Question

I understand that Oracle supports multiple character sets, but how can determine if the current 11g system where I work has that functionality enabled?

Answer 1

SELECT *
  FROM v$nls_parameters
 WHERE parameter LIKE '%CHARACTERSET';

will show you the database and national character set. The database character set controls the encoding of data in CHAR and VARCHAR2 columns. If the database supports Unicode in those columns, the database character set should be AL32UTF8 (or UTF8 in some rare cases). The national character set controls the encoding of data in NCHAR and NVARCHAR2 columns. If the database character set does not support Unicode, you may be able to store Unicode data in columns with these data types but that generally adds complexity to the system– applications may have to change to support the national character set.