[language] Algorithm makes tongue tree]

[H.M. Hubey]

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [evol-psych] Algorithm makes tongue tree
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:16:02 +0000
From: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Reply-To: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Organization: http://human-nature.com/
To: evolutionary-psychology at yahoogroups.com

Nature Science Update
Algorithm makes tongue tree
New computer programme could settle literary debates.
22 January 2002
PHILIP BALL

To date, unlike us, computers have struggled to differentiate a page of Jane
Austen from one by Jackie Collins. Now researchers in Italy have developed a
program that can spot enough subtle differences between two authors' works to
attribute authorship1.

The program can tell a text by Machiavelli from one by Pirandello, Dante or a
host of other great Italian writers. It constructed a language tree of the
degree of affinity between 50 different tongues. The tree identifies all the
main linguistic groups, such as Romance, Celtic, Slavic and so forth and
highlights Maltese (an Afro-Asiatic language) and Basque as anomalies.

Full text
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020121/020121-2.html

Refs

Benedetto, D., Caglioti, E. & Loreto, V. Language trees and zipping. Physical
Review Letters, 88, 048702, (2002).
http://publish.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v88/e048702/

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