The literal character set is the character set SQL uses for unqualified character string literals. You can specify the literal character set only for a session or a module by using the SET LITERAL CHARACTER SET statement or the LITERAL CHARACTER SET clause of the SQL module header, the DECLARE MODULE statement, or the DECLARE ALIAS statement. When inserting data into a column, you must qualify the literal with the same character set with which you defined the column. For example, suppose that the literal character set of the module is DEC_MCS. If the column ENGLISH is defined as data type DEC_MCS, SQL returns an error when you execute the following statement: SQL> INSERT INTO COLOURS cont> (ENGLISH) cont> VALUES cont> (_DEC_KANJI'Black'); %SQL-F-INCCSASS, Incompatible character set assignment between ENGLISH and <value expression> SQL>