R: [SEELANGS] Reading Speed in Slovenian

[E Wayles Browne]

Two or three special things about standard Slovenian:
Its syllables tend to have fewer consonants before and after the vowel than
Russian and Polish syllables do (nothing like Russian vstre-cha or Polish
z'dz'bło).
It distinguishes long and short vowels, and in all instances when the
stressed syllable is not the final syllable of the word, the stressed
syllable gets to have a long vowel in it, so VOda has long O, sloVEnija has
long E, naSPROtje 'opposition' has long O, etc. That makes words seem to be
said more slowly.
But the total number of syllables in a word is often less than the
corresponding Russian or Polish word.
About the tones: some speakers of standard Slovenian distinguish them, other
speakers don't distinguish them. Both pronunciations are considered
"standard."


--
Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.

tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu

>

> 
> Did they test also Serbo-Croat? Did they test if in Slovenian stressed
> syllables are pronounced slower than stressed syllables in Russian and
> Polish? It's nothing scientific, but my ears suggest that very often
> stressed syllables in tonal languages are pronounced slower than in related
> languages without tonal stress. I don't know Slovenian, but I've read that
> stressed syllables in Slovenian have a tonal pattern as in Serbo-Croat. I
> believe Slovenian and Serbo-Croat are the only modern Slavic languages with
> a tonal stress. Maybe there is a relationship, maybe not. If possible I
> would test this hypothesis.
> 
> To my ears the same pattern appears also in Scandinavian languages, both in
> the tonal stress of Norwegian and Swedish, and in the creaky voice on some
> stressed syllables in Danish.
> 
> Luciano Di Cocco
> 
>> I have received a question from a company that tested reading speed in
>> Russian,
>> Polish, and Slovenian.
>> They found that the reading speed in Slovenia (measured in syllables
>> per minute)
>> is slower than in Polish and Russian.  I mean when they looked at all
>> languages
>> in syllables per minute, Slovenian was the slowest spoken language.
>> However,
>> when they assessed the reading speed in words per minute, Slovenian was
>> in
>> middle range.
>> 
>> They wonder: could it be that syllables are pronounced in a more
>> prolonged/stretched way in Slovenian? Or could it be that syllables are
>> longer
>> (include more letters per syllable) compared to Russian and Polish?
>> For ideas please back channel.
>> Psy Ling
> 

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