2. In the process of claim 1, an additional process for generating compound word spelling assistance candidates, comprising: for each said unknown component, identifying all dictionary terms that have a code compatible with the way in which the said unknown component is associated with the other components of the input compound word and identifying these dictionary terms as suitable replacements for the unknown component; producing a list of spelling assistance candidates for the input compound word by replacing, in turn each unknown component within the said input compound word with a corresponding suitable replacement; displaying said list of spelling assistance candidates on an output device of the computer system.
2. In the process of claim 1, an additional process for generating compound word spelling assistance candidates, comprising: for each said unknown component, identifying all dictionary terms that have a code compatible with the way in which the said unknown component is associated with the other components of the input compound word and identifying these dictionary terms as suitable replacements for the unknown component; producing a list of spelling assistance candidates for the input compound word by replacing, in turn each unknown component within the said input compound word with a corresponding suitable replacement; displaying said list of spelling assistance candidates on an output device of the computer system. 3. In the process of claim 2, an additional process for generating compound word spelling assistance candidates, comprising: ranking the list of spelling assistance candidates on the basis of morphological or phonetic similarity to the input compound word prior to display of the said list on an output device of the computer system.