Data Compression, 1844 - How Morse Counted Letters ZIP files and streaming codecs have an ancestor: a code that gave the shortest signals to the most common letters. Morse was optimised for English before 'optimisation' was a word engineers used. Measuring the language To design the code, frequency mattered. The famous account has Vail studying the letter stock of a local printer: E dominated, so E became one dot. Whether or not every detail of the story is exact, the result is: the code mirrors English frequency almost perfectly. Why it still feels fast Beginners notice it within days: common words fly. THE, AND, OF and TO are short because their letters are short. The 1844 design decision is still saving every learner time on every word. Translate any text to Morse code, play it as sound and download the audio free at: https://morsecodeworks.com/