Jeff wrote:In the approach I was thinking of, there is no need to have any rules for null insertion - since they are different characters, you could put them wherever you want, and the reader can just delete them. To give a simple example, let's represent the VM characters used for text by letters and those used as nulls by numbers.Also, let us decide that the characters represented by vowels should be followed by a space. Then, given the text: OMNES GALLIA DIVISA EST IN PARTIBUS TRES a scribe might insert the nulls (randomly) and spaces as follows: O M4NE S7GA L8LI A D82I 3VI S9A E ST6I NP8A RTI 5BU ST8RE S... A reader familiar with Latin would have no problem removing the nulls and redividing the words correctly. The comment about "word ending rules" was just a way to account for the fact some letters are more common as finals than others. There is no requirement that the rules be absolute; they could just be suggestions, often but not always followed. Bruce |