skrift

Skift is a term used in Norwegian and Danish to denote a writing system or the set of characters used to write a language. It is commonly translated as script in English and can refer to any system of symbols, including Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Devanagari, or Chinese characters. The word is distinct from alfabet and can describe logographic, syllabic, or alphabetic traditions. A language may be written in more than one script.

Scripts comprise graphemes, orthographic rules, and typographic conventions. Some scripts are alphabetic, others abjads or abugidas, and others are logographic. Major scripts include Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Devanagari, Hebrew, Greek, and Chinese characters, with many regional variations. The choice of script depends on historical, linguistic, and cultural factors and may change over time; communities may adopt, revive, or standardize scripts for political or national reasons.

In contemporary usage, skrift also relates to digital text. Unicode aims to encode scripts so that writing can be stored and displayed consistently across platforms. The distinction between a script and a font remains important: a script is the system of symbols, while a font is a specific design for those symbols.

See also: writing system, orthography, Unicode.