Almost all human languages follow Zipf's law of abbreviation – and it turns out, so do bird songs. This strange observation shows how many systems, not just human language, are guided by an unwritten, surprisingly consistent mathematical order. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

What is Zipf's law of abbreviation?

Developed by American linguist George Kingsley Zipf in the 1930s, Zipf's law of abbreviation states that the more frequently a word is used, the shorter that word tends to be, and vice versa.

Rarely used words tend to be long, while frequently used words are short. For instance, the most common words in English are: the, be, to, of, and , a ; all of which are very short. Some of the longest words – let’s s

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