1. In a digital processing system, a method for creating phonemic data from text, comprising the steps of: receiving input text; providing a plurality of rule sets, one rule set for processing one portion of the input text and different rule sets for processing respective different portions of the input text, each rule set having one or more rules for processing a respective portion of the input text; for each rule set, iteratively applying the rules of the rule set to the input text by comparing the input text with at least one of the rules of the rule set to produce respective phonemic data portions corresponding to portions of the input text, different rule sets producing different phonemic data portions; and combining the produced phonemic data portions to form a phonemic data sequence corresponding to the input text.
22. The method of claim 1, wherein: the step of providing a plurality of rule sets includes, for each of the rule sets, arranging the rules of a rule set in order according to length of text which the rule applies from largest in length to smallest in length, and arranging in alphabetical order the rules applying to equivalent lengths of text; and wherein the step of applying the rules of a respective rule set includes comparing the input text against the rule set beginning with a rule of the rule set that applies to a largest length of text encompassed by length of the input text.