  The Metaphone algorithm applies the phonetic encoding of orthographic
sequences to simplify words prior to comparison. While Metaphone has been
highly successful for the English language, for which it was designed, it may
not be applied directly to Ethiopian languages. The paper details how the
principles of Metaphone can be applied to Ethiopic script and uses Amharic as a
case study. Match results improve as specific considerations are made for
Amharic writing practices. Results are shown to improve further when common
errors from Amharic input methods are considered.
