3 ms·

This article is terrible. Here's a link to the actual paper. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6984970/pdf/aaw2594.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p

This article is terrible. Here's a link to the actual paper. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6984970/pdf/aaw2594.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6984970/pdf/aaw... Figure 1 on page 3 is incredible. I'm so annoyed the article didn't include it. It cleanly visualizes how different language families have wide ranging syllable rates but remarkably similar information rates. Honestly the entire article could be replaced with just this image. If you're really lazy here is said figure on imgur: https://i.imgur.com/QUbhBKq.png https://i.imgur.com/QUbhBKq.png

iraqmtpizza 3y ago
Wait, so the IR chart shows that italian with all its bippity-boppity conveys less bits of information per second than languages with silent final e like french and english? nuvola, nuage, clowde
- resolutebat 3y ago
  This is about spoken language, not written, so silent letters or pathological spelling (qu'est-ce que c'est?) don't matter. FWIW, the information density of written languages has also been studied, and unsurprisingly Chinese comes on top because it has 4000+ characters to express concepts with.
  - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
    Whether or not a letter is silent literally only matters when speaking/listening. Back in the day, writing was a reflection of what was spoken but in the past few centuries of orthography reform and standardization the written form has become canonical. By silent e I mean to refer to the lack of an additional syllable after the last consonant e.g. faro/loin/far, davanti/devant/before, via/voie/weye As for Chinese, I don't imagine they measured information density per brushstroke 𠔻𠔻𠔻
    - saurik 3y ago
      Per brushstroke is interesting but per unit area in the average font size is also key.
      - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        QR codes must have Mandarin beat
satellite2 3y ago
Awful and sad > There’s a technical meaning devised by a guy named Claude Shannon that involves, basically, how quickly a listener can reduce their uncertainty about the message they’re getting. This involves calculations of the number of possible syllables in a language, the relative popularity of each of those syllables, and the probability that a certain syllable will follow another. All the Shannon stuff is kind of abstract and involves a lot of math that, frankly, made my head hurt.

iraqmtpizza 3y ago

Wait, so the IR chart shows that italian with all its bippity-boppity conveys less bits of information per second than languages with silent final e like french and english? nuvola, nuage, clowde

resolutebat 3y ago
This is about spoken language, not written, so silent letters or pathological spelling (qu'est-ce que c'est?) don't matter. FWIW, the information density of written languages has also been studied, and unsurprisingly Chinese comes on top because it has 4000+ characters to express concepts with.
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago
  Whether or not a letter is silent literally only matters when speaking/listening. Back in the day, writing was a reflection of what was spoken but in the past few centuries of orthography reform and standardization the written form has become canonical. By silent e I mean to refer to the lack of an additional syllable after the last consonant e.g. faro/loin/far, davanti/devant/before, via/voie/weye As for Chinese, I don't imagine they measured information density per brushstroke 𠔻𠔻𠔻
  - saurik 3y ago
    Per brushstroke is interesting but per unit area in the average font size is also key.
    - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
      QR codes must have Mandarin beat

satellite2 3y ago

Awful and sad > There’s a technical meaning devised by a guy named Claude Shannon that involves, basically, how quickly a listener can reduce their uncertainty about the message they’re getting. This involves calculations of the number of possible syllables in a language, the relative popularity of each of those syllables, and the probability that a certain syllable will follow another. All the Shannon stuff is kind of abstract and involves a lot of math that, frankly, made my head hurt.