1. A database accessing system for processing a database query, the database including a multiplicity of entries each of which comprises at least first and second words, the database query including a sequence of at least first and second inputs corresponding to said first and second words respectively, each input including a plurality of input elements, the system including: a dictionary of all words in said database, including, for each word, a spelled representation of the word and a phonetic representation of the word; an input element interpreter operative to convert each of said at least first and second inputs into a representation of a plurality of strings of symbol-probability pairs, each symbol-probability pair including a symbol which is a possible interpretation of an individual input element and an estimated probability of said input element having said possible interpretation; a trigram stochastic evaluator operative to select high-probability strings from among said plurality of strings in said graph based at least partly on the frequency with which trigrams of symbols within said strings appear in said database; a dictionary searcher operative, for each individual high-probability string, to search said dictionary for words whose phonetic representation is similar, relative to a predetermined similarity threshold, to a phonetic representation of said individual high-probability string and to assign to each found word a similarity value quantifying the degree to which the found word phonetically resembles the individual high-probability string; and an entry similarity evaluator operative to identify a subset of entries in the database, based on output from said dictionary searcher, and, for each individual entry in said subset, to evaluate the similarity of said entry as a whole to said database query by combining the similarity values representing similarity of the words within said individual entry to the corresponding inputs within said database query.
1. A database accessing system for processing a database query, the database including a multiplicity of entries each of which comprises at least first and second words, the database query including a sequence of at least first and second inputs corresponding to said first and second words respectively, each input including a plurality of input elements, the system including: a dictionary of all words in said database, including, for each word, a spelled representation of the word and a phonetic representation of the word; an input element interpreter operative to convert each of said at least first and second inputs into a representation of a plurality of strings of symbol-probability pairs, each symbol-probability pair including a symbol which is a possible interpretation of an individual input element and an estimated probability of said input element having said possible interpretation; a trigram stochastic evaluator operative to select high-probability strings from among said plurality of strings in said graph based at least partly on the frequency with which trigrams of symbols within said strings appear in said database; a dictionary searcher operative, for each individual high-probability string, to search said dictionary for words whose phonetic representation is similar, relative to a predetermined similarity threshold, to a phonetic representation of said individual high-probability string and to assign to each found word a similarity value quantifying the degree to which the found word phonetically resembles the individual high-probability string; and an entry similarity evaluator operative to identify a subset of entries in the database, based on output from said dictionary searcher, and, for each individual entry in said subset, to evaluate the similarity of said entry as a whole to said database query by combining the similarity values representing similarity of the words within said individual entry to the corresponding inputs within said database query. 6. A system according to claim 1 wherein at least one of said inputs comprises a sequence of keystrokes and at least one of said input elements comprises a keystroke.