20. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for identifying the language of a document in which a computer document is written, comprising: means for comparing a plurality of words from the document to a word list associated with a candidate language, wherein words in the word list are a selection of a small number of the most frequently used words in the candidate language; means for accumulating a count of matches between words in the document and words in the word list for each word in the word list to produce a sample count for each word in the word list; means for correlating the sample count to a reference count for each word in the word list for the candidate language to produce a correlation score for the candidate language, wherein the correlation score is a statistical measure of a collective strength of association between the sample counts and reference counts; and means for identifying the language of the document based on the correlation score.
20. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for identifying the language of a document in which a computer document is written, comprising: means for comparing a plurality of words from the document to a word list associated with a candidate language, wherein words in the word list are a selection of a small number of the most frequently used words in the candidate language; means for accumulating a count of matches between words in the document and words in the word list for each word in the word list to produce a sample count for each word in the word list; means for correlating the sample count to a reference count for each word in the word list for the candidate language to produce a correlation score for the candidate language, wherein the correlation score is a statistical measure of a collective strength of association between the sample counts and reference counts; and means for identifying the language of the document based on the correlation score. 21. The product as recited in claim 20 wherein the comparing, accumulating, correlating and identifying means use a plurality of candidate languages each with a respective word list and a respective reference count and the language of the document is identified as the candidate language having a reference count which generates a highest correlation score.