1. For a text string of data values representing text in an unknown distinguished language in accordance with an unknown distinguished character set that associates character glyphs with particular data values of a range, a method in a computer system for identifying the distinguished language of the text using the text string of data values, the method comprising the steps of: applying a plurality-to-one reductive mapping of the text string of data values to generate a plurality-to-one reductively mapped transformed string of data values characterizing the text string of data values, wherein data values of the plurality-to-one reductively mapped transformed string of data values characterizing the text string of data values have a range smaller than the range of data values in the text string representing text in the unknown distinguished language; generating a statistical analysis of the plurality-to-one reductively mapped transformed string of data values characterizing the text of data values; for each of a plurality of languages: retrieving a plurality-to-one reductively mapped statistical model that models the language in terms of the statistical occurrence of particular data values in plurality-to-one reductively mapped representative samples of text in the language, and comparing the retrieved plurality-to-one reductively mapped statistical model to the statistical analysis of the plurality-to-one reductively mapped transformed string of data values characterized the text string of data values; and identifying as the distinguished language the language among the plurality of whose model representing the language via the plurality-to-one reductive mapping compares most favorably to the statistical analysis of the plurality-to-one reductively mapped transformed string of data values characterizing the text string of data values.