
The language you speak changes how informative you can be - respinal
https://qz.com/1704964/differences-in-languages-change-how-informative-you-can-be/
======
ColinWright
This discussion is probably relevant:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20880789](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20880789)

------
pdonis
The title of the article seems misleading: the actual point of the article is
that all languages convey information at basically the same rate, because
variations in information density are cancelled out by variations in speech
rate.

~~~
smitty1e
It would be interesting to consider word length, as well.

Longer words would seem to convey more information.

~~~
pdonis
But you can speak fewer of them in a given time, so the rate of information
exchange would still be basically the same. The paper does consider the number
of available phonemes and syllables in different languages, which presents a
tradeoff along the same lines.

~~~
smitty1e
Sure, available phonemes. But that seems indirectly related at best to the
number of phonemes per word, and the number of words.

Simply put: is there more information per page of a romance novel than a
textbook?

The former is going to be closer to common speech. Or, if somebody speaks like
a textbook, they may lack an audience.

But does Mr. Textbook convey more information?

~~~
pdonis
_> that seems indirectly related at best to the number of phonemes per word,
and the number of words._

I wasn't saying they were the same, just that the tradeoff presented was
similar.

 _> is there more information per page of a romance novel than a textbook?_

I don't think these are even comparable since they are written for different
purposes. But in any case this comparison is not the kind of comparison the
article is talking about.

~~~
smitty1e
Not the first time I have completely misunderstood the question, then.

