Detect unicode downgrade fail (nvarchar to varchar)
;WITH unicodeDataSource AS ( SELECT N'Hello' AS Text , N'English' AS Language UNION ALL SELECT N'Здравствуйте' AS Text, N'Russian' AS Language UNION ALL SELECT N'こんにちは' AS Text, N'Japanese' AS Language UNION ALL SELECT N'Hallå' AS Text, N'Swedish' AS Language ) SELECT *, iif( s.Text = cast(cast(s.Text AS varchar(100)) AS nvarchar(100)) ,1,0) AS CastWasSuccessful FROM unicodeDataSource s Result Text Language CastWasSuccessful Hello English 1 Здравствуйте Russian 0 こんにちは Japanese 0 Hallå Swedish 1