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.