<p>The fact that you can tell when I use "it is" or "its" incorrectly is confirmation of redundancy. If there was no context telling you which it should be, you wouldn't know; and if there is context telling you what it should be, there is no need to write the apostrophe because you already know what the writer intended.</p>

<p>That much is fairly obvious. Further, data compression can give another insight into this. Standard text compression yields a much higher compression ratio than 50%. If I compress your question with "gzip" (a standard compression utility), it goes down from 770 bytes to 440 bytes (57% of the original). This is fairly bad, but this is with zero pre-existing knowledge -- something humans have <em>loads</em> of when processing text.</p>

<p>If I prepend what is currently on Wikipedia's front page (some text about "Suillus salmonicolor", some fungus), compressing your question takes an additional 378 bytes (49% of the original), probably because it can replace words like "and" with a very short code without having to pre-define it.</p>

<p>It doesn't end there either: trying to remove redundancy (e.g. writing words in conjugated form is almost always unnecessary; as are words like "she" in the phrase "Sarah went to the store when she needed something" ("Sarah went to the store when needed something" gets the message across; or at least "he" or "it" (both are a character shorter) would suffice).</p>

<p>I have often wondered how much redundancy is in languages: both in its basic form (sentences as an abstract concept) as well as in its representations (written characters or spoken sounds). I've come to terms with it because it must be for error correction. I probably wouldn't catch half of what my aunt is telling at the Christmas dinner table if not for that.</p>

<p>A related experiment that ran in 2013 looked at how much of a sentence you can hide before it becomes unreadable: <a href="https://lucb1e.com/rp/js/read.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://lucb1e.com/rp/js/read.html</a> For me, more than half can be hidden with no problems at all, meaning the character shapes that we use are >50% redundant as well, at least when combined with the redundancy in words themselves (because an h of which the top is hidden look like an n, but the word probably only makes sense with one of the two).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-02T22:36:03.517Z
2017-02-02T22:36:03.517Z
Luc
<p>I read years ago in a pop science book that written and spoken language can be shown to have a high level of redundancy. The speculation was that this served to allow error correction because language is encountered in noisy environments and understanding has a high survival value. The figure I remember is that if 35% of the information remains an attentive listener or reader can still make out the message. This has become a cherished notion in my world view as an indicator that language and human endeavor contains complexity we are not consciously aware of.</p>

<p><strong>I am looking for a knowledgeable confirmation of the idea that spoken or written language contains this redundancy.</strong> An impolite smack down due to unexamined confirmation bias is always welcome as well.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-01-29T05:35:57.727Z
Our smack downs are always polite. ;)  Interesting question.  Do you recall the name of the popular text?
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-01-29T06:27:06.470Z
I think it was called Rules of the Game. It was about self organizing systems. I have it buried in a box. Amazon has many books under that name, can't remember the authors name, couldn't find it.
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-01-29T10:05:28.237Z
It was "Laws of the Game : How the Principles of Nature Govern Chance" by Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler. It is from 30 years ago, so the idea may have come from some other book I read at the time.
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-01-29T10:36:17.230Z
@timquinn Could you please add that extra relevant information into your question if it turns out to be the book you are talking about, also providing a link to it? Thank you.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T04:07:11.867Z
This relates to ambiguity in language (since redundancy often reduces ambiguity). Zipf suggested that the speaker wishes for an ambiguous language where they can use one sound to mean everything, and leave difficulty of disambiguation for the listener. The listener, on the other hand, wishes for a totally unambiguous language, so the difficulty of picking the right words is on the speaker, and the listener doesn't need to spend energy on disambiguation. I would expect redundancy to have similar driving forces. Here is the [dual of your question](http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/1243/33).
Artem Kaznatcheev
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T06:17:15.273Z
I can't comment on your other question so I will leave this here. I have never read this book, but Brian Eno used to talk about it a lot and it was quite well known in the good old modern era. It is Seven Types of Ambiguity from 1930. An exercise in attempting to classify metaphor.           http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Types-Ambiguity-William-Empson/dp/081120037X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359699256&sr=8-1&keywords=7+types+of+ambiguity
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T07:04:55.443Z
Zipf's scheme looks more like the set up for a thought experiment than a description of reality. Embedded redundancy used for error correction would be something that emerged over generations through uncouncious (?) experimentation by a whole continent of speakers working to understand each other in life or death situations.
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T07:05:43.693Z
(I don't presume to tell you your field, just setting up my point) I suspect Zipf comes from a generation that imagined language being worked out by gray men sitting in libraries. I imagine a hunter shouting over screeching birds and water falling that his partner should look out for that big bear just behind him. He isn't worried about who's responsibility it is to provide the information or decode it. He just wants to save his friends life and will continue shouting things until he gets noticed.
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T07:08:15.280Z
He will remember what worked and start there next time, even if it is just to ask for the other drumstick. He won't know why what he did worked and he won't be too concerned about it and it will become part of the larger language because it works. This is, apparently, why pronouns have gender, for example. To add another data point for the listener when trying to decipher noisy signal. My curiosity was to find out what the field thought about this and to find some author names or key words to search. A lot of the time that is the hardest part for a non-initiate.
timquinn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-01T08:15:10.423Z
Here is a curious thing for you, Steven Jeuris. When I went and looked up Eigen's book on Amazon I saw the cover that I remembered and instantly knew it was not that book, but another, that I had gotten this fact from. I can vaguely recall the cover of the book in question, but that is all. Seeing the cover of Laws of the Game I remember was enough to allow me to know it was that other book. Weird. Hence, I did not add it to the question.
timquinn
<language><signal-detection>
Is there a lot of redundancy in written and spoken language?
timquinn
# Is there a lot of redundancy in written and spoken language?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-01-29)

I read years ago in a pop science book that written and spoken language can be shown to have a high level of redundancy. The speculation was that this served to allow error correction because language is encountered in noisy environments and understanding has a high survival value. The figure I remember is that if 35% of the information remains an attentive listener or reader can still make out the message. This has become a cherished notion in my world view as an indicator that language and human endeavor contains complexity we are not consciously aware of.

**I am looking for a knowledgeable confirmation of the idea that spoken or written language contains this redundancy.** An impolite smack down due to unexamined confirmation bias is always welcome as well.

**Tags:** language, signal-detection

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Our smack downs are always polite. ;)  Interesting question.  Do you recall the name of the popular text?  
> **username_0**: I think it was called Rules of the Game. It was about self organizing systems. I have it buried in a box. Amazon has many books under that name, can't remember the authors name, couldn't find it.  
> **username_0**: It was "Laws of the Game : How the Principles of Nature Govern Chance" by Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler. It is from 30 years ago, so the idea may have come from some other book I read at the time.  
> **username_2**: @username_0 Could you please add that extra relevant information into your question if it turns out to be the book you are talking about, also providing a link to it? Thank you.  
> **username_3**: This relates to ambiguity in language (since redundancy often reduces ambiguity). Zipf suggested that the speaker wishes for an ambiguous language where they can use one sound to mean everything, and leave difficulty of disambiguation for the listener. The listener, on the other hand, wishes for a totally unambiguous language, so the difficulty of picking the right words is on the speaker, and the listener doesn't need to spend energy on disambiguation. I would expect redundancy to have similar driving forces. Here is the [dual of your question](http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/1243/33).  
> **username_0**: I can't comment on your other question so I will leave this here. I have never read this book, but Brian Eno used to talk about it a lot and it was quite well known in the good old modern era. It is Seven Types of Ambiguity from 1930. An exercise in attempting to classify metaphor.           http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Types-Ambiguity-William-Empson/dp/081120037X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359699256&sr=8-1&keywords=7+types+of+ambiguity  
> **username_0**: Zipf's scheme looks more like the set up for a thought experiment than a description of reality. Embedded redundancy used for error correction would be something that emerged over generations through uncouncious (?) experimentation by a whole continent of speakers working to understand each other in life or death situations.  
> **username_0**: (I don't presume to tell you your field, just setting up my point) I suspect Zipf comes from a generation that imagined language being worked out by gray men sitting in libraries. I imagine a hunter shouting over screeching birds and water falling that his partner should look out for that big bear just behind him. He isn't worried about who's responsibility it is to provide the information or decode it. He just wants to save his friends life and will continue shouting things until he gets noticed.  
> **username_0**: He will remember what worked and start there next time, even if it is just to ask for the other drumstick. He won't know why what he did worked and he won't be too concerned about it and it will become part of the larger language because it works. This is, apparently, why pronouns have gender, for example. To add another data point for the listener when trying to decipher noisy signal. My curiosity was to find out what the field thought about this and to find some author names or key words to search. A lot of the time that is the hardest part for a non-initiate.  
> **username_0**: Here is a curious thing for you, username_2. When I went and looked up Eigen's book on Amazon I saw the cover that I remembered and instantly knew it was not that book, but another, that I had gotten this fact from. I can vaguely recall the cover of the book in question, but that is all. Seeing the cover of Laws of the Game I remember was enough to allow me to know it was that other book. Weird. Hence, I did not add it to the question.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2017-02-02. Score: 0

The fact that you can tell when I use "it is" or "its" incorrectly is confirmation of redundancy. If there was no context telling you which it should be, you wouldn't know; and if there is context telling you what it should be, there is no need to write the apostrophe because you already know what the writer intended.

That much is fairly obvious. Further, data compression can give another insight into this. Standard text compression yields a much higher compression ratio than 50%. If I compress your question with "gzip" (a standard compression utility), it goes down from 770 bytes to 440 bytes (57% of the original). This is fairly bad, but this is with zero pre-existing knowledge -- something humans have *loads* of when processing text.

If I prepend what is currently on Wikipedia's front page (some text about "Suillus salmonicolor", some fungus), compressing your question takes an additional 378 bytes (49% of the original), probably because it can replace words like "and" with a very short code without having to pre-define it.

It doesn't end there either: trying to remove redundancy (e.g. writing words in conjugated form is almost always unnecessary; as are words like "she" in the phrase "Sarah went to the store when she needed something" ("Sarah went to the store when needed something" gets the message across; or at least "he" or "it" (both are a character shorter) would suffice).

I have often wondered how much redundancy is in languages: both in its basic form (sentences as an abstract concept) as well as in its representations (written characters or spoken sounds). I've come to terms with it because it must be for error correction. I probably wouldn't catch half of what my aunt is telling at the Christmas dinner table if not for that.

A related experiment that ran in 2013 looked at how much of a sentence you can hide before it becomes unreadable: <https://lucb1e.com/rp/js/read.html> For me, more than half can be hidden with no problems at all, meaning the character shapes that we use are >50% redundant as well, at least when combined with the redundancy in words themselves (because an h of which the top is hidden look like an n, but the word probably only makes sense with one of the two).


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