants
bbbbbb // Not valid, because no vowels
dogcat // Valid, even though it is not a word, because it phonetically makes what could be considered a word
dapmar // Valid, even though nothing about this is a word, it phonetically works

I realize there are going to be exceptions to almost any logic given, so this doesn't have to be an exact science, I would just like to catch the majority, so the most general logic would work for me.

I think it all boils down to whether or not a jumble of letters can be pronounced easily.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Wondering how many English words are composed entirely of vowels, or entirely of consonants — Mark Baker, May 21 '13 at 16:08
Turns out I needed to look for the pronounceability of a jumble of letters. I ended up using http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1186213/measure-the-pronounceability-of-a-word. — Jason Thuli, May 21 '13 at 16:43

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:25

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Prevent letters to be repeated more than 3 times first, for example ccc will be invalid (or maybe you could do every letters except vowels so aaaaa, eeeee, uuuuu will be ok), then check all words from a list of existing words of your language only if you want to check something, but if you're generating a pronouncable word I don't think you'll need existing words.

Pleas also check this: pronounceability algorithm , http://10000ideas.blogspot.fr/2011/07/what-makes-word-pronounceable.html and this one : Measure the pronounceability of a word?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:25

Community

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answered May 21 '13 at 16:27

Ydhem

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http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1186213/measure-the-pronounceability-of-a-word worked for me, thank you so much! – Jason Thuli May 21 '13 at 16:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 21 '13 at 16:18

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For the amount of time and effort it would take to write code to logically check this, you'd be better off getting a file with as many English words as possible and putting them into an array. That would be your BEST logical check.

answered May 21 '13 at 16:18

Phillip Berger

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Thank you, but the text I am checking doesn't necessarily have to result in an actual word, just something that can phonetically be pronounced (ie, it **could** be a word) – Jason Thuli May 21 '13 at 16:39

Is there any logic to validate whether a group of letters could be considered a phonetic word?

2 Answers2