Spell Checker for Somali Language Using Knuth-Morris-Pratt String Matching Algorithm

The Somali language is the mother tongue and official language of Somali people in Somalia, a national language in Djibouti. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet. Before 1990, the Somali language was the main instruction of the educational institutions in Somalia. However, after the collapse of the Somali central government, foreign languages such as Arabic and English have been taking over as the languages of instruction in Somali educational institutions such as schools and universities. It is feared that the language may die out in about 50 years. One reason for this is a lack of computer tools such as word processors with spell checkers which may promote the use of Somali language. The absence of a spell checker in Somali may lead to spelling mistakes in Somali written documents, including social media posts and friendly chats. The focus of this paper is to propose a spell checker for Somali Language using Knuth-Morris-Pratt String Matching Algorithm with Corpus. A spell checker for the Somali language will provide a word processing interface for writing documents that identifies a misspelled word, underlines it, and suggests the proper spelling of the typed word, if any.