Audio usage for interactive programs on a PI

[B. N. Jairam]

We are intending to develop audio interface for an interactive simulation
package which was developed at our lab. I am familiar with the audio 
program which is available on SGI. We have a 4D/25TG and so far we have 
been able to use the audio feature with a speaker to record through a 
microphone and playback. I am curious to find out how we may be able to
read the recorded information and subsequently use it as an input for our
simulation package. 

If anyone is aware of a standard piece of equipment to record and playback 
ment for PIs or any software packages for similar purpose it will be a 
great help. So far my problem has been parsing or identifying verbal commands
or messages. I need to be able to create a lookup table sort of a thing for
verbal commands and actual commands known to the simulator.

Thanks in advance.

Jairam.