alternativeLabel

AlternativeLabel is a label concept used in knowledge organization and data modeling to represent alternative lexical entries for a resource. It denotes synonyms or non-preferred terms that can be used to refer to the same concept without changing its meaning.

In standard SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), the corresponding property is skos:altLabel. Each label is a language-tagged string, and a concept may have multiple alternative labels in one or more languages. The prefLabel (preferred label) provides the canonical name in a language, while altLabel adds alternative terms that users might search for or recognize. Hidden labels (skos:hiddenLabel) may be used for internal or search purposes but are not typically displayed to end users.

Usage considerations: Use altLabel to capture common synonyms, historical terms, or domain-specific variants. Keep language tagging accurate and consistent. Avoid conflating narrow, domain-specific variants with widely accepted alternatives; maintain a clear mapping to the underlying concept. When designing multilingual vocabularies, provide at least one altLabel per language where appropriate, to support search and user recognition.

Examples: For a concept representing the vehicle, the prefLabel in English could be "vehicle"; altLabels could include "car", "automobile", and "auto". In French, the altLabel could include "véhicule" as a locale variant; depending on the scheme, "véhicule" could be a prefLabel.

See also: SKOS, skos:prefLabel, skos:altLabel, skos:hiddenLabel, aliases, labels.