I would have loved to see the Knuth version (which was literate Pascal with WEB, I think) compared as well, but I imagine that is a nightmare to build. I wonder if the source code is available anywhere, I can't recall ever seeing it. I think Knuth used a custom-made trie, and it would be interesting to see that compared to these hash table based solutions.
Also: this comparison honestly just makes me love AWK more and more. So little code needed! So concise, and pretty ok performance as well! AWK really is an underrated little language.
Also: this comparison honestly just makes me love AWK more and more. So little code needed! So concise, and pretty ok performance as well! AWK really is an underrated little language.