Translate greek characters in PostgreSQL full-text search

Question

I would like to translate greek characters to their common latin equivalents for the purpose of full-text search.

Consider the following:

SELECT
    to_tsvector('english', 'α-decay') @@ to_tsquery('α & decay') AS greek_greek,
    to_tsvector('english', 'α-decay') @@ to_tsquery('a & decay') AS greek_latin_short,
    to_tsvector('english', 'α-decay') @@ to_tsquery('alpha & decay') AS greek_latin_long;

 greek_greek | greek_latin_short | greek_latin_long
-------------+-------------------+------------------
 t           | t                 | f
(1 row)

The long version does not match, but users expecting these symbols might type in alpha or beta instead of α and β. Is there a pre-defined dictionary which would automatically turn α into both 'a' and 'alpha'? If not, how can I make one? Or is there a better way altogether?

Answer 1

You'd have to use a synonym dictionary with a synonym file like:

α alpha
β beta
ɣ gamma
...