A method of searching and matching non-phonetic or ideogrammatic input data to stored data, including the steps of receiving input data comprising a search string having a plurality of elements, converting a subset of the elements into a set of terms, generating an optimized plurality of keys from the set of terms, retrieving stored data based on the optimized keys corresponding to most likely candidates for match, and selecting a best match from the plurality of candidates. At least some of the ideogrammatic elements form part of an ideogrammatic writing system. The method may also include dividing the search string into a plurality of overlapping sub-segments and identifying sub-segments having inferred semantic meaning as well as sub-segments having no semantic meaning in the ideogrammatic writing system, and using the various sub-segments to generate the optimized keys.