Speech rhythm What is it that makes rhythm language specific? Not meter Meter is a concept taken from western music which has meter Linguists who have proposed that language has meter are from a European language background Alternative hypothesis: Languages sound rhythmically different because of different levels of acoustic-phonetic variability in the eech signal→→ variability in vowel durationsSpeech rhythm ◼ What is it that makes rhythm language specific? ◼ Not meter ◼ Meter is a concept taken from western music which has meter ◼ Linguists who have proposed that language has meter are from a European language background ◼ Alternative hypothesis: Languages sound rhythmically different because of different levels of acoustic-phonetic variability in the speech signal variability in vowel durations