# Sproat 2014: A Statistical Comparison of Written Language and Nonlinguistic Symbol Systems

> Richard Sproat, 2014. 3 records on Mysteries Department cite it. Three methods surveys cite it as the main caution against treating entropy or Zipf…

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# A Statistical Comparison of Written Language and Nonlinguistic Symbol Systems

Richard Sproat, 2014. _Language_.

Sproat re-tests the entropy-based measures that Rao and Lee used to argue that the Indus signs and Pictish symbols are writing, on a wider range of linguistic and non-linguistic corpora. He finds the published methods do not work as stated; the two measures that do separate the classes put both the Indus and Pictish systems on the non-linguistic side.

**Voynich Manuscript** Articledoi: **[10.1353/lan.2014.0031](https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2014.0031)** Checked against the original0

## What it's used for here

Three methods surveys cite it as the main caution against treating entropy or Zipf statistics as proof that a symbol system encodes language.

## Cited by on this site 3 records

[3 methods surveys]

Signal processing, linguistics, inductive methods

SRC

## Cite it

```
Sproat, R. (2014). A Statistical Comparison of Written Language and Nonlinguistic Symbol Systems. Language. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2014.0031
```

[Read it free at doi.org](https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2014.0031)

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**SRC** 0D8MT1SM3EB0

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