I was reading yesterday that Fawlty Towers was such a fast-paced sitcom that it had scripts that were twice as long as the average. And it made me wonder whether there are any languages where either the words and phrases themselves are shorter, or the speech itself is quicker, so that the people of that country actually say *more* to each other than anyone else.

And if so, are they more advanced? Or less? I have been worried for a while that the western world is reaching a level of decadence not seen since the end of the Roman Empire. There's a lesson in there somewhere...