1. An apparatus for comparing an unknown word to a plurality of known, dictionary words to identify the unknown word comprising: a first memory area storing data corresponding to an unknown word; a plurality of second memory areas, each second memory area respectively storing data corresponding to one of a plurality of known, dictionary words; control means coupled to the first memory area and the second memory areas including an unknown word decoder for decoding each of the unknown words and for forming unknown word digraphs respectively representing the plurality of unknown words, the control means storing the unknown word digraphs in the first memory area and including a dictionary word decoder for decoding each of the plurality of dictionary words for each of the known, dictionary words and for forming a plurality of dictionary word digraphs from the known, dictionary words respectively representing the known, dictionary words, and the control means respectively storing each of the plurality of dictionary word digraphs in the plurality of second memory areas; an arithmetic logic unit coupled to the first memory area and the second memory areas for comparing the unknown word digraphs to the dictionary word digraphs and generating an output signal indicating a hit when an unknown word digraph corresponds to at least one of the dictionary word digraphs; and a hit counter for counting and indicating the number of hits.