Speech timing is the academic field and concept concerned with the temporal organization of spoken language. This area investigates the durations of phonetic segments, syllables, words, and phrases, as well as the durational characteristics and placement of pauses, and the overall rate and rhythm of speech production. It is a crucial concept for understanding the acoustic-phonetic realization of linguistic structure, the motor control processes underlying articulation, and the perceptual cues for prosody, rhythm, and intelligibility.