Wasserlinienlänge
Wasserlinienlänge is a linguistic term that originated in the German-speaking world and refers to the length of a word or phrase as measured in terms of the number of syllables it contains when pronounced as part of a line in poetry or song. This measure is also known as "syllable length" or "metrical length".
The concept of Wasserlinienlänge is particularly relevant in the context of German poetry and songwriting, where
German linguists differentiate between several types of Wasserlinienlänge, which can be categorized according to the proportion