diff --git a/source/net/yacy/cora/language/synonyms/SynonymLibrary.java b/source/net/yacy/cora/language/synonyms/SynonymLibrary.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..63e564348
--- /dev/null
+++ b/source/net/yacy/cora/language/synonyms/SynonymLibrary.java
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+/**
+ *  Stemming
+ *  Copyright 2012 by Michael Peter Christen; mc@yacy.net, Frankfurt a. M., Germany
+ *  first published 01.10.2012 on http://yacy.net
+ *
+ *  This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
+ *  modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
+ *  License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
+ *  version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ *  This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+ *  Lesser General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ *  You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
+ *  along with this program in the file lgpl21.txt
+ *  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+ */
+
+package net.yacy.cora.language.synonyms;
+
+import java.io.File;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.HashMap;
+import java.util.HashSet;
+import java.util.List;
+import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.Set;
+import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
+
+import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
+
+import net.yacy.cora.storage.Files;
+
+/**
+ * Stemming library: reads stemming files and creates a mapping from words to synonyms
+ * Stemming files must have a list of synonym words in each line of the input file.
+ * The words within one line must be separated by ','. Lines starting with '#' are
+ * comment files and are ignored. Each line can (but does not need to) have a '{'
+ * at the beginning of the line and '}' at the end (which would be the GSA format).
+ */
+public class SynonymLibrary {
+
+    Logger log = Logger.getLogger(SynonymLibrary.class);
+    private Map<String, List<Set<String>>> lib;
+    
+    public SynonymLibrary(final File path) {
+        this.lib = new HashMap<String, List<Set<String>>>();
+        if (!path.exists() || !path.isDirectory()) return;
+        final String[] files = path.list();
+        for (final String f: files) {
+            File ff = new File(path, f);
+            String line;
+            try {
+                BlockingQueue<String> list = Files.concurentLineReader(ff, 1000);
+                while ((line = list.take()) != Files.POISON_LINE) {
+                    line = line.trim();
+                    if (line.length() == 0 || line.charAt(0) == '#') continue;
+                    if (line.charAt(line.length() - 1) == '}') line = line.substring(0, line.length() - 1);
+                    if (line.charAt(0) == '{') line = line.substring(1);
+                    String[] words = line.split(",");
+                    Set<String> synonyms = new HashSet<String>();
+                    Set<String> keys = new HashSet<String>();
+                    for (String s: words) {
+                        s = s.trim();
+                        if (s.length() < 2) continue;
+                        String t = s.toLowerCase();
+                        synonyms.add(t);
+                        keys.add(t.substring(0, 2));
+                    }
+                    for (String key: keys) {
+                        List<Set<String>> symsetlist = this.lib.get(key);
+                        if (symsetlist == null) {
+                            symsetlist = new ArrayList<Set<String>>();
+                            this.lib.put(key, symsetlist);
+                        }
+                        symsetlist.add(synonyms);
+                    }
+                }
+            } catch (Throwable e) {
+                log.warn("cannot read stemming file " + f, e);
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * for a given word, return a list of synonym words
+     * @param word
+     * @return a list of synonyms bot without the requested word
+     */
+    public Set<String> getSynonyms(String word) {
+        word = word.toLowerCase();
+        if (word.length() < 2) return null;
+        String key = word.substring(0, 2);
+        List<Set<String>> symsetlist = this.lib.get(key);
+        if (symsetlist == null) return null;
+        for (Set<String> symset: symsetlist) {
+            if (symset.contains(word)) {
+                // create a new set containing all but the one word
+                Set<String> returnSet = new HashSet<String>();
+                for (String synonym: symset) {
+                    if (synonym.equals(word)) continue;
+                    returnSet.add(synonym);
+                }
+                return returnSet;
+            }
+        }
+        return null;
+    }
+    
+}