Derogative T9 words to stopped
April 21, 2008

Several prejudiced words and especially combinations of words have found their ways into the T9 mobile dictionaries. In the Swedish T9 systems, words meaning negro whore and Rumanian pig, for instance, are to disappear from the word list.

Words do not always come out the way you imagined using T9.

The words created when typing an SMS text message using T9 are not always what you want them to be. Sony Ericsson has received complaints from customers in certain countries. The responsible for the T9 producers Nuance has now come to Sweden to explain.

The T9 system is automatic and cannot by itself determine if a word is good or bad. It is based on the grammatical rules of each language and tries to guess what word you are attempting to write, says Nuance's Eric Collins to Swedish newspaper DN during his visit in the country.

Now the company has decided that words such as “whore” and “negro” are not to be included in the Swedish word list. According to Eric Collins, these words are included randomly in the wordlist, but now they are to be deleted. Nuance has no possibility to check all possible letter combinations, but does delete inappropriate words as they are discovered.

Words in the T9 dictionary end up in the list when fulfilling a number of criteria. Words are selected from magazines and chat forums, and calculations are made determining how likely it is that a word will be used on a phone.

- We try to get rid of words that are prejudiced regarding sex or ethnicity, says Eric Collins to Swedish Radio.

Nuance has five employees responsible for these decisions, all placed in the US. In Sweden, the company only has marketing and sales staff.

By: Erik Mörner, Jonas Kämpe