.png)
<aside>
**Home | Articles | Current Linguistics | Resources | Media | About | Contact**
</aside>
This page lists the various abbreviations, symbols, and conventions used in Linguistic Discovery’s content.
Pronunciations of words are typically written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), an alphabet designed to represent any sound in any of the world’s languages consistently, where each symbol always represents the same sound. Below are a) the version of the chart I use for Linguistic Discovery, b) an interactive one (with sounds) from the International Phonetic Association, and c) a PDF of the official IPA chart.
Linguistics uses a special format for presenting examples that allows anybody to read and understand the example, even if they don’t know the language. This format is called an interlinear gloss. The number of lines can vary, but they are usually something like the example below.
A list of abbreviations used in interlinear examples can be found further down this page.
| Central Alaskan Yup’ik (Inuit–Yupik–Unangan; Alaska) | A header with some language information, such as its family and where it is spoken |
|---|---|
| tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq | A transcription of the example in the language. |
| tuntu‑ssur‑qatar‑ni‑ksaite‑ngqiggte‑uq | A breakdown of the morphemes (meaningful parts like stems, prefixes, and suffixes) in each word. |
| reindeer‑hunt‑FUT‑say‑NEG‑again‑3SG:IND | The glosses (brief definitions) for each morpheme. Grammatical categories are glossed using Latinate technical terms and labeled in SMALL CAPS. The meanings of the abbreviations are usually provided in a footnote or table somewhere in the text. You can see the abbreviations used in Linguistic Discovery’s content here. |
| ‘He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer.’ | The translation for the example. |
| Payne (1997: 28) | The bibliographic source of the example. |
Abbreviations commonly used in running text.
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| c. / ca. | circa (Latin: ‘around’) |
| BCE | Before the Common Era (equivalent to BC) |
| BP | Before Present (calibrated at 1950) |
| C | consonant |
| cf. | confer (Latin: ‘compare’) |
| CE | Common Era (equivalent to AD) |
| ed. / eds. | editor(s) |
| e.g. | exemplī grātiā (Latin: ‘for the sake of an example’) |
| etc. | et cetera (Latin: ‘and other things’) |
| ff. | and following |
| fn. | footnote |
| H | high tone |
| i.e. | id est (Latin: ‘that is, …’) |
| L | low tone |
| M | mid tone |
| p. / pp. | page / pages |
| sic | sic (Latin: ‘thus; as is’) |
| V | vowel |
| viz. | videlicet (Latin: ‘namely; that is to say’) |
| ya | Years Ago |
Symbols with special meaning in linguistics or academia.
| Symbol | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ⟨ ⟩ | angle brackets | orthographic transcription |
| * | asterisk | reconstructed / hypothetical |
| ungrammatical / unattested | ||
| A ⇢ B | dotted arrow | B is borrowed from A |
| = | equal sign | clitic boundary |
| # | hash / pound sign | word boundary |
| - | hyphen | morpheme boundary |
| . | period / full stop | syllable boundary |
| ˈ | primary stress | primary stress (placed before the syllable) |
| § | section sign | section of a text |
| / / | slashes | phonemic transcription |
| A → B | solid arrow | inherited from A → B |
| A becomes B | ||
| [ ] | square brackets | phonetic transcription |
| A ~ B | tilde | A alternates with B |
| A ⤳ B | wavy arrow | uncertain etymology |
| ˌ | secondary stress | secondary stress (placed before the stressed syllable) |
| 3;9 | semicolon | years;months old (first language acquisition) |
Abbreviations for grammatical terms used in interlinear examples and glosses.