The MULTINATIONAL keyword defines the name of the default collation sequence for the user to be one of the International sort orders (see Teradata Vantage™ - SQL Data Manipulation Language, B035-1146).
The MULTINATIONAL parameter determines that the International sort order is to be used. This parameter returns an error unless the hashing algorithm is set to recognize diacritical characters. The MULTINATIONAL option is useful only on a European Feature Site or a Japanese language site.
On International/European sites MULTINATIONAL collation is two-level.
On Japanese language sites, collation is single-level and is always available.
MULTINATIONAL sets the collation for the session to an international sort sequence that is compatible with either a diacritical character set or a Japanese character set, as described in Teradata Vantage™ - SQL Data Manipulation Language, B035-1146.
Each character in this collation is assigned two integer values. The first indicates the equivalence class of the character and the second indicates the ordering of the character within that class. For example, the letters LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A (Latin A) and LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE (Latin À) might belong to the same class, but are ordered differently.
The general ordering follows UNICODE ordering: Latin A precedes Latin B, and so on.
Single byte MULTINATIONAL collations, such as the Scandinavian languages and other user installed collations, are extended to include the UNICODE repertoire. The remainder of the UNICODE character repertoire collates the same as the default MULTINATIONAL collation.
When you apply MULTINATIONAL to KANJISJIS, GRAPHIC, or LATIN character data types, the result is as if the data were first converted to UNICODE and the appropriate MULTINATIONAL ordering applied.
Do not specify MULTINATIONAL collation for the KANJI1 character set. MULTINATIONAL collates KANJI1 data with only a single-level comparison rather than the proper two-level comparison.
Do not specify MULTINATIONAL collation for the Katakana EBCDIC, KanjiEBCDIC5035_I, or KanjiEBCDIC5026_0I character data types either because the definitions of MULTINATIONAL collation designed for KANJI1 data also apply to non-KANJI1 data, and the results are unpredictable. Instead, use CHARSET_COLL for sessions with these character sets.
Each international sort sequence is defined by the database administrator (and no check is made to ensure that collation is compatible with the character set of the current session) but multibyte character collation sequences cannot be changed.