Comments for Voices In The Factory: Page 1

Miracles51031, thanks for corroboration of the phenomenon.

In the recently submitted account "Unfamiliar Voices and Other Odd Things" submitted by Enlightened1959, she says the same thing, (I hope she does not mind me quoting her story) " nor could we figure out what was being said even though it sounded like they were speaking English".

It seems that languages can be identified by an inherent recognizable pattern that supersedes comprehension, for this purpose.

RC and Kindly_refrain - every time I have heard muffled sounding voices, or even those that are loud enough to clearly hear yet I am unable to figure out what they are saying, I know they are speaking English. I can't explain how or why I know this, I just do.

Hi again Argette, perhaps it was not Kim or Scott that brought on the voices at all.

It may have been happening at other occasions. When I was alone at work I almost never used the lunch room as I had a table big enough for my lunch in the boiler room. The voices may well have been going on in the main plant without an audience while I was blissfully unaware, eating my leftovers. Although, I did walk through the plant at least once a night and never heard the voices at those times.

On the other hand it may have been the pizza that started the conversation; it was quite good.

RCRuskin, I understand your questioning our idea about the language spoken. We could not make out a word but yet we decided it was English.

I am by no means a linguistics expert by I do speak two languages well (English and Dutch) and another one poorly (French). In my early years in Toronto, Ontario I was immersed in ethnic diversity at my primary school friends' homes. There I was exposed to, Greek, Italian, Serbian, German, Punjabi, Polish, Hungarian and more.

There are so many language cues that give them away such as pace, vowel placement, rising or falling volume, burst patterns, emphasis placement, complete lack of emphasis (such as in Korean). Some I am sure are recognized at the subconscious level. There are of course many patterns within just the English language. I suspect few English speakers would mistake an Irish dialect for a Southern USA dialect even if the conversation were heard through an "incomprehensibility filter".

I do admit the possibility of being wrong about it but it just sounded like such "normal" English to me and my friends.

Ooh, that was a really scary one, Kindly!

Wonder what it was about Kim and Scott that brought on the voices?

I'm curious, being this is a phenomenon I never experienced, how you can you identify a language if you can't make out specific words? Cadence and accent has something to do with it, I would think.