Spoken Languages Convey Information at the Same Rate, Study Finds

By Jennifer Walter
Sep 4, 2019 5:07 PMNov 19, 2019 12:44 AM
People-Talking
(Credit: Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock)

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It’s no surprise that English sounds different than Japanese. Different characters, syllables and grammatical rules are just the tip of the iceberg for what sets these languages apart. But there is one commonality between the two: The amount of information a native speaker will convey in a given amount of time is almost exactly the same.

In a report published today in Science Advancesresearchers found that, across 17 different languages, roughly the same amount of information was passed along every second while speaking.

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