We use the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) and the Grassberger-Proccacia
analysis (GP) methods in order to study language characteristics. Despite that
we construct our signals using only word lengths or word frequencies, excluding
in this way huge amount of information from language, the application of
Grassberger- Proccacia (GP) analysis indicates that linguistic signals may be
considered as the manifestation of a complex system of high dimensionality,
different from random signals or systems of low dimensionality such as the
earth climate. The DFA method is additionally able to distinguish a natural
language signal from a computer code signal. This last result may be useful in
the field of cryptography.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Physica
