--- Forwarded Message from "David Pankratz" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 10:46:15 -0600
>From: "David Pankratz" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: #5382.3 WPM Across Languages (!)

Oh boy, Ursula, you really opened a can of worms with this one, but I
know that you like that... <grin>

My linguistics-oriented ponderings, now somewhat sluggish, tell me
that it really gets dicey when one starts talking about "words" across
languages, as you already suspected. You mentioned "syntactical
units", and then the concept of morphemes comes up, which are often
thought of as "little units of meaning," but this doesn't always work
either. (What is the "ras" is rasberry?)

I began wondering if maybe the best way to measure speed would be to
do it by measuring "syllables", i.e.,  units of sound, but then again,
syllables may be longer or shorter in some languages depending upon
the range of sounds available to that language.

There seems to be do doubt that when comparing speakers of a single
language, speed varies quite a bit. Living in Chicago has sped up my
English, as my old friends in Colorado are quick to point out. And I
don't think anyone would deny that New York city residents should win
some prizes in this category.

And to take this discussion really adrift, a friend of mine has
software designed to slow down music _without_ changing the pitch,
which may be of interest to us with regard to slowing down language
recordings without making them sound like the speaker is sedated...

As always, thanks for the interesting question.

David Pankratz
Loyola University Chicago