A compressed lexicon is built by receiving a word list, which includes word-dependent data associated with each word in the word list. A word is selected from the word list. A hash value is generated based on the selected word, and the hash value identifies an address in a hash table which, in turn, is written with a location in lexicon memory that is to hold the compressed form of the selected word, and the compressed word-dependent data associated with the selected word. The word is then encoded, or compressed, as is its associated word-dependent data. This information is written at the identified location in the lexicon memory.