Scrabble letter distributions
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Many editions of the word board game Scrabble vary in the letter distribution of the tiles, because the frequency of each letter of the alphabet is different for every language. As a general rule, the rarer the letter the more points it is worth.
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English
English language editions of Scrabble contain 100 letter tiles, in the following distribution:
- 2 "blank" tiles (scoring 0 points)
- 1 point: E (12), A (9), I (9), O (8), R (6), N (6), T (6), L (4), S (4) U (4)
- 2 points: D (4), G (3)
- 3 points: B (2), C (2), M (2), P (2)
- 4 points: F (2), H (2), V (2), W (2), Y (2)
- 5 points: K (1)
- 8 points: J (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), Z (1)
It is interesting to note that the distribution of letters has not changed since Alfred Mosher Butts invented the game in 1938. Note that only four S's exist, even though S is a common letter in English. This was done to reduce opportunities of forming plurals.
German
German language editions of Scrabble contain 102 letter tiles, in the following distribution:
- 2 blanks (scoring zero points)
- 1 point: E (15), N (9), S (7), I (6), R (6), T (6), U (6), A (5), D (4)
- 2 points: H (4), G (3), L (3), O (3)
- 3 points: M (4), B (2), W (1), Z (1)
- 4 points: C (2), F (2), K (2), P (1)
- 6 points: Ä (1), J (1), Ü (1), V (1)
- 8 points: Ö (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), Y (1)
But before 1989-1990, German sets have more tiles, 119 to be exact. Eight tiles were played at a time, as opposed to the standard seven today. Here is the old letter distribution:
- 2 blanks (scoring zero points)
- 1 point: E (16), N (10), S (8), I (9), R (7), U (6), A (6), D (6)
- 2 points: H (5), G (3), L (4), O (4), T (5), W (2), C (4)
- 3 points: M (4), B (2), Z (2), K (2), F (3)
- 4 points: P (1), V (1)
- 5 points: Ü (1)
- 6 points: Ä (1), J (1)
- 8 points: Ö (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), Y (1)
French
French language editions of Scrabble contain 102 tiles, instead of the usual 100, because initially the two blanks were omitted from French-language Scrabble sets. Diacritical marks are ignored in the French version.
- 2 blanks (scoring zero points)
- 1 point: E (15), A (9), I (8), N (6), O (6), R (6), S (6), T (6), U (6), L (5)
- 2 points: D (3), G (2)
- 3 points: B (2), C (2), M (3), P (2)
- 4 points: F (2), H (2), V (2)
- 8 points: J (1), Q (1)
- 10 points: K (1), W (1), X (1), Y (1), Z (1)
Romanian
Romanian language editions of Scrabble also ignore diacritical marks, that is Ă and  are played as A, Î as I, Ş as S and Ţ as T, even though the letters bearing diacriticals are technically letters in their own right.
- 2 blanks (a.k.a. jokers scoring zero points)
- 1 point: A (11), I (10), E (9), R (7), T (7), N(6), U (6), C (5), O (5), S (5), L (4)
- 2 points: D (4), P (4)
- 4 points: M (3)
- 8 points: F (2), V (2)
- 9 points: B (2), G (2)
- 10 points: H (1), J (1), X (1), Z (1)
Spanish
Despite the spelling reforms in Spanish, the letter distribution in Spanish versions of Scrabble is generally unchanged with 100 tiles. Below is the standard letter distribution of sets available in Europe. In this case, stress accents are disregarded.
- 2 blanks (a.k.a. comodines scoring zero points)
- 1 point: A (12), E (12), I (6), L (4), N (5), O (9), R (5), S (6), T (4), U (5)
- 2 points: D (5), G (2)
- 3 points: B (2), C (4), M (2), P (2)
- 4 points: F (1), H (2), V (1), Y (1)
- 5 points: CH (1), Q (1)
- 8 points: J (1), LL (1), Ñ (1), RR (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Z (1)
Note that the letters "K" and "W" are absent since these two letters are rarely used in Spanish words. According to FISE (Federacion Internacional de Scrabble Español) rules, a blank cannot be used to represent "K" or "W". However in Spanish-language sets sold in North America (known as Scrabble - Edicion en Español), there are one "K" tile and one "W" tile, each worth 8 points.
Using one C and one H tile in place of the CH tile, two L tiles for the LL tile, and two R tiles for the RR tile are also not allowed in Spanish Scrabble (see rules in Spanish provided by the FISE) (http://scrabbel.org.uy/fise/reglamento.htm).
Catalan
Catalan language editions of Scrabble ignore tildes and umlauts, that is "À" is played as "A", "É" and "È" as "E", "Í" and "Ï" as "I", "Ó" and "Ò" as "O" and "Ú" and "Ü" as "U". Nevertheless, there are special tiles for other Catalan letters, such as "Ç" (ce trencada) and "L·L" (ela geminada), as well as the digraph "NY". "Q" is often used as "QU", as the letter "Q" never occurs alone, except for a few foreign words, as qatarià.
- 2 blanks (a.k.a. jokers scoring zero points)
- 1 point: A (12), E (13), I (8), L (4), N (6), O (5), R (8), S (8), T (5), U (4)
- 2 points: C (3), D (3), M (3)
- 3 points: B (2), G (2), P(2)
- 4 points: F (1), V (1)
- 8 points: H (1), J (1), Q (1), Z (1)
- 10 points: Ç (1), L·L (1), NY (1), X (1)
