Omnibus sodalibus lectoribusque salutem!
Amadeus and I have in the past discussed the velocity of spoken Latin. Amadeus being a native speaker of Spanish, and myself fluent in Italian, we both are accustomed to a certain rapidity of syllables in Romance tongues. Latin shares a good deal in common with Italian and Spanish, but the glaring difference is that Latin possesses long syllables independent of stress, unlike its daughter languages. Last year I recorded a simple, conversational Latin at a high rate of speed while still accounting for long and short syllables for my Latin rendition of Abbot and Costello's "Who's On First?":
http://www.lehigh.edu/~lar2/laureola/quisinprimast.mp3
I am now reading some Cicero outloud to myself, one of his speeches, and I wondered at the sheer length of the work! People had to stand for a long time to hear all this, I thought — or did they?
And it occurred to me that we all, as linguists, might determine the approximate speed of Cicero's Latin, based on some estimate as to how long one of his speeches might have been. Are these speeches copied verbatim or nearly so from the original, such that the number of words is about the same as per a true oration? Then we find out for how long Cicero, or any orator, might typically speak in the Forum or the Senate. From there we can attempt to read viva voce any given oration within that time limit, thereby determining the rate of speaking for Cicero in an oratory context. This will give us not a little insight into the sermo Latinus, I believe.
I'm open to ideas about how to go about this.