A dictionary is comprised of a dendroid hierarchy of branches and nodes, wherein each node represents no more than one symbol (which symbol is to be converted to a corresponding sound) and wherein each such symbol as is represented at a given node has only one corresponding sound associated with that symbol at that node. In addition, many of the branches include a plurality of nodes representing a string of the symbols in a particular sequence. The dictionary is used to translate an input comprising a given integral sequence of the symbols into a corresponding integral sequence of sounds. This permits both method and apparatus to convert, for example, text to representative phonemes. Such phonemes can be used, amongst other purposes, to support synthesized speech production.