I have always wondered if transmission bitrate remains the same for the same language, spoken at seemingly different speeds.

There is that stereotype that french-speaking Swiss people speak slower than French ones. In my experience I find it valid, but maybe I am wrong.

If this is accurate, I am wondering if Swiss people transmit information at the same rate as French people.

It could be that they use more precise words on average, that convey more information, even if spoken more slowly, and keeping transmission rate identical. Or that body language, intonations are richer (non verbal).

Or the spoken transmission rate may actually be slower, but as the article describes, bottleneck is about structuring the ideas, and Swiss speakers, on average, may be more efficient/deliberate at that, instinctively/culturally.

I don't have enough experience speaking with Swiss nationals to verify my anecdotal theories... if anyone can chime in...

▲

MadcapJake 8 days ago | parent [-]

I'm sorry, but this is essentially racism prettied up. The research is about language bitrate not about regional speaking rate variations within a language.

Tangentially, I'm relatively confident that what you're experience has provided you is simply confirmation bias. Unless French is not their first language.

	▲	brav8isgood 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree that the research is about various languages bitrates. My point is a bit different, yes, it is about total information bitrate. Maybe I am racist, but I am not sure how the speed at which one speaks is a racist trope. I sure do not look down on the Swiss, they're a pretty successful nation. Question for you: what is your relative confidence based on? On the positive, your comment invited me to check Wikipedia and I was surprised to see there are actually studies about some of this. They seem to confirm the stereotype. Belgian and Parisian seem to have a higher syllable/ms rate than several Swiss counties, with some caveats. [1] But no, it does not talk about total information bitrate, that is much more subjective. Maybe if you are a "frontalier" and have some anecdotal experience with it, I'm curious. [1] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ais_de_Suisse "Après examen des différentes études, le stéréotype des Suisses qui articulent plus lentement que les Parisiens est confirmé, à quelques exceptions près"