Are there any method to count the number of words, verses, chapters of a selected passage?
Thanks.
Kolen Cheung: Are there any method to count the number of words, verses, chapters of a selected passage? Thanks.
Well chapters would be easy since they are numbered. But as for the others, no there isn't. I know that L3 does (and is coming in L4) Vocab lists in the original language, and those give you the frequency of word usage for a passage. Copying the passage into MS Word would allow you to do a word count, but that is a bit cumbersome.
It shouldn't be too hard for Logos to figure it out and add that feature.
In the meantime, you might find these charts of interest:
http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/OT-Statistics-NAB.htm
http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/NT-Statistics-Greek.htm
Of course the versification differs from version to version, so these numbers might not be the same as in your preferred Bible.
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It turns to another problem. Differences in no. of words are easy to understand. But why is it so in versification? There is no standard? Then how should we implement it in a program?
Kolen Cheung:It turns to another problem. Differences in no. of words are easy to understand. But why is it so in versification? There is no standard?
Since versification was not part of the original manuscripts and was added later on, how could there be a standard? While most of us are queasy about changing God's word, very few of us have a problem telling a human or human authority that they did it the wrong way.
Kolen Cheung: Are there any method to count the number of words, verses, chapters of a selected passage?
Terry Poperszky:Well chapters would be easy since they are numbered. But as for the others, no there isn't.
Word count:
A logical place Logos could put it would be in the Version River. They already have the word count for a passage range available, since they display differences. They could add extra columns for the total words for each version, as well as add another line for the Base version and its word count.
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I am still trying to figure out what purpose word count serves? Word frequency conveys useful information, but word count?
Kolen, may I ask why you are interested in word and verse count?
Terry Poperszky:But why is it so in versification?
If I remember correctly, a Logos employee said he'd accumulated 70 different versifications. My main three Bibles - NRSV, NAB and JPS all use different versifications. And if NETS the new Septuagint were available on Logos I'd be in even a bigger muddle.
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Terry Poperszky:I am still trying to figure out what purpose word count serves?
It's a fairly common element in text analysis ... percentages, for example, can be extremely misleading if you don't know it's base. Part of the basic don't let statistics lie to you theory. Not being a fan of chapters and verses, that's where I wonder what the purpose is.
Off-topic sorta ... I heard an interesting distinction by a scientist on NPR - dividing "facts" into (a) observation (b) modeling or (c) theory.
MJ. Smith: Terry Poperszky:But why is it so in versification?
Put your reading glasses on M.J., that was actually Kolen who asked that question.
MJ. Smith:It's a fairly common element in text analysis ... percentages, for example, can be extremely misleading if you don't know it's base.
So, the count is used in conjunction with word frequency. Correct? Or does it go beyond that?
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Terry Poperszky:So, the count is used in conjunction with word frequency. Correct? Or does it go beyond that?
Essentially. Beyond that it is at least out of what I know about text analysis.
Terry Poperszky:Kolen, may I ask why you are interested in word and verse count?
What I can think of are:
Word counts:
1) compare the original word ratio to the translation ratio. e.g. I did such thing in Chinese already. And in Chinese it is approximately 1 to 2. So, for the language structure of Chinese, we need two Chinese character to translate one single Greek.
2) to compare the ratio between different translations. It gives the information about which one is more wordy or concise.
3) I was asked by an elder brother yesterday about how many words there are in the Chinese Union Version. Such information might be useful to new believers (or the one who still haven't read the Bible once) to estimate how much they need to read (by comparing to the word counts to a typical fiction).
4) It is also interesting to compare that with other literatures.
5) word counts statistics on different books are the most accurate comparison of the lengths of the books. e.g. Luke has fewer chapters than Matthew but actually longer than that. And no. of verse might help but no. of verse can be misleading too (it is not by divine inspiration, and the length can be very different too).
6) word counts between different textform can help to get a feeling on how different the textform can be (of course the percentage of difference are much better, if it could be done).
7) similar to (5), word counts give us a way to compare the ratio between OT and NT.
And I am just brain storming about what it can do. Feel free to keep brain storming on it.
Verse count:
It is lesser important since it is not of divine inspiration. But information like "the staff from Logos find 70 different versification" is useful to see the difficulties of versification. And the actual statistics I am interested in is the sentence count. But that can be difficult too. I think (I don't know Greek well) that the sentence division can be very much be determined from the grammar except for some difficult passages. e.g. 1Th 5:16 might be the shortest sentence, having only two Greek words, and Eph 1:3-14 might be the longest one. So, how many sentences a book have, the distribution of the no. of words (the mean and standard deviation) and so on can help too. e.g. I suspect that the mean and standard deviation of the writings between Paul and John should be very different. And for the same Paul, the Ephesus and the Philippians can be very different too. It helps to understand the complexity of the sentences involved. etc.
Kolen Cheung:Word counts:
Learn something new each day,
Thanks Kolen
MJ. Smith:If I remember correctly, a Logos employee said he'd accumulated 70 different versifications.
We're up to 80 now. Though most of the new verse maps are just minor variations on existing maps at this point. I don't anticipate another difficult verse map until we get just a few more orders fo the Göttingen Septuagint. (Go ahead, make my day.)
Vincent Setterholm:We're up to 80 now.
Cool!
I promise to wait until I'm sure the Coptic texts work.
FYI: I've probably done the most beta testing across verse maps of anyone running the beta.
MJ. Smith: FYI: I've probably done the most beta testing across verse maps of anyone running the beta.
Thanks for that, Martha. We're glad there's someone hammering that feature. I just haven't had time to look into it at all.
i would like to know how time the word IT appears in the bible? thank you very much for trying even if IT cant be counted GODBLESS!!!!
It depends!
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