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0 pointsbitdivision2y ago0 comments

Yes, I agree, Spanish is generally more verbose.

The weird one is that Latin American Spanish is spoken much slower, but with the same information per syllable (presumably). I always wondered if the information rate would actually be the same for Spanish (LATAM) and Spanish (Spain) - my suspicion is that it's lower in LATAM. Perhaps pauses and connective words could account for the difference though?

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dmoy2y ago

> always wondered if the information rate would actually be the same

As a general rule of thumb, human spoken languages all communicate about 5 bytes per second of info. The limit seems to be not because of auditory processing or verbal issues, but rather how fast someone can process thoughts.

I don't know about latam vs Spain specifically, that would be interesting. Seems unlikely that it would be more varied than e.g. English, Italian, and Japanese, which all tend towards the same ~5Bps limit.

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ihm2y ago

There's huge variation in Latin American dialects, there's definitely no universal speed of speech.

bitdivisionOP2y ago

There's definitely differences between countries and regions, and I don't have data for it, but the stereotype of Latin American Spanish being slower than Spain has by and large been true in my experience.

Do you think on average Latin American Spanish is spoken at the same speed as Spain?

Edit: And regardless of regional variations I am certain that there are Latin American regions which have a generally slower speed of speech than regions in Spain. So the thing that interests me is whether in that case the Spain Spanish has more pauses etc.

rigoleto2y ago

> Do you think on average Latin American Spanish is spoken at the same speed as Spain?

Faster in the Caribbean, slower in the Andes

asveikau2y ago

Not only that, but a lot of features of various forms of Latin American Spanish also occur in Spain, especially southern Spain which is the "root" of much of it.

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