Different languages, similar encoding efficiency: Comparable information rates across the human communicative niche

Sure, if we want to shift topic from directness to density, but that's not a cultural difference either: all (spoken) languages famously transmit at about 39 bits per second [1]. Specific idioms, especially newer ones, might be a bit more or less information-dense, but there will always be others that make up for it. And if an idiom falls too far below the 39 B/s rate it'll get worn down over time to something shorter. If you are shortening your communication you are doing it by reducing the information content. In some cultures it's acceptable to spend longer buying bread than in others, so you might take the time to exchange more information with the baker. But that is a (to them, if not to you) valuable interaction that they have chosen to have, filled with information whose exchange is (to them) just as important as the price of bread. [1]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

I love seeing people from other countries share their own folk tales about what makes their countries special and unique. I've seen it up close in my country and I always cringed when I heard my fellow countrymen came up with these stories. In my adulthood I'm reassured that it happens everywhere and I find it endearing. On the information density of languages: it is true that some languages have a more information dense textual representation. But all spoken languages convey about the same information in the same time. Which is not all that surprising, it just means that human brains have an optimal range at which they process information. Further reading: Coupé, Christophe, et al. "Different Languages, Similar Encoding Efficiency: Comparable Information Rates across the Human Communicative Niche." Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594 Apparently human language conveys information at around 39 bits/s. You could use a similar technique as that paper to determine the information rate of a speaker and then correct it to 39 bits/s by changing the speed of the video.

Mostly unrelated, but there was a study [0] some time ago which said that the information rate of all languages was roughly the same. So if a language had more data conveyed per syllable, then it might be spoken slower for instance. 0: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

> Japanese [...] is also significantly more expressive than English is My first reaction was to doubt it because I remember reading [0] that spoken languages have roughly the same bit rate ( 39.15 bits/s on avg ). However, bit rate is far from everything (and this is also written not spoken), so could you try to explain what creates the expressiveness compared to other languages you know? [0]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

Also wrong are "a hour" and "an cats". Sometime Spanish uses one word ("hablo") where English needs two ("I speak"). Comparative analysis of language isn't taboo [1]. It's just vastly more complicated than you make out, and the specific examples you chose aren't representative enough to support any point. You're likely getting downvoted for misunderstanding basic socio-linguistic concepts that belie the confidence of your arguing: conflating biological and grammatical gender, implying that English was created by a committee of clever language designers, a focus on letters and words over concepts and comprehension. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

Communication rates are very similar across languages: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594 See also (great read): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31006626/ wrt your Spanish example: grammatical gender adds information redundancy to make it easier to process spoken language (e.g. helps with reference resolution). This redundancy enables Spanish speakers to speak at a relatively fast rate without incurring perception errors. English has fewer words but a slower speech rate. It's an optimization problem. The speech rate issue isn't as obvious if you're only looking at text, but I'd argue/speculate that lossless speech as a language evolutionary constraint has implications for learnability. tl;dr there is no communication tax, languages are basically equivalent wrt to information rate, they just solved the optimization problem of compactness vs speech rate differently

I know you're probably joking, but for those out of the loop, the result your parent was referring to is that more verbose languages have faster speakers and the two effects compensate one another pretty well. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

Here’s what appears to be an independent review of Spritz: https://www.tsw.it/wp-content/uploads/Rapid-serial-visual-pr... One of the issues with tests like these is that the companies sponsor the research and they are one-off vs long exposure studies; that is as with most interfaces with high-throughput, takes time for the mind to adjust. My guess that given human speech appears to have a universal transmission rate of around 39-bits per second, that on average that’s going to be the actual performance target: https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

I think it was 39 bits per second of information. Regardless of language. Languages with denser information are spoken slower. Vice versa. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594