Multialphabetism
Encyclopedia
The term multialphabetism describes parallel use of different alphabets. One can discriminate between
  • Multialphabetic languages, e.g. Japanese
    Japanese writing system
    The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...

     which uses logograms (Kanji
    Kanji
    Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

    ) as well as syllabaries (Hiragana
    Hiragana
    is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

    , Katakana
    Katakana
    is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

    ), or Latin letters (Romaji).
  • Languages (or groups of closely related languages) that are written sometimes in one, sometimes in another alphabet. For example, Serbian street signs are either in Latin or in Cyrillic, with no preference. Moldovan is officially written in Latin (as being virtually identical to Romanian), but also in Cyrillic, in certain parts of Moldova (considering the former Russian influence).
  • Multialphabetism as a result of multilingualism
    Multilingualism
    Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...

     in the context of migration, especially if the languages learned are based not on varieties of the same alphabet but on different scripts (e.g. Latin/Cyrillic, Latin/Arabic).
  • Multialphabetism as an expression of intercultural competence
    Intercultural competence
    Intercultural competence is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures.A person who is interculturally competent captures and understands, in interaction with people from foreign cultures, their specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling and acting...

    , e.g. correct representation of names from other Latin alphabets with all required diacritical marks and special characters in print and online media (Potočnik
    Janez Potocnik
    Janez Potočnik is a Slovenian politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Environment. He was formerly the Slovenia's Minister for European Affairs....

     instead of Potocnik, Guðmundsdóttir
    Björk
    Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

     instead of Gudmundsdottir).
  • Multialphabetism as a result of interoperability in the ICT sector, especially in E-Government
    EGovernment
    E-Government is digital interactions between a government and citizens , government and businesses/Commerce , government and employees , and also between government and governments /agencies...

    . Thanks to increasing use of the international Unicode
    Unicode
    Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

    character set (ISO 10646), data can be exchanged across borders without damaging the information (Potočnik will no longer turn into Potocnik, Poto?nik or Potoènik).

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