[slightly off-topic] programmable speech recognition software

[Stefan Franke]

I'm looking for the appropriate SR software to build a part of a room
installation. The task differs somewhat from the usual "dictate into
word" applications:

In the recorded audio stream should be recognized as many words as
possible - speaker independent and in German! (I can hear you shudder)


In unclear cases - there will probably be lots of them - the closest
interpretations would be OK.

Therefore completeness and correctness don't have the highest priority
in this case. 

The application is supposed to run on a Win 9x machine. Direct
accessibility from Python would be super, otherwise possible via
COM/SAPI from M$, admittedly I don't know anything about its
capableness.

I read the postings about NatLink in c.l.p, but in absence of a demo
version of NatSpeak I cannot tell anything about its suitability, so I
would be pleased to hear some opinions of this group's numerous SR
experts!

Regards,
Stefan