Biscriptality: A typology of written forms of language

Abstract

<p>The general academic opinion that the spoken form of language is paramount has resulted in the written form of language being neglected, whether deliberately or inadvertently, as a subject of serious research. More importantly, the role of written language in society and the sociolinguistic implications of the use of certain scripts, glyph shapes and orthographies have received scant attention in the literature.</p>

Recent attempts have been made to highlight the “sociolinguistics of writing” (Coulmas, 2003; Sebba, 2007). In particular, an initial step has been taken towards drawing attention to the written parallel of bilingualism, which has been termed “biscriptality” (Bunčić, 2016). Biscriptality refers to the synchronic use of two or more script, glyph or orthographic variants in writing a particular language. The distribution and occurrence of such variation in written language is illustrated with the help of a 3×3 matrix (Bunčić, 2016). This matrix classifies variation in said parameters as status-based, ethnogeographical, or ‘free’.