It's fascinating that while languages vary wildly by speaking speed, information transfer is fairly similar.
It's fascinating that while languages vary wildly by speaking speed, information transfer is fairly similar.
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Thai is so efficient
Opposite. Look at the notes at the top of the graphs
Not as efficient as others in bits per second, but interestingly the syllable-to-bits ratio is tightly coupled.
Oh wait yeah you're right.
It's the fastest, but the least efficient actually!
It's the slowest in speech and the one that conveys information the slowest too.
I'm so dumb. 😅
Hard to tell. Need something like "bits of information per syllable" to get at efficiency. Just eyeballing it, Vietnamese, English, and Cantonese seem most likely the most efficient.
Cantonese and Vietnamese make sense, as they're are both tonal languages (along with Mandarin, Thai, Punjabi, and Cherokee apparently). English wastes tones on communicating stress or question vs statement.