Information Density per Character in Japanese and English

• Generally, it is said that one English word is equivalent to two Japanese characters.

• English has 26 characters, while Japanese has more characters.

  • If we compare the information quantity of one English word and one Japanese character, it might be that one English word is equal to two Japanese characters.
  • Also, I’m curious about how far we can include Japanese characters to balance with one English word, considering that the frequency of Japanese characters is not uniform.

• Average word length in English:

  • https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-word-length-in-the-English-language-Different-colours-indicate-the-results-for_fig1_230764201
  • The figure shows the average word length in the English language, with different colors indicating the results for common and fiction bases, as well as for British and American bases separately.
  • 
  • For now, let’s assume it’s 4.5.
    • Therefore, 2.25 English characters are equal to one Japanese character (4.5/2).

• Average information quantity per character:

  • English: -log(1/26) = 4.7
  • Japanese: -log(1/

• This could be a topic for Math IA, but it’s outside the syllabus, so I’m a bit scared.

• #might implement it.