Monkey Words

The English language is eazy to master. Easy...right. So easy that even a monkey could sit down in front of a typewriter, type letters at random and compose the complete works of Shakespeare, right? Well, maybe not that easy, but we can certainly give the monkey a fighting chance.

How about we give the monkey a roulette wheel that simulates the English language based on single letter frequencies? Then all the monkey would have to do is spin the wheel and then type the letter that comes out. Now this might not do the trick, but it's got to be better than before, right?

Once the monkey has mastered the above procedure, maybe this next step won't be so far fetched. Have the monkey select the first letter of each word based on first letter statistics taken from the English language and then select each subsequent letter based on biletter statistics. Again, we're bound to see an improvement. Maybe not Shakespeare...yet.

Certainly, we can keep going using triple letter statistics, last letter statistics, and so on. The following applet creates 100 words taken from our monkey experiment using four different techniques.

Random

Each letter is equally likely and letters are chosen independently of each other.

Single Letter

Each letter is selected based on single letter frequencies taken from a sample of English text. Again, letters are chosen independently of each other.

Double Letter

The first letter of each word is selected based on first letter frequencies taken from a sample of English text. Each subsequent letter of the word is selected based on biletter frequencies, and is therefore dependent on the letter that precedes it. Word Length must be greater than or equal to 2.

Triple Letter

The first letter of each word is selected based on first letter frequencies taken from a sample of English text. The second letter of the word is selected based on biletter frequencies, and is therefore dependent on the first letter. Each subsequent letter is selected based on triple letter frequencies and is therefore dependent on the two letters that precede it. Word Length must be greater than or equal to 3.