> After noting how long the speakers took to get through their readings, the researchers calculated an average speech rate per language, measured in syllables/s

> After noting how long the speakers took to get through their readings, the researchers calculated an average speech rate per language, measured in syllables/second. > No matter how fast or slow, how simple or complex, each language gravitated toward an average rate of 39.15 bits per second So does this mean that we are "understanding" only those 39 bits of syllables per second, or more like we are using those 39 bits to index something like an internal address space? And if the latter is the case, how big would that address space be? It would also be cool to see this complemented with the data rate (bits/second) of emotion communicated per second and see if that increases the total effective rate of communication between people.