Crossword Genius

European reviews abridgement of naive tale (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

latvian

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'european' is the definition.
(someone from Latvia)

'reviews abridgement of naive tale' is the wordplay.
'reviews' is a reversal indicator (view the letters another way).
'abridgement of' means to remove the last letter (to abridge is to shorten).
'tale' becomes 'tal' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'naive' with its final letter removed is 'naiv'.
'naiv'+'tal'='naivtal'
'naivtal' written backwards gives 'LATVIAN'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for latvian that I've seen before include "like rider on tiger" , "European national" , "From one of the Baltic states" , "republican" , "Baltic national" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.
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