DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16812499
title: Hausa Soundex dataset with evaluation script for reproducibility

description: Hausa Names Soundex Dataset

This dataset contains Hausa personal names, their misspellings, and associated phonetic encodings using the Sautex algorithm, a Hausa-adapted Soundex system. The dataset is intended for research in name-matching, spelling correction, and phonetic similarity in low-resource languages.

 

Contents



data/ — Contains the CSV files for the dataset.

code/ — Contains the scripts for evaluation, and the Sautex phonetic encoding implementation.

docs/ — Contains additional documentation and figures for evaluation results.


Dataset Description

The dataset was collected from spelling attempts of Hausa personal names and includes both the correct spellings and various incorrect attempts. Each record contains metadata for evaluation and reproducibility.

 

The phonetic encodings were generated using Sautex, which adapts the Soundex rules to Hausa phonology.

 

Data Dictionary






SN
Column Name
Description
Data Type


1
name
The correct Hausa personal name
String


2
attempt
The spelling attempt for the name
String


3
string_match
Indicates if the attempt matches the intended name (True/False)
Boolean


4
edit_distance
Damerau-Levenshtein edit distance between attempt and name
Integer


5
name_soundex_h*
H* variant of the Sautex code generated for the intended name
String


6
attempt_soundex_h*
H* variant of the Sautex code generated for the spelling attempt
String


7
match_status_h*
Indicates if the H* Sautex code for attempt matches that of the name (True/False)
Boolean


8
name_soundex_h**
H** variant of the Sautex code generated for the intended name
String


9
attempt_soundex_h**
H** variant of the Sautex code generated for the spelling attempt
String


10
match_status_h**
Indicates if the English Soundex code for attempt matches that of the name (True/False)
Boolean


11
name_soundex_eng
The English Soundex code generated for the intended name
String


12
attempt_soundex_eng
The English Soundex code generated for the spelling attempt
String


13
match_status_eng
Indicates if the English Soundex code for attempt matches that of the name (True/False)
Boolean


14
dataset_source
Sourced from online survey using https://name-spell.thrinkle.com
String





 

Instruction

To evaluate the Sautex algorithm:



unzip the sautex-evaluation-python-script.zip file

create a virtual environment using the command python -m venv sautexvenv. For convenience, the virtual environment should be within the sautex-evaluation-python-script folder

run pip install -r requirements.txt to install project dependencies

generate a report for each Sautex algorithm variant, h* and h**, and the English Soundex algorithm, eng by updating the value of the constant VARIANT on line 13 in index.py with the appropriate algorithm symbol (h*,h**,eng)

in each case, run python index.py. Find the generated reports in the project folder.


 

License

This dataset is released under the CC BY 4.0 license. You are free to use, share, and adapt the dataset, provided appropriate credit is given.

 

Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite:

Ephraim Bernard. Hausa Names Soundex Dataset. 2025.