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It's fascinating that while languages vary wildly by speaking speed, information transfer is fairly similar.
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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As someone who speaks both French and English, I'm surprised to see French as leading "information density" language. Most French terms have been incorporated into English. Language tends to be behind on technology terms. Language doesn't have any noticeable difference in short syllable common words to English. It also seems to me that French speakers have an easier time in being vague. I have the impression that English is more precise.
Both were massive empires. Makes sense that imperialism would put selective pressure on language. Historically you're either limited in words by space on a paper or what can be easily repeated by messengers.
I feel like the multitude of tenses in French help with being more precise.
The tenses don't add precision, IMO. There is a plural them instead of him/her but it sounds the same as the singular him/her. There is a plural you that sounds different, but there is also a polite singular you that is the plural you.
I had the same feeling. I honestly just feel like English is a junk drawer of depth borrowing various languages, but maybe average speakers don't try to dig deep into it?
In most cases, being vague requires more informational transfer. To be vague but still connected to whatever is the signified, you need to give more information around the idea rather than simply stating the idea. Think about being vague about how you feel versus being blunt about it.
Looking at the two curves, it looks like they are pretty close but French edges out English because of the speed it's spoken at.
Even when it was fresh in my mind, I was never able to follow French tv because they just go so fast.
Yeah like "qu'est-ce que c'est ?" Which is just "what's that?" (I speak both too) would never have guessed French had more information encoded, french translations are always longer too (but you don't always pronounce all ofc).
I think this moreso demonstrates how tedious written french is. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” is significantly faster to say than “what’s that?”
I’d wager if the chart was on information density per written letter or word french would be way further behind
Right, the spoken french could be written more or less as Kès-ke-cè.