In the Beginning was Information

Figure 36: Frequency distributions p(i) for various languages, from which theaverage number of syllables per word can be derived.When a long enough text in a language is investigated, a characteristic frequencyof the number of syllables per word is found. For many languages monosyllabicwords occur most frequently (e. g. English, German, and Greek), but for other languagesbisyllabic words are most common (e. g. Latin, Arabic, and Turkish).(p i =relative frequency of occurrence of words consisting of i syllables; i = averagenumber of syllables per word.)the effective current I eff of a continually changing electrical input (e. g. asa control parameter in a complex technological experiment) could be calculatedas a statistical characteristic, it is also possible to establish analogouslinguistic properties for languages. And just as I eff can say nothingabout the underlying control concepts, so such linguistic characteristicshave no semantic relevance.200