This paper explores the correlates of linguistic rhythm in spoken languages, focusing on the relationship between rhythm types and phonological properties. The authors present instrumental measurements based on consonant/vowel segmentation for eight languages, suggesting that intuitive rhythm types reflect specific phonological characteristics. These findings support the notion of rhythm classes and allow for the simulation of infant language discrimination, consistent with the hypothesis that newborns rely on a coarse segmentation of speech. The study also proposes a hypothesis regarding the role of rhythm perception in language acquisition. The introduction reviews the historical classification of languages into syllable-timed and stress-timed categories, highlighting the debate over the physical reality of isochrony in spoken language. It discusses the limitations of previous studies and introduces a new account of speech rhythm, proposing that rhythm types are the result of specific phonological phenomena in a given language system. The paper then presents instrumental measurements in eight languages, focusing on the duration of consecutive vowels and consonants. The results suggest that these measurements reflect rhythmic structures and support the notion of stress-, syllable-, and mora-timed languages. The authors also discuss the implications of these findings for understanding how infants perceive and discriminate languages based on rhythm. Finally, the paper confronts the behavioral data from adults and infants with the proposed model. Adults' ability to discriminate languages based on rhythm alone is assessed, and simulations are performed to predict discrimination outcomes. The simulations show high agreement with behavioral data, particularly for the English/Japanese pair, suggesting that subjects' classification scores are influenced by the vowel/consonant temporal ratio (%V). The paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the current approach and the need for further research to validate the model and explore the role of rhythm in language acquisition.This paper explores the correlates of linguistic rhythm in spoken languages, focusing on the relationship between rhythm types and phonological properties. The authors present instrumental measurements based on consonant/vowel segmentation for eight languages, suggesting that intuitive rhythm types reflect specific phonological characteristics. These findings support the notion of rhythm classes and allow for the simulation of infant language discrimination, consistent with the hypothesis that newborns rely on a coarse segmentation of speech. The study also proposes a hypothesis regarding the role of rhythm perception in language acquisition. The introduction reviews the historical classification of languages into syllable-timed and stress-timed categories, highlighting the debate over the physical reality of isochrony in spoken language. It discusses the limitations of previous studies and introduces a new account of speech rhythm, proposing that rhythm types are the result of specific phonological phenomena in a given language system. The paper then presents instrumental measurements in eight languages, focusing on the duration of consecutive vowels and consonants. The results suggest that these measurements reflect rhythmic structures and support the notion of stress-, syllable-, and mora-timed languages. The authors also discuss the implications of these findings for understanding how infants perceive and discriminate languages based on rhythm. Finally, the paper confronts the behavioral data from adults and infants with the proposed model. Adults' ability to discriminate languages based on rhythm alone is assessed, and simulations are performed to predict discrimination outcomes. The simulations show high agreement with behavioral data, particularly for the English/Japanese pair, suggesting that subjects' classification scores are influenced by the vowel/consonant temporal ratio (%V). The paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the current approach and the need for further research to validate the model and explore the role of rhythm in language acquisition.