Biscriptality

You are here: Home Page > Concept > Terminology

Terminology

On the basis of Daniel Bunčić’s habilitation thesis, a terminology for describing sociolinguistic situations with two (or more) written forms for one language was proposed for the conference and modified for the collective monograph. The technical terms for the nine basic situation types can be translated easily into different languages, since they are formed with Greek and Latin material (e.g. diorthographia can be rendered as Swedish diortografi, glyphic pluricentricity as French pluricentrisme glyphique or bigraphism as Croatian bigrafizam).

However, it is suggested that the cover term for the phenomenon as a whole be a native word, which is formed in analogy to the one for bilingualism and usually contains the root of the respective word for writing or script. Expressions containing the word for alphabet, though frequently used (e.g. English bialphabetism or Serbian dvoazbučnost), are discouraged because a technical term is supposed to be gloabally applicable, hence also to non-alphabetic writing systems (e.g. syllabaries).

The following expressions might be used:

	Two written forms (noun; adj.)	More written forms (noun; adj.)	Alternatives (deprecated)
Belarusian	двупісьмовасць (dvupis’movasc’); двупісьмовы (dvupis’movy)	шматпісьмовасць (šmatpis’movasc’); шматпісьмовы (šmatpis’movy)	двухпісьмовасць (dvuxpis’movasc’), двухпісьмовы (dvuxpis’movy)
Bosnian	dvopismenost; dvopismen	višepismenost; višepismen
Chinese	双文制 (shuāngwénzhì)	多文制 (duōwénzhì)	双文字 (shuāngwénzì), 多文字 (duōwénzì), 两种文字的 (liǎngzhǒngwénzìde)
Croatian	dvopismenost; dvopismen	višepismenost; višepismen	tropismen, biskripturalnost
Czech	dvojpísmovost, dvojpísmový	vícepísmovost, vícepísmový
Dutch	tweeschriftigheid; tweeschriftig	meerschriftigheid; meerschriftig	multiscriptief
English	biscriptality; biscriptal	multiscriptality; multiscriptal	bialphabetic, multialphabetism, biscriptual, biscriptural, biscriptalism, multiscriptive, multi-writing system
Esperanto	duskribismo; duskriba	plurskribismo; plurskriba
French	biscripturalité; biscriptural	multiscripturalité; multiscriptural	bialphabétique
German	Zweischriftigkeit; zweischriftig	Mehrschriftigkeit; mehrschriftig	bialphabetisch
Greek	διγραφισμός· διγραφικός	πολυγραφισμός· πολυγραφικός	διαλφαβητικός
Italian	biscritturalità; biscritturale	multiscritturalità; multiscritturale
Norwegian	toskriftlighet, toskriftlig	flerskriftlighet, flerskriftlig
Polish	dwupismowość; dwupismowy	wielopismowość; wielopismowy
Russian	двуписьменность (dvupis’mennost’); двуписьменный (dvupis’mennyj)	многописьменность (mnogopis’mennost’); многописьменный (mnogopis’menny)	двуалфавитный (dvualfavitnyj), двухалфавитный (dvuchalfavitnyj), двухписьменный (dvuxpis’mennyj)
Swedish	tvåskriftlighet; tvåskriftlig	flerskriftlighet, flerskriftlig
Serbian	двописменост, dvopismenost; двописмен, dvopismen	вишеписменост, višepismenost; вишеписмен, višepismen	двоазбучност, dvoazbučnost

Additions (and corrections, if necessary) are very welcome: webmaster@biscriptality.org.