Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-26 Thread Sandy Harris
Travis H. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 05:42:49AM -0800, Sandy Harris wrote: > He starts from information theory and an assumption that > there needs to be some constant upper bound on the > receiver's per-symbol processing time. From there, with > nothing else, he gets to

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Travis H.
On Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 05:53:16PM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote: > Speakers of such Native American languages as Navajo, Choctaw > and Cheyenne served as radio operators, know as Code Talkers, > to keep communications secret during both World Wars. Welsh > speakers played

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Travis H.
On Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 05:42:49AM -0800, Sandy Harris wrote: > He starts from information theory and an assumption that > there needs to be some constant upper bound on the > receiver's per-symbol processing time. From there, with > nothing else, he gets to a proof that the optimal frequency > dis

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Steven M. Bellovin
On Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:44:30 -0600 Nicolas Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mayan.htm > An interesting web site, which also contains the following crypto-relevant statement: Speakers of such Native American languages as Navajo, Choctaw and C

RE: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Trei, Peter
Travis H. wrote: On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 03:46:41PM -0800, Allen wrote: [...] > What about other languages? Does anyone know the relative entropy of > other alphabetic languages? What about the entropy of ideographic > languages? Pictographic? Hieroglyphic? IIRC, it turned out that Egyptian he

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Nicolas Williams
On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 09:08:07PM -0600, Travis H. wrote: > IIRC, it turned out that Egyptian heiroglyphs were actually syllabic, > like Mesopotamian, so no fun there. Mayan, on the other hand, remains > an enigma. I read not long ago that they also had a way of recording > stories on bundles of

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Sandy Harris
Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: An idle question. English has a relatively low entropy as a language. Don't recall the exact figure, but if you look at words that start with "q" it is very low indeed. What about other languages? Does anyone know the relative entropy of other alphabetic languag

FW: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Trei, Peter
Steven M. Bellovin wrote: > > On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:46:41 -0800 > Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi gang, > > > > An idle question. English has a relatively low entropy as a > language. > > Don't recall the exact figure, but if you look at words that start > > with "q" it is very lo

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-07 Thread Travis H.
On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 03:46:41PM -0800, Allen wrote: > An idle question. English has a relatively low entropy as a > language. Don't recall the exact figure, but if you look at words > that start with "q" it is very low indeed. I seem to recall Shannon did some experiments which showed that wi

Re: Entropy of other languages

2007-02-05 Thread Steven M. Bellovin
On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:46:41 -0800 Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi gang, > > An idle question. English has a relatively low entropy as a language. > Don't recall the exact figure, but if you look at words that start > with "q" it is very low indeed. > > What about other languages? Does any

Entropy of other languages

2007-02-05 Thread Allen
Hi gang, An idle question. English has a relatively low entropy as a language. Don't recall the exact figure, but if you look at words that start with "q" it is very low indeed. What about other languages? Does anyone know the relative entropy of other alphabetic languages? What about the en