How to use our Letter Frequency Counter
Start by entering some text into the text-box, either by typing or pasting. In the table below the text-box the frequency of all 26 letters will display in real-time. Feel free to sort this data by using the sort drop-down. You can sort the date in the table alphabetically or by percentage of occurrences.
If you want to distinguish between lowercase and uppercase, check the checkbox and instead of displaying just 26 letters it will display 52 letters of both cases.
Below the table is a "Download as CSV" button that allows you to download the contents of the table in a .csv spreadsheet format, allowing you to open it up in a spreadsheet editor like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
Why use a letter frequency counter?
This letter frequency counter presents obvious benefits for linguists. Statistical frequency is a dominant subject in morphological and phonetic studies. If a linguist can upload several texts into the tool they can make generalizations about the source of the texts. If hundreds of texts can be uploaded in the tool, then generalization can be made about a language.
Now, one fascinating result would be if a normally uncommon letter like "x" was found at a more frequent rate in a text. Natural questions would be: "Is the frequency just a coincidence or is the author using the letter symbolically? Are there certain parts of the text where this letter is featured more prominently? How does this text compare to other texts by the same author?"
Benefit to speech pathologists
One adaptation of the tool would be for speech pathologists. The tool could perhaps integrate a speech recognition tool that would transcribe speech. Then, the letter frequency tool would break down consonants by frequency. It would significantly reduce the work of the speech pathologist in identifying any irregularities in speech patterns and significantly speed up time to diagnosis.
This letter frequency counter would also benefit linguistic ethnographers who are tasked with creating the consonant and vocalic inventories of newly discovered languages. This tool would do the heavy lifting of delimiting the number of consonants and vowels a language has. Functionality to ingest video and audio clips would eliminate the need to subscribe to a middle man transcription service, increasing the profitability of the letter frequency counter tool.
Spreadsheet analysis
Now, in terms of data representation, having the data aligned in spreadsheet form allows for the easy ingestion of data into statistical computing programs such as R and ANOVA. The data could also be worked with in a number of programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, C++, etc. However, the tool should have built-in tools for analysis, as well, similar to Tableau. Most specialists do not want or have time to learn how to program or use sophisticated analysis tools to analyze their data.
Benefits to making writing unique
We are witnessing a revolution in how language can be created and analyzed. With the emergence of AI-generated content based on large language models (LLM), like Chat GTP, Claude, etc., however, the crafting of language is becoming almost trivial and fraudulent. Therefore, there is a need for a tool that can help to make writing unique again, to set it apart from these LLMs.
One such tool could determine the frequency and number of letters in text to aid in the implementation by writers of alliteration in their prose, poetry, or music lyrics. I have tried such a task in the LLM Clauade.ai. Let's look at my query and Claude's answer.
My prompt: Give me 20 words that all have r as the third letter and analyze these words in terms of frequency within the general corpus of the English language.
Here is Claude's reply:
"Here are 20 words that have 'r' as the third letter:
1. Dare
2. Fare
3. Hare
4. Lard
5. Parch
6. Yard
7. Barge
8. Garb
9. Harp
10. Marsh
11. Pardon
12. Tarnish
13. Barnacle
14. Carnival
15. Gargoyle
16. Hardship
17. Marmalade
18. Parsnip
19. Warrant
20. Wildebeest
In terms of frequency within the general corpus of the English language:
- Words like "dare," "fare," "hare," "yard," "barge," "harp," "pardon," and "warrant" are fairly common and high-frequency words in English.
- Words like "lard," "parch," "garb," "marsh," "tarnish," and "hardship" are moderately common, appearing with decent frequency.
- Less common words include "barnacle," "carnival," "gargoyle," "marmalade," "parsnip," and "wildebeest." These are more specialized or technical terms that appear less frequently in general usage."
Claude's reasoning:
"The prevalence of the 'r' sound as the third letter in these words is likely due to the frequency of this consonant cluster in the English language. Many common words contain this 'ar' or 'er' sound pattern, which contributes to the regularity of this letter placement.
Interestingly, some of the more uncommon words on the list, like "gargoyle," "marmalade," and "wildebeest," still maintain this 'r' as the third letter structure, demonstrating the consistency and productivity of this phonetic pattern in English word formation, even for less common lexical items."
While this is an impressive response, one that would take hours for me to complete without the help of an LLM, there are obvious problems. First, Claude does not succeed in giving me a frequency analysis, simply saying these words or more or less common, which is not what I wanted. Second, there is the hallucination "wildebeest", which has no 'r' at all.
This underscores the need for a tool that can provide an accurate analysis of the position of letters in a word.
How can a letter frequency counter benefit writers and linguists?
Specifically, the features of assonance – word with the same initial vowel sound – and consonance – words with the same initial consonant sound, are literary devices used by authors to make their writing more musical. A tool that could categorize word forms according to initial letter (similar to a dictionary) or on the syllabic level would be extremely useful. For example, the famous lines from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven": "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore."
The assonance of "once" and "upon" are echoed in "pondered", creating a musical start to the lines. However, only "once" has this sound in its initial position. The other two do not occur as the first letter of the word. Poe also uses consonance to underscore the prolonged time and fatigue of the narrator: "while", "weak", and "weary". The words, combined with the literary devices, which are dependent on the use of matching letters (phonemes), create a sense of hopelessness and dread.
Another well-know example is William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger": "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night".
Here, Blake repeats the tense diphthong /ɑɪ/, which, in contrast to the lax vowels and weak bilabial sounds in Poe's lines, create a musicality that is infused with the power of the titular animal.
These are examples from poetry, and there is limited profitability there, admittedly. However, a tool that could analyze letter frequency for songwriters would be vastly more profitable. Songwriters could use the letter frequency counter to create more unique lyrics that benefit from customizable searches based on the position of a letter within a word, on the segmental level or on the syllabic level; the latter probably being more valuable in terms of assonance and consonance.
Thanks for using the letter frequency counter tool!
If you need a frequency counter that includes all characters, feel free to use our character frequency counter. Or if you need a frequency of words you can use our word frequency counter. Good luck on your letter frequency analysis!