INTELLIGIBILITY OF SPEECH COMMUNICATION AT LOW DATA RATE BY USING AN INTERMEDIATE LANGUAGE FOR TRANSMISSION

A method of processing speech representative of ideograms for speech communication using an asynchronous communication channel (21) is disclosed. The method includes the step of processing speech units of a speech and data indicative of the speech units. Each speech unit is representative of an ideogram or a plurality of semantically related ideograms (500-508). The data indicative of the speech units is discretely communicable on the asynchronous communication channel (21). By communicating the data indicative of the speech units, a substantially low data transmission rate and intelligible speech communication is achieved.