18. The program storage device of claim 17, wherein n=3, wherein the instructions for performing the step of splitting comprise instructions for performing the step of generating common history records and hypothesis records for each w2 word of the plurality of n-grams, and wherein the hypothesis records comprise (i) bigram records having a common history w2 and (ii) trigram records having a common history w1 w2, the program storage device further comprising instructions for performing the step of generating an index block for each w2 word, the index block comprising a plurality of entries, each entry (i) corresponding to a different w1 word having a common history with the w2 word and (ii) having an address that points to a block of trigram records having different w3 words but a common history w1 and w2.
17. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for losslessly compressing an n-gram language model for storage in a storage device, the n-gram language model comprising a plurality of n-gram records generated from a training vocabulary, each n-gram record comprising an n-gram in the form of a series of "n-tuple" words (w1, w2, . . . wn), a count and a probability associated therewith, each n-gram having a history represented by the initial n-1 words of the n-gram, said method comprising the steps of: splitting said plurality of n-gram records into (i) a set of common history records comprising subsets of n-tuple words having a common history and (ii) sets of hypothesis records that are associated with the common history records, each set of hypothesis records including at least one hypothesis record comprising a word record-probability record pair; partitioning said common history records into at least a first group and a second group, said first group comprising each common history record having a single hypothesis record associated therewith, said second group comprising each common history record having more than one hypothesis record associated therewith; storing said hypothesis records associated with said second group of common history records in said storage device; and storing, in an index portion of said storage device, (i) each common history record of said second group together with an address that points to a location in said storage device having corresponding hypothesis records and (ii) each common history record of said first group together with its corresponding single hypothesis record.