# What written language conveys the most information with the least characters?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-written-language-conveys-the-most-information-with-the-least-characters/398507>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 3, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-written-language-conveys-the-most-information-with-the-least-characters/398507 "2007-04-03T01:17:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-written-language-conveys-the-most-information-with-the-least-characters/398507/61 "2007-04-14T19:53:49Z")

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Well, at least they’re thorough. Not all of them say the same thing, though.

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**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-written-language-conveys-the-most-information-with-the-least-characters/398507/62 "2007-04-14T22:33:29Z")

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The hypothetical language that answers this question has the lowest [information entropy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy).

> [@Wikipedia](#):
>
> The shortest average number of bits that can be sent to communicate one message out of all the possibilities is the Shannon entropy.

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