Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
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Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#2I would have thought it is because when familiar patterns of syllables are heard we tend to concentrate more on context and meaning. While the other makes you concentrate more on the syllables itself.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#3I would have thought it is because when familiar patterns of syllables are heard we tend to concentrate more on context and meaning. While the other makes you concentrate more on the syllables itself.
I believe that is in line with their findings. Since Japanese has more syllables than any other tested language (where nearly every other letter is a vowel) it would make sense that a faster rate of unknown syllables flying by would result in the perception of faster speech.
It's interesting that while the Japanese have such a focus on efficiency, their spoken and written language is potentially more contrary to this value than any other language out there.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#4This article pretty much confirms a suspicion of mine that I've had for a while: strongly syllabic languages like Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog, with their paltry use of consonant clusters, speak/sound faster because (1) scarcity of consonant clusters without tones means that words require more syllables to be uniquely identifiable, and (2) sounds flow more easily when there is a vowel between every consonant. Unlike a language like German, you're not always stopping your speech to enunciate adjacent consonants. Therefore, longer words + easier to pronounce = fast speech.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#5I would have thought it is because when familiar patterns of syllables are heard we tend to concentrate more on context and meaning. While the other makes you concentrate more on the syllables itself.
I believe that is in line with their findings. Since Japanese has more syllables than any other tested language (where nearly every other letter is a vowel) it would make sense that a faster rate of unknown syllables flying by would result in the perception of faster speech. It's interesting that while the Japanese have such a focus on efficiency, their spoken and written language is potentially more contrary to this…
> Since Japanese has more syllables than any other tested language
The article claims less information is encoded in each syllable, not more (as would be expected if more syllables were available).
The Japanese syllabaric alphabets (hiragana and katakana) are larger than the roman alphabet, but the smaller alphabet doesn't mean that Japanese has more syllables than English. English syllables are written using multiple roman letters, and there are far more combinations possible than in hiragana or katakana (hiragana and katakana do allow small letters written between characters to modify the syllables represented, but even taking this into account, there are far more syllables possible when writing English).
On top of this, written hiragana or katakana maps unambiguously to the spoken language, but with English, there is more than one possible pronunciation for many character sequences, and the speaker often needs to know the word and sometimes even how it fits into the sentence to know which of several possible syllables to pronounce.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#6I was thinking of Java & Lua.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#7This article pretty much confirms a suspicion of mine that I've had for a while: strongly syllabic languages like Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog, with their paltry use of consonant clusters, speak/sound faster because (1) scarcity of consonant clusters without tones means that words require more syllables to be uniquely identifiable, and (2) sounds flow more easily when there is a vowel between every consonant. Unlike…
I pretty much arrived at the same conclusion when trying to translate various songs into Spanish. You can say sentences normally in about the same amount of time, but you can't fit Spanish versions of an English phrase in the same meter...generally you have to fudge it, and even then it doesn't always work.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that is in line with their findings. Since Japanese has more syllables than any other tested language (where nearly every other letter is a vowel) it would make sense that a faster rate of unknown syllables flying by would result in the perception of faster speech. It's interesting that while the Japanese have such a focus on efficiency, their spoken and written language is potentially more contrary to this…
> Since Japanese has more syllables than any other tested language The article claims less information is encoded in each syllable, not more (as would be expected if more syllables were available). The Japanese syllabaric alphabets (hiragana and katakana) are larger than the roman alphabet, but the smaller alphabet doesn't mean that Japanese has more syllables than English. English syllables are written using multipl…
I would love to find the original paper and examine the actual measure of information they used. i have found that my mother tongue tamil which are known for the speed, has a greater range for context-sensitive interpretations compared to English.So much so that i prefer English in any communication related to work.
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#9I was thinking of Java & Lua.
Seriously, though. Has anybody done a similar information density study on programming languages?
Re: Why Some Languages Sound Faster Than Others
#10Original paper: http://www.lsadc.org/info/documents/2011/press-releases/pell...