Biscriptality

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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.