Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
in 1960 and elaborated by his student Merritt Ruhlen. Greenberg proposed that all of the
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
belong to one of three language families, the previously established Eskimo–Aleut and Na–Dene, and with everything else—otherwise classified by specialists as belonging to dozens of independent families—as Amerind. Due to a large number of methodological flaws in the 1987 book ''Language in the Americas'', the relationships he proposed between these languages have been rejected by the majority of historical linguists as spurious.Campbell 1997Adelaar 1989Berman 1992Chafe 1987Matisoff 1990Kimball 1992Mithun 1999Poser 1992Rankin 1992
The term ''Amerind'' is also occasionally used to refer broadly to the various
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
without necessarily implying that they are a
genealogical
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinsh ...
group. To avoid ambiguity, the term Amerindian is often used for the latter meaning.
Background
The idea that all the languages of the Americas are related goes back to the 19th century when early linguists such as
Peter Stephen DuPonceau
Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (born Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau, June 3, 1760 – April 1, 1844) was a French-American linguist, philosopher, and jurist. After emigrating to the colonies in 1777, he served in the American Revolutionary War. Afterward, ...
and
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...
noticed that the languages of the Americas seemed to be very different from the better known European languages, yet seemingly also quite similar to each other. When studies of American Indian languages began in earnest in the early 20th century linguists quickly realized that the indigenous languages were in fact not all that similar, but had a diversity much greater than among the languages of Europe. After a period of uncertainty about whether indigenous languages could be described and investigated by the methods applied to European languages, the first linguists began the daunting task of trying to classify the languages of the Americas by using the comparative method.
Among the most prolific and gifted linguists of his times was Edward Sapir, who was among the first to apply the comparative method to Native American languages. However, contrary to current practice in historical linguistics, Sapir also often relied on "hunches" and "gut feeling" when proposing new language families. Some of these suggestions have been proven correct while others have not. Sapir entertained the idea that ultimately all languages of the Americas might turn out to be provably related and such a phenomenon as the apparent Pan-American tendency to have first person forms with a prefixed n- was suggestive for this line of thought.
Since Sapir's death in 1939, linguists have spent their time researching his proposals; typically, there have been two opposing camps in this endeavor: the so-called " lumpers" who usually look towards notions of genetic relationships, and the "splitters" who are widely critical of such proposals and expect successful family relations to be proven by the most rigorous standards of scholarship. Joseph Greenberg worked in the tradition of "lumpers" and following Sapir, was mindful of evidence not generally acceptable to those who hold that only actual
linguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction:
* Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to ...
—through the comparative method—can yield reliable proof of genetic relationships between languages. In elaborating his classification of the Amerind languages, Greenberg relied heavily on Sapir's early work on the North American languages and the highly impressionist classification of South American languages by Paul Rivet.
Pronouns
The main argument for the validity of Amerind is a pronominal pattern in many Native American languages that have first person forms with ''n'' and second person forms with ''m''.
This pattern was first noted by
Alfredo Trombetti
Alfredo Trombetti (16 January 1866, in Bologna – 5 July 1929, in Venice), was an Italian linguist active in the early 20th century.
Career overview
Trombetti was a professor at the University of Bologna. He was a member of the Italian Academy. ...
in 1905. Sapir suggested that it indicated that ultimately all Native American languages would turn out to be related. However, it is not universal, being confined primarily to western North America and to a lesser extent Mesoamerica; the incidence elsewhere is not statistically significant, and in western North American it is more an argument for the Hokan and Penutian phyla than for Amerind.Raoul Zamponi (2017) 'First-person n and second-person m in Native America: a fresh look'. ''Italian Journal of Linguistics'', 29.2
Gender
Ruhlen reconstructed a morphological ( ablaut) gender system for proto-Amerind, with masculine kinship terms containing the vowel *i and feminine the vowel *u, that he claims proves Greenberg's reconstruction. This is based on Greenberg's *t'a'na 'child', to which Ruhlen adds a masculine derivation *t'i'na 'son, boy' and a feminine *t'u'na 'daughter, girl'.
Unlike the n-/m- pattern in the pronouns, an intact i/u gender system is not attested across language families, and the consensus is that the pattern is a spurious one.
Reception
The consensus among historical linguists specializing in Native American languages is that the Amerind hypothesis is unsupported by valid evidence,Mithun 1999 particularly because the basis for the proposal is mass comparison, but also because of many other methodological flaws made by Greenberg in the elaboration of the hypothesis.Matisoff 1990Rankin 1992Campbell 1988 Critics regard this technique as fundamentally flawed, unable to distinguish chance resemblances from those due to a historical relationship among the languages and providing no means of distinguishing resemblances due to common descent from those due to
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
. In addition, critics have pointed out errors in the citation of data, including erroneous forms, erroneous glosses, unjustified morphological segmentation, attribution to the wrong language, and citation of entirely spurious forms.Adelaar 1989Berman 1992Chafe 1987Kimball 1992Poser 1992
A further criticism is that, contrary to normal scholarly practice, no source references are given for the data, which in most cases come from languages for which there is no standard, authoritative source. In addition, Greenberg does not normalize the spelling of the data, so it is impossible without knowing the source of each form to know what the notation represents.
While sympathetic to the idea of an Amerind language family,
Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh (; January 22, 1909 – July 20, 1967) was an American linguist who specialized in comparative and historical linguistics.
Swadesh was born in Massachusetts to Bessarabian Jewish immigrant parents. He completed bachelor's and mas ...
was critical of many of Greenberg's subdivisions and believed it was due to an insufficient number of comparisons by Greenberg.
Classification
The 1960 proposal, in its outlines, was as follows:
#Almosan–Keresiouan
#Hokan
#Penutian (incl. Macro-Mayan)
#Aztec–Tanoan
#Oto-Mangean
#''
Purépecha
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...
Huarpe
The Huarpes or Warpes are an indigenous people of Argentina, living in the Cuyo region. Some scholars assume that in the Huarpe language, this word means "sandy ground," but according to ''Arte y Vocabulario de la lengua general del Reino de Chi ...
''
##'' Taruma''
Below is the current state of Amerindian classification, as given in ''An Amerind Etymological Dictionary'', by Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen, Stanford University, 2007.
# North–Central Amerind
## Northern Amerind
### Almosan–Keresiouan
#### Almosan
##### Algic
##### Kutenai
##### Mosan
######
Chimakuan
The Chimakuan languages are a group of extinct languages that were spoken in northwestern Washington state, United States, on the Olympic Peninsula. They were spoken by Chimakum, Quileute and Hoh tribes. They are part of the Mosan sprachbund, a ...
Wakashan
Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington (state), Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
As is ...
#### Keresiouan
#####
Caddoan
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of sp ...
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Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...
#####
Keresan
Keres (), also Keresan (), is a Native American language, spoken by the Keres Pueblo people in New Mexico. Depending on the analysis, Keres is considered a small language family or a language isolate with several dialects. The varieties of each ...
##### Siouan–Yuchi
######
Siouan
Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east.
Name
Authors who call the entire ...
Penutian
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian st ...
#####
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
#####
Plateau
In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ha ...
##### California
######
Maiduan
Maiduan (also Maidun, Pujunan) is a small endangered language family of northeastern California.
Family division
The Maiduan consists of 4 languages:
# Maidu ''†'' (also known as Maidu proper, Northeastern Maidu, Mountain Maidu)
# Chico '' ...
Yokutsan
Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, mission ...
Gulf
A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodie ...
######
Atakapa
The Atakapa Sturtevant, 659 or Atacapa were an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who spoke the Atakapa language and historically lived along the Gulf of Mexico in what is now Texas and Louisiana. They included several distinct band ...
Natchez Natchez may refer to:
Places
* Natchez, Alabama, United States
* Natchez, Indiana, United States
* Natchez, Louisiana, United States
* Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States
* Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...
Wappo
The Wappo (endonym: ''Micewal'') are an indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the Yuki ...
Mayan
Mayan most commonly refers to:
* Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America
* Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America
* Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
Hokan
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California.
Etymology
The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...
##### Northern Hokan
###### Karok–Shasta
#######
Karok
The Karuk people are an indigenous people of California, and the Karuk Tribe is one of the largest tribes in California. Karuks are also enrolled in two other federally recognized tribes, the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Ran ...
Yana
Yana may refer to:
Locations
*Yana, Burma, a village in Hkamti Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma
*Yana, India, a village in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India
* Yana, Nigeria, an administrative ca ...
######
Pomoan
The Pomoan, or Pomo , languages are a small family of seven languages indigenous to northern California spoken by the Pomo people, whose ancestors lived in the valley of the Russian River and the Clear Lake basin. Four languages are extinct, an ...
Salinan
The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition f ...
Esselen
The Esselen are a Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who are indigenous to the Santa Lucia Mountains of a region south of the Big Sur River in Big Sur, Monterey County, Californi ...
##### Seri–Yuman
######
Seri
Seri or SERI may refer to:
People
*Jean Michaël Seri, an Ivorian professional footballer Places
*Seri Yek-e Zarruk, Iran
*Seri, Bheri, Nepal
*Seri, Karnali, Nepal
*Seri, Mahakali, Nepal
*Seri, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India
Oth ...
Tequistlatec
Tequistlatec was the Chontal language of Tequisistlán town, Oaxaca. Highland Oaxaca Chontal
Highland Oaxaca Chontal, or Chontal de la Sierra de Oaxaca, is one of the Chontal languages of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is sometimes called ''Tequistlate ...
#####
Subtiaba
Subtiaba is an extinct Oto-Manguean language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, especially in the Subtiaba district of León. Edward Sapir established a connection between Subtiaba and Tlapanec. When Lehmann wrote about it in 1 ...
Purépecha
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...
#####
Yanomam
Yanomaman, also as Yanomam, Yanomáman, Yamomámi, and Yanomamana (also Shamatari, Shirianan), is a family of languages spoken by about 20,000 Yanomami people in southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil (Roraima, Amazonas).
Subdivision
Ferr ...
Itonama
Itonama is a moribund language isolate spoken by the Itonama people in the Amazonian lowlands of north-eastern Bolivia. Greenberg’s (1987) classification of Itonama as Paezan, a sub-branch of Macro-Chibchan, remains unsupported and Itonama co ...
#####
Jirajara
Jirajara is an extinct language of western Venezuela. Other than being part of the Jirajaran family, its classification is uncertain due to a lack of data. See Jirajaran languages
The Jirajaran languages are group of extinct languages once spo ...
Timucua
The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The var ...
Sabela
Sabela is a dialect of several major South African languages used primarily in South Africa. Sabela was originally developed inside Prisons in South Africa, national prisons as a means of communication within Prison gang, gangs, primarily The ...
Sechura
Sechura is a city in northwestern Peru, south of Piura. It is the capital of Sechura Province in the Piura Region. The city lends its name to the Sechura Desert
The Sechura Desert is a coastal desert located south of the Piura Region of Peru ...
Mapudungu
Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...
Chon
CHON is a mnemonic acronym for the four most common elements in living organisms: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
The acronym CHNOPS, which stands for ''c''arbon, ''h''ydrogen, ''n''itrogen, ''o''xygen, ''p''hosphorus, ''s''ulfur, r ...
Macro-Arawakan
Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean centered on the Arawakan languages
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, ...
Kariri
Kiriri people are indigenous peoples of Brazil, indigenous people of Eastern Brazil. Their name is also spelled Cariri or Kariri and is a Tupi language, Tupi word meaning "silent" or "tactiturn."
History
The French Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, ...
–
Tupi Tupi may refer to:
* Tupi people of Brazil
* Tupi or Tupian languages, spoken in South America
** Tupi language, an extinct Tupian language spoken by the Tupi people
* Tupi oil field off the coast of Brazil
* Tupi Paulista, a Brazilian municipalit ...
Timote
Timote is a settlement in Carlos Tejedor Partido, Carlos Tejedor ''Partidos of Buenos Aires, partido'', Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
Location
It is 18 km east from Carlos Tejedor, Buenos Aires, Carlos Tejedor, its accesses are over 68 an ...
Huari Huari may refer to:
*Huari culture, a historical civilization in Peru
*Huari (archaeological site), an archaeological site in Peru
*Huari, Peru, a town in Peru
* Huari District, a district in the Huari Province, Peru
* Huari Province, a province in ...
Puinave
Puinave, Waipunavi (Guaipunabi) or Wanse ( pui, Wãnsöhöt) is an indigenous language of Colombia and Venezuela. It is generally considered to be an unclassified language.
Varieties
Varieties listed by Mason (1950):
*Puinave (Epined)
**Weste ...
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Shukuru
''Shukuru'' is an album led by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders recorded in 1981 and released on the Theresa label in 1985.Ticuna–Yuri
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Tucanoan
Tucanoan (also Tukanoan, Tukánoan) is a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arutani, Paez, Sape, Taruma, Witoto-Okaina, Saliba-Hodi, ...
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Uman
Uman ( uk, Умань, ; pl, Humań; yi, אומאַן) is a city located in Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. Located in the historical region of the eastern Podolia, the city rests on the banks of the Umanka River ...
Yagua
Yagua are an indigenous people in Colombia and northeastern Peru, numbering approximately 6,000. Currently, they live near the Amazon, Napo, Putumayo and Yavari rivers and their tributaries. As of 2005, some Yagua have migrated northward to C ...
###
Macro-Panoan
Macro-Panoan is a hypothetical proposal linking four language families of Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern ...
Pano–Tacanan
Pano-Tacanan (also Pano-Takana, Pano-Takánan, Pano-Tacana, Páno-Takána) is a proposed family of languages spoken in Peru, western Brazil, Bolivia and northern Paraguay. There are two close-knit branches, Panoan and Tacanan (Adelaar & Muyske ...
Puri
Puri () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar. It is als ...
*Principal advocates of the Amerind hypothesis or its predecessors
**
Alfredo Trombetti
Alfredo Trombetti (16 January 1866, in Bologna – 5 July 1929, in Venice), was an Italian linguist active in the early 20th century.
Career overview
Trombetti was a professor at the University of Bologna. He was a member of the Italian Academy. ...
Na-Dené
Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considered ...
* Adelaar, Willem F. H. (1989). eview of Greenberg, ''Language in the Americas'' '' Lingua'', ''78'', 249-255.
* Berman, Howard. (1992). A comment on the Yurok and Kalapuya data in Greenberg's Language in the Americas. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''58'' (2), 230-233.
* Bonnichsen, Robson; & Steele, D. Gentry (Eds.). (1994). ''Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas''. Peopling of the Americas publications. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, Center for the Study of the First Americans. .
* Campbell, Lyle. (1988). eview of ''Language in the Americas'', Greenberg 1987 ''Language'', ''64'', 591-615.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
*Campbell, Lyle; Poser, William J. (2008) Language Classification, History and Method, Cambridge University Press
* Chafe, Wallace. (1987). eview of Greenberg 1987 ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', 652-653.
*
* Goddard, Ives. (1987). eview of Joseph Greenberg, ''Language in the Americas'' ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', 656-657.
* Goddard, Ives. (1990). eview of ''Language in the Americas'' by Joseph H. Greenberg ''Linguistics'', ''28'', 556-558.
* Goddard, Ives. (1996). The classification of native languages of North America. In I. Goddard (Ed.), ''Languages'' (pp. 290–323). Handbook of North Americans Indians (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
* Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). ''Languages''. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. .
* Goddard, Ives; & Campbell, Lyle. (1994). The history and classification of American Indian languages: What are the implications for the peopling of the Americas?. In R. Bonnichsen & D. Steele (Eds.), ''Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas'' (pp. 189–207). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University.
* Golla, Victor. (1987). eview of Joseph H. Greenberg: ''Language in the Americas'' ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', 657-659.
* Golla, Victor. (1988). eview of ''Language in the Americas'', by Joseph Greenberg ''American Anthropologist'', ''90'', 434-435.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1960). General classification of Central and South American languages. In A. Wallace (Ed.), ''Men and cultures: Fifth international congress of anthropological and ethnological sciences (1956)'' (pp. 791–794). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). ''Language in the Americas''. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas: Author's précis. ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', 647-652.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1989). Classification of American Indian languages: A reply to Campbell. ''Language'', ''65'', 107-114.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1996). In defense of Amerind. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''62'', 131-164.
*
* Kimball, Geoffrey. (1992). A critique of Muskogean, 'Gulf,' and Yukian materials in Language in the Americas. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''58'', 447-501.
* Matisoff, James. (1990). On megalo-comparison: A discussion note. ''Language'', ''66'', 106-120.
* Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); .
* PDF * Rankin, Robert. (1992). eview of ''Language in the Americas'' by J. H. Greenberg ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''58'' (3), 324-351.
* Ringe, Don (2000). Some relevant facts about historical linguistics. In: Renfrew, Colin (Ed.), ''America Past, America Present: Genes and Languages in the Americas and Beyond'' (pp. 139–62). Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
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