Experiments with language corpora

[-JKP-]

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Both the two lowest-entropy languages (Vai and Korean) are not written in the Latin alphabet. Both alphabets appear to be syllabic.

In contrast to Chinese and Japanese Kanji, the Korean alphabet is phonetic. The syllables are combined in terms of sound rather than concept.

Korean Hangul differs from Vai in that there is a very clear visual logic to the consonant-vowel combinations. You only have to learn 25 characters to create a palette of 154 syllables, which enables you to write pretty much anything you need.

Vai takes longer to learn and requires more memorization because each consonant-vowel combination has its own shape.


Thus, they are dramatically different when you write them. In Korean, words that sound similar look similar, because they use 25 basic building blocks. Syllables like Pa, Ba, and Sa look similar because they have the "a" in common.

In Vai, words or syllables that rhyme rarely have any visual similarity because each combination has its own shape. Syllables like Pa, Ba, and Sa look nothing like one another (there are quite a few African alphabets that are constructed this way).