Levenshtein distance

Levenshtein Distance is used all the time to compare words with each other. When you do a search in a web page for example, the Levenshtein method is used to compare what you search for with all the words in a page.

We can use this same principle for calculating the difference between varieties that we have word lists of. It's a relatively new area of application and there aren't many survey teams using this method. However, it holds a lot of promise, if you can figure out how to apply it.

If you've used it, edit this page and tell us how!

For more info, read the paper by Karin Beijering, Charlotte Gooskens and Wilbert Heeringa online