Every volunteer recorded

the following phrase

in his or her

language:

LANGUAGEthe speed of

Ever wondered why some languages sound like they’re spoken much faster than others?

Japanese sounds faster than German, Spanish certainly sounds faster than English.

Yet, if you watch a dubbed foreign movie, the translated dialogue matches with the original

exactly—even seemingly to the actors’ mouth movement.

WHEN THEY SET OUT TO COMPLETE A STUDY ON THE SPEED OF LANGUAGE.

WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?

were wondering,

That’s pretty much what three researchers at UNIVERSITE

DE LYON

They gathered up

with an overall duration of:

volunteers

recordings

Each of whom spoke one of

And made

languages:

29 WOMEN

30 MEN

150 MINUTES

E N G L I S HF R E N C HG E R M A NI T A L I A NJ A PA N E S EM A N DA R I NS P A N I S H

The researchers counted all the syllables in each of the recordings and analyzed how much meaning each syllable conveyed—called the "density" of a syllable, and,it turns out:

that i wandered down the garden for a breath of fresh air.

Last night I opened the front door to let the cat out.

IT WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL EVENING

while i was trying to force the door open!

THEN I HEARD A CLICK AS THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND ME. I REALIZED I’D LOCKED MYSELF OUT.

TO CAP IT ALL, I WAS ARRESTED

WHAT DID THEY FIND?SOYou can compare the speed of the languages:

is indeed faster than 7.82 syllables/sec

SPANISH6.19

syllables/sec

ENGLISH

5.18 syllables/sec

CHINESE take it easy...The

“outspeak” us all.

7.84 syllables/sec

JAPANESEWhile the

take a look at their information density**Vietnamese is set as the base density of 1.

and it turns out...

0.63 SPANISH

0.91 ENGLISH

0.94CHINESE

0.49 JAPANESE

(least dense)

(most dense)

AND MORE DENSE LANGUAGES SOUND

L E S S D E N S E

L A N G U A G E S

S O U N D

IN OTHER WORDS

we may speak languages that sound vastly different,

BUT IN THE END

we’re all saying the same thing.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2091477,00.html