A PICTURE IS FREE OR A STRANGER IS DEEP.

Stochastic texts by Theo Lutz

DER GRAF DER FREMDE DER BLICK DIE KIRCHE
DAS SCHLOSS DAS BILD DAS AUGE DAS DORF
DER TURM DER BAUER DER WEG DER GAST
DER TAG DAS HAUS DER TISCH DER KNECHT
OFFEN STILL STARK GUT SCHMAL NAH NEU
LEISE FERN TIEF SPAET DUNKEL FREI
GROSS ALT WÜTEND 1





Georg Philipp Harsdörffer's Fünffacher Denckring der Teutschen Sprache, or the Five-fold Thought-ring of the German Language (1651), is composed of five nesting paper discs, each of which is inscribed with a set of word parts along its edge. The innermost ring contains forty-eight prefixes; the next ring, fifty initial letters or diphthongs; the middle ring, twelve medial letters; then, 120 final letters or diphthongs; with the outermost ring storing twenty-four suffixes. When spun, this simple mechanism can generate German words, producing as many as 97,209,600 different combinations.