1. A method for operating a speech recognition system, the method comprising: (a) receiving voice input at a speech recognition engine; (b) receiving an acoustic model at the speech recognition engine; (c) providing a layered grammar and dictionary library to the speech recognition engine, the layered grammar and dictionary library including, (i) defining a language and non-grammar layer that supplies types of rules a grammar definition layer can use and defines non-grammar the speech recognition system should ignore; (ii) defining a dictionary layer that defines phonetic transcriptions for word groups the speech recognition system is meant to recognize when the voice input is received; (iii) defining a grammar definition layer that applies rules from the language and non-grammar layer to define combinations of word groups the speech recognition system is meant to recognize when the voice input is received; (d) using the acoustic model and the layered grammar and dictionary library to process the voice input.