Romance languages

• Spanish
  Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quijote [ full ] [ page ]
  
      The entropy h₃ computed for this sample (2.64 bits/character), is a trifle lower than that of the English sample (2.68 b/c).
      As in English, some of the most conspicuous blue spots are spelling system ``bugs'' such as qu (which sounds like k or kw) and ha (the h here being silent). Other dark spots are some common short words, and word breaks --- especially after the word y (English and; parctically the only Spanish word that uses the letter y), and after the common endings os, as.
      Among the bright spots one notices several words with diacritics on the first syllable, e.g. ténganse, óiganme, águila: those words have the antepenultimate syllable stress, which is rare in Spanish. Other hot spots are the oblique pronouns attached to verbs, like the -me in óiganme or the -nos in póngannos, and compounds like todopoderoso: although traditionally written without space, those junctions still sound discontinuous.
  
  l = 1    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 2    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 3    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 1    r = 1 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  
  
  
• Portuguese
  Raul Pompéia's O Ateneu [ full ] [ page ]
  
      This Portuguese sample has a higher entropy than the Don Quijote text (h₃ = 3.034), probably because Portuguese has a bigger alphabet (40 letters here) and a more irregular spelling. Otherwise its entropy pattern looks a lot like that of Spanish, which may not be very surprising. Conspicuous low-entropy spots are the endings -çao and -ente (English -tion, -ent), and short common words such as que (that), de (of), do (of the) um (one, a).
      One notable high spot is à (English to the), which is practically the only word in Portuguese with a grave accent.
  
  l = 1    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 2    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 3    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 1    r = 1 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  
  
  
• Italian
  Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi [ full ] [ page ]
  
      The entropy pattern seems more even than Spanish and Portuguese. There are expected blue spots in the u after q, and in the -ment- suffix, as in the other languages, but also on the n after word-initial u (because of the indefinite articles un, una, etc.), and e after ch (because of the common che (English that).
      Note that, as in Spanish, there is usually a bright spot where an oblique pronoun is attached to a verb, e.g. the si in ristringersi; and where a final vowel has been supressed for euphony, as in insegnavan.
      The very bright spots on è (is) are intriguing, since that's a very common word in Italian. A possible explanation is that this historical novel is narrated mostly in the past tense --- except on this opening paragraph, where the author describes the setting as it looked in his day.
  
  l = 1    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 2    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 3    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 1    r = 1 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  
  
  
• French
  Voltaire's Micromégas [ full ] [ page ]
  
      Again we see the blue spots on u after q. Typically French « bluisms » are the e after ll and d, and l after i.
  
  
  l = 1    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 2    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 3    r = 0 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]
  l = 1    r = 1 [ colorized page ] [ bits per tuple ]