Japanese artists with the richest vocabulary

Abstract

Researchers have conducted a linguistic analysis of Japanese lyrics for many years. However, it has been focused mainly on exploratory analysis of word frequencies, word-word associations, and time-series analysis of the relationship between social context and characteristic words. On the other hand, as far as we know, there is no analysis of the vocabulary count of Japanese lyrics. In this study, we focused on it and attempted to elucidate which Japanese artist has the richest vocabulary. We evaluated the vocabulary count per 1,000 words of lyrics for 100 legends with the highest single sales ranking and 72 modern stars with the highest streaming ranking. The results showed that Wednesday's Campanella has the richest vocabulary. Single regression analysis also revealed that modern stars had richer vocabulary than legends. This study provides new insights into contemporary Japanese culture by analyzing Japanese lyrics from the quantitative perspective of vocabulary count.