Notation

Relatively standard prefixes and brackets for various language forms that I will be using:

*Reconstructed proto-form
**Incorrect or incorrectly predicted reconstruction
#Approximate, un-reconstructed proto-form
ˣUngrammatical form
†Historical form

[Phonetic] transcription
/Phonemic/ transcription
//Morphophonemic// transcription
‹Orthographic› form

The following predicate symbols indicate various synchronic or diachronic linguistic processes. Note that some older posts of mine use ← → in place of < >, though.

A > B / C “A develops to B, under condition C”
A → B (across languages) “A is loaned (lent?), becoming B”
A → B (within a language) “B is morphologically derived from A”
A ~ B (across languages) “A is etymologically equated with B”
A ~ B (within a language) “A varies with B”
A : B “A has an allomorph or allophone B”
A ≡ “A remains unchanged”

The following abbreviations for languages and language groups will be used frequently:

U = Uralic

WU = West Uralic

S = Samic

(…)

F = Finnic

CF = Core Finnic

Es = Estonian
Fi = Finnish
In = Ingrian
Krl = Karelian
Ve = Veps
Vo = Votic

Li = Livonian
Võ = Võro

Mo = Mordvinic

Er = Erzya
Mk = Moksha

Ma = Mari

Hi = Hill Mari
Me = Meadow Mari

P = Permic

K = Komi
KP = Komi-Permyak
Ud = Udmurt

EU = East Uralic

H = Hungarian
Ms = Mansi
Kh = Khanty
Smy = Samoyedic

En = Enets
Km = Kamass
Mt = Mator
Ne = Nenets
Ng = Nganasan
Sk = Selkup

IE = Indo-European

Gmc = Germanic
BSl = Balto-Slavic

B = Baltic
Sl = Slavic

II = Indo-Iranian
(…)

Trk = Turkic

Chv = Chuvash
Ta = Tatar
Ya = Yakut (Sakha)
(…)

Tu = Tungusic

(…)

Some general-purpose abbreviation modifier letters also apply:

EX = Eastern X
NX = Northern X
OX = Old X (only for written languages)
PX = Proto-X
SX = Southern X
WX = Western X

The following groupings, mostly traditional units of Uralic taxonomy, may also end up referenced from time to time, mainly as areal shorthand… some of them may turn out to be actual genetic units after all, but I’m betting most probably won’t.

CU = Central Uralic (Ma + P)
FP = Finno-Permic (WU + Ma + P)
FS = Finno-Samic (S + F)
FU = Finno-Ugric (WU + Ma + P + H + Ms + Kh)
FV = Finno-Volgaic (WU + Ma)
Ug = Ugric (H + Ms + Kh)
OU = Ob-Ugric (Ms + Kh)

(My own working hypotheses for the phylogeny of Uralic include instead some relatively non-standard groups; more on which once any of them acquire some firmer ground.)

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