Speech Rhythms in Children Learning Two Languages

Abstract

AbstractIn an increasingly global world where large populations of children acquire two languages there is very little information on when bilingual children exhibit speech rhythms that are language-specific. We examine the rhythmic features of speech from 70 children between 5 and 8 years, learning two languages, English and Hindi and 11 adults who are fluent speakers of both languages. We relate variability in syllable duration to speech rhythm and find that adults exhibit significant differences in durational variability between the two languages.We estimate syllable durations and calculate durational variability for both languages and find that at 5 years children exhibit similar durational variability for both English and Hindi. However around 7 years of age we find that durational variability for English becomes significantly larger than that of Hindi. Our findings are in accordance with the rhythmic classification of Hindi and English as syllable- and stress-timed languages respectively wherein durational variability is greater in stress-timed languages (English) than in syllable-timed languages (Hindi). We therefore suggest that children learning two languages exhibit characteristic speech rhythms around 7 years of age.KeywordsLanguage rhythmHindiEnglishChildrenSyllable durationBilingual