A Comparison of Rhythm in English Dialects and Music

Abstract
Informal Observations have Often been Made That a country's language is reflected in its instrumental music. Limited research exists studying similarities between the rhythmic characteristics of French music and language on the one hand and British music and language on the other. Our research compares the rhythmic characteristics of the music and English dialects of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, County Donegal in Ireland, and the state of Kentucky, examining spontaneous speech and unscored musical recordings from the same people. We found that rhythmic characteristics are correlated in the speech and music in each dialect area.