Notation
How the linguascale works
Every entry in the Register carries a code. Read left to right, it walks you down the classification one level at a time.
Take 53-AAA-eab, the code for the standard written form of Russian.
5— the sector. Sector 5 is INDO-EUROPEAN, a phylosector: its members are grouped because they descend from a common ancestor.53— the zone. Zone 53 is SLAVIC. Zones run 00 to 99 across the whole scale, ten to a sector.-A— the set, the first grouping inside the zone.-AA— the chain, a closer grouping inside that set.-AAA— the net, the tightest grouping of closely related languages.-e— the outer language: what everyday speech would call "a language".-ea— the inner language: a variety inside it.-eab— the named variety itself.
Two consequences follow, and they are the reason the notation exists. First, any two codes can be compared at a glance: share the first two digits and the languages sit in the same zone; share five characters and they are in the same net. Second, a code can be truncated. 53-AAA is a perfectly good address — it just points at a whole net rather than one variety.
An = after the digits marks a sector or a zone as a whole: 5= is the Indo-European sector, 53= the Slavic zone.