In Latvian literature this process is collectively referred to as "līdzskaņu mija", i.e., consonant shift. "Jotēšana" (cf. German "Jotisierung"), i.e., iotation can be further distinguished as a subcategory. In English Academia the term "iotation" is often used to refer to properties of Eastern Slavic vowels wherein they acquire an underlying which palatalizes the preceding consonants regardless of their position within a word which is similar to the phenomenon of assimilative palatalization of consonants in Lithuanian. Latvian however does not have assimilative palatalization of consonants and the term "iotation" is used strictly in the sense of stem-final labial consonants being "affixed with an iota" (i.e., the letter ⟨J⟩) in 2nd, 5th and 6th declension nouns.