Name: Solademi Joel Oludamilola

MATRIC NO: 228764

To start with, in phonetics, rhythm is the sense of movement in speech, marked by the stress,
timing, and quantity of syllables.

English has stress-timed rhythm. A stress-timed language is a language where the stressed
syllables are said at approximately regular intervals, and unstressed syllables shorten to fit this
rhythm.

The rhythm of English differs from that of Yoruba which is a syllabletimed language, due to
variations in phonetics, syllabic structure.

In English, while "educational" is stressed as eduCAtional, "understand" as "underSTAND"

Tonal markers or tonality help in distinguishing the meaning of words. E.g "owo" could mean
"hand", "respect", "broom" or the name of a town based on the intonation. This tonal pattern
contribute to the flow of rhythm.

Example:* "Happy birthday" (stressed syllables: HAP-py BIRTH-day).

- **Yoruba and Igbo:** Yoruba and Igbo, on the other hand, are syllable-timed languages.
Each syllable takes roughly the same amount of time, creating a more even rhythm.
*Example (Yoruba):* "Ẹ kú àárọ̀ " (syllables: Ẹ-ku-àárọ̀ ).
*Example (Igbo):* "Ndewo" (syllables: N-de-wo)

Yoruba and Igbo are tonal languages, meaning that the pitch or tone of a word can change its
meaning. The tonal patterns contribute to the rhythmic flow of these languages.