Conventions Used in this Book

1. We use Europaio instead of European, because thus the terms Indo-European, and European  (of Europe or of the EU), the European Dialects (i.e., the Northern IE Dialects, those developed within Europe) and the language system called Europaio are easily distinguished. In English, the suitable names for the language are European language and Europaio. It is similar to the pairs Basque language or Euskera, Irish language or Gaelic, etc., in which the use of the English adjective alone could be confusing.

We don't use the correct form Europaiom, however, because it is an inflected form which means "the European" in Europaio.

In the beginning of the book, we talk about IE III and Europaio as different concepts, as the first is the language spoken in its prehistoric community, and the second the modern revived language. This distinction is not always made, however, the term Europaio being used constantly instead of IE III to refer to the old language, usually when talking about the features of the old language in the new system.

2. Accentuated vowels, semi-vowels or sonants are in bold type, while the long vowels and sonants are underlined. We avoid the use of accents and special phonetic characters to facilitate the printing of copies in different formats.

3. For zero-grade or zero-ending the symbol Ø is sometimes used.

4. In phonetics (usually between slashes or brackets), a capital G is used for labio-velar g.

5. In Romance languages, Theme is used instead of Stem. Therefore, when Theme Vowel or Thematic is employed, it refers to the Stem endings, usually to the e/o endings. More on this can be read on the corresponding sections.

6. For the phonetic representation of sonants we put an apostrophe before it, and not (as it is usual in phonetic representations) a different character.

7. The following abbreviations apply: