Which language has the fastest speaking speed?

Several studies have asked this question and come to the same answer.

When learning a new language, it's easy to get the impression that native speakers can spit out sentences much faster than your brain can process them. Surely you don't speak a new language quickly in your mother tongue, right? Rest assured, this isn't necessarily due to your poor language skills or linguistic relativism - some languages ​​may actually be "faster" than others.

Of course, speaking speed can vary from person to person. Some people just speak slowly, while others spit out words like a machine gun. Likewise, most people will vary the pace of their speaking depending on the context, their mood, etc.

However, one of the most widely accepted ways to study the speed of language is the number of syllables per second. Many linguistic studies have looked at this data, and many different researchers have come to the same conclusion: Japanese is the fastest language.

Japanese is the fastest language.

A 2011 study by researchers at the University of Lyon looked at seven different languages ​​and ranked them by syllables per second. Japanese ranks first with 7.84 syllables per second, followed by Spanish ( 7.82 syllables per second), French (7.18 syllables per second), Italian (6.99 syllables per second) per second), English (6.19 syllables per second), German (5.97 syllables per second), and Mandarin (5.18 syllables per second).

Interestingly, the perceptual speed of a language may also be related to the amount of information it can encode.

Another study by the University of Lyon in 2019 looked at 17 different languages ​​across Europe and Asia in terms of information per syllable. Although Japanese seems to be spoken quickly, it does not contain much information in each syllable. Perhaps, researchers are also looking at another aspect, which is that language is spoken faster in order to make sentences more meaningful.

"We found strong evidence that some languages ​​are spoken faster than others (for example, Japanese and Spanish speakers produce about 50% more syllables than Vietnamese speakers and Thai). Additionally, some languages ​​can 'pack' more information per syllable due to their phonology and grammar (e.g. English has a greater number of syllable types around 11 times compared to Japanese) ," Dan Dediu, co-author of the 2019 study, said in a statement.

Some languages ​​may actually be "faster" than others.

An older study from the 1960s compared the speaking rates of six Japanese speakers and six American English speakers, concluding that there were no significant differences in speaking rates between the two groups.

It is worth noting that these linguistic studies have focused on European and East Asian languages ​​and ignored the thousands of other diverse languages ​​that exist in the world. While it is true that nearly half of the world's population speaks one of the ten most common languages ​​as their mother tongue, on our planet there are many more curious and wonderful languages, capable of The ability to challenge all assumptions.

7 fastest spoken languages

1. Japanese

Japanese is the fastest spoken language, with a rate of 7.84 syllables per second. Japanese is often spoken at such a fast pace due to the unique syllabic structure and condensed nature of the words. For example, the Japanese word for "thank you " is "arigatou" , which contains fewer syllables than the English equivalent.

2. Spanish

Spanish closely follows Japanese, at a rate of 7.82 syllables per second. Compared to English, Spanish tends to be spoken faster.

3. French

French is only slightly behind Spanish at a rate of 7.18 syllables per second. Although a bit slower than Spanish and Japanese, French can still be spoken at a fast pace. For example, the French word "restaurant" is similar to the English word but is pronounced with fewer syllables.

4. Italian

Italian is relatively slower than Spanish and French, at 6.99 syllables per second. However, it is still faster than English in many cases. The Italian word "ciao" (hello/goodbye) is a concise example with fewer syllables than its English equivalent.

5. English

English has a rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Compared to some of the languages ​​mentioned, English tends to have more syllables in words. For example, the English word "television" has more syllables than the Spanish word "television."

6. German

German, has a rate of 5.97 syllables per second. German often has longer and more complex words than English. For example, "krankenhaus" (hospital) in German contains more syllables than in English.

7. Mandarin

Mandarin takes the spot as the slowest recorded of the seven fastest languages, with a rate as low as 5.18 syllables per second. Mandarin's slower pace is partly due to its tonal nature and the use of characters instead of the alphabet, making each word more complex.