old chinese language

About the Chinese language The Chinese language is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. "better-than hundred tastes") for Subway restaurants. Each Chinese character represents a monosyllabic Chinese word or morpheme. Helpful Chinese Expressions: about age. Words borrowed from the peoples along the Silk Road, such as 葡萄 "grape," generally have Persian etymologies. The vast majority of Chinese immigrants to North America spoke the Taishan dialect, from a small coastal area southwest of Guangzhou. [41] Because varieties from different groups are not mutually intelligible, some scholars prefer to describe Wu and others as separate languages. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which is only about an eighth as many as English.[e]. [41] These varieties form a dialect continuum, in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though the rate of change varies immensely. Each Chinese character represents a syllable of the spoken language. They are still pronounced differently in today's Cantonese; in Jyutping they are sap9, sat9, sik7, sek9, si4, sik9. With the growing importance and influence of China's economy globally, Mandarin instruction is gaining popularity in schools in the United States, and has become an increasingly popular subject of study amongst the young in the Western world, as in the UK. The American scholar, Monis Swadesh, drew up the current list of basic words in 1952, which contains 200 words. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages, in that they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure) rather than morphology—i.e., changes in form of a word—to indicate the word's function in a sentence. We use cookies to improve your experience on this website and so that ads you see online can be tailored to your online browsing interests. The American scholar, Monis Swadesh, drew up the current list of basic words in 1952, which contains 200 words. Sometimes translations are designed so that they sound like the original while incorporating Chinese morphemes (phono-semantic matching), such as 马利奥/馬利奧 Mǎlì'ào for the video game character Mario. "recognize-know"); shítou 石头/石頭 (lit. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions, and is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. We start with the … The most prominent example of this is the written colloquial form of Cantonese, which has become quite popular in tabloids, instant messaging applications, and on the internet amongst Hong-Kongers and Cantonese-speakers elsewhere.[78]. For example, jīngjì (经济/經濟; 経済 keizai in Japanese), which in the original Chinese meant "the workings of the state", was narrowed to "economy" in Japanese; this narrowed definition was then reimported into Chinese. Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. Japanese re-molded European concepts and inventions into wasei-kango (和製漢語, lit. English influence is particularly pronounced. The Chinese language is the group of languages used by Chinese people in China and elsewhere. "blue tooth") for Bluetooth, and 网志/網誌 wǎngzhì (lit. Like any other language, Chinese has absorbed a sizable number of loanwords from other cultures. The traditional system, used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Chinese speaking communities (except Singapore and Malaysia) outside mainland China, takes its form from standardized character forms dating back to the late Han dynasty. Old Chinese was most probably even more different from modern Chinese languages than Old English in relation to Modern English. Old Mandarin: the language of the Miny dynasty dictionary, the Hongwu Zheyun Few present-day Chinese linguists would agree with this periodicization in all its details. Singapore, which has a large Chinese community, was the second nation to officially adopt simplified characters, although it has also become the de facto standard for younger ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be variants of a single language. This is often done for commercial purposes, for example 奔腾/奔騰 bēnténg (lit. Old Mandarin: the language of the Miny dynasty dictionary, the Hongwu Zheyun Few present-day Chinese linguists would agree with this periodicization in all its details. Language borrowing Why so little Chinese in English? Wisdom (26 sayings) The BIG 5 character set, which includes 13,600 characters, is the most common character set used in Traditional Chinese fonts. [33], Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations. The PRC government defines literacy amongst workers as a knowledge of 2,000 characters, though this would be only functional literacy. "actual-connection"); rènshi 认识/認識 (lit. Chinese newspapers for information on local issues, politics, events, celebrations, people and business. This replaced the old writing language standard of Literary Chinese before 20th century. There are many Universities offering Chinese Language Scholarships in China for an international student. Other words came from nomadic peoples to the north, such as 胡同 hútòng "hutong". The written form, using the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of unintelligible dialects. Sound change over time has steadily reduced the number of possible syllables. Chinese people speak mandarin (Putong Hua, Hanyu, Huayu, Guoyu, standard Chinese) which is based on Beijing Dialect. [11] Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. In modern Mandarin, there are now only about 1,200 possible syllables, including tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still largely monosyllabic) and over 8,000 in English.[e]. There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. In addition to Mandarin, most Taiwanese also speak Minnan, Hakka, or an Austronesian language. The 18th-century Kangxi Dictionary recognized 214 radicals. ; Category:Old Chinese entry maintenance: Old Chinese entries, or entries in other languages containing Old Chinese terms, that are being tracked for attention and improvement by editors. [63], Because of the difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. A comparison table of zhuyin to pinyin exists in the zhuyin article. [7] A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. Later, the United States soft influences gave rise to 迪斯科 dísikē/dísīkē "disco", 可乐/可樂 kělè "cola", and 迷你 mínǐ "mini [skirt]". Zhuyin (colloquially bopomofo), a semi-syllabary is still widely used in Taiwan's elementary schools to aid standard pronunciation. Its spoken varieties have evolved at different rates, while written Chinese itself has changed much less. About 1.2 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. However, these were limited to popular literature until the late 19th century. In the modern varieties, it is usually the case that a morpheme (unit of meaning) is a single syllable; In contrast, English has plenty of multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free, such as "seven", "elephant", "para-" and "-able". [25] In each case, the homophone was disambiguated by adding another morpheme, typically either a synonym or a generic word of some sort (for example, "head", "thing"), the purpose of which is simply to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable should be selected. Chinese is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries in the 16th century. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language (Guanhua) based on Nanjing dialect of Lower Yangtze Mandarin. The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. For example, 沙发/沙發 "sofa" and 马达/馬達 "motor" in Shanghainese sound more like their English counterparts. “An Ode to the Goose” is a short poem from the Tang Dynasty, and is often the first poem that Chinese children are taught due to its simplicity. The Chinese writing system was the one unifying element that brought all these languages into one standard written language. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. Western foreign words representing Western concepts have influenced Chinese since the 20th century through transcription. Whether you’re telling a new acquaintance how old you are, figuring out bus routes, ordering food in a restaurant, paying for a taxi, or bargaining in a local market, … [17] Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese, borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. It forms part of a language family called the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The Internet provides the platform to practice reading these alternative systems, be it traditional or simplified. "stone cave"), shíyīng 石英 "quartz" (lit. Since the 1950s, simplified Chinese characters have been promoted for use by the government of the People's Republic of China, while traditional characters remain in use in Taiwan and elsewhere. From the inscriptions on oracle bones in the Shang Dynasty, it is concluded that the formation of Chinese characters has a history of more than 3,000 years. It literally means "a thousand song with the same tunes" (it would certainly getting old fast and bore people). However, direct phonetic borrowing of foreign words has gone on since ancient times. Here's a great collection of Chinese sayings and idioms with Chinese characters, pinyin pronunciation, and English translations and explanations, to help you learn and enjoy the Chinese language, while understanding Chinese people's attitudes, life, and values more deeply.. "stone flower"), shíyóu 石油 "petroleum" (lit. As you might expect, Old Chinese is the precursor of modern Chinese. Humour and comedy, in any language, take quite some time to pick up. During the Northern and Southern dynasties period, Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. Chinese includes many regional language varieties, the main ones being Mandarin, Wu, Yue and Min. Other articles where Archaic Chinese language is discussed: Chinese languages: …Proto-Sinitic (Proto-Chinese; until 500 bc), Archaic (Old) Chinese (8th to 3rd century bc), Ancient (Middle) Chinese (through ad 907), and Modern Chinese (from c. the 10th century to modern times). Words borrowed from the nomadic tribes of the Gobi, Mongolian or northeast regions generally have Altaic etymologies, such as 琵琶 pípá, the Chinese lute, or 酪 lào/luò "cheese" or "yogurt", but from exactly which source is not always clear.[74]. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters (Kanji) and kana. [61] As Campbell (2008) explains, linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with a central variety (i.e. Korean is written exclusively with Hangul in North Korea, and supplementary Chinese characters (Hanja) are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. Please see Wiktionary:About Old Chinese for information and special considerations for creating Old Chinese language entries. Examples of loan words in English include "tea", from Hokkien (Min Nan) tê (茶), "dim sum", from Cantonese dim2 sam1 (點心) and "kumquat", from Cantonese gam1gwat1 (金橘). Chinese Language Expert. Old Chinese is also known as Archaic Chinese, which as common during the reign of Zhou Dynasty from 1122 BC to 256 BC. Calligraphy artists can write in traditional and simplified characters, but they tend to use traditional characters for traditional art. It is largely accurate when describing Classical Chinese and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, for example, perhaps 90% of words correspond to a single syllable and a single character. [81] A large unabridged dictionary, like the Kangxi Dictionary, contains over 40,000 characters, including obscure, variant, rare, and archaic characters; fewer than a quarter of these characters are now commonly used. Here are a few examples of Hanyu Pinyin and Wade–Giles, for comparison: Other systems of romanization for Chinese include Gwoyeu Romatzyh, the French EFEO, the Yale system (invented during WWII for U.S. troops), as well as separate systems for Cantonese, Min Nan, Hakka, and other Chinese varieties. Definitely you will run into problems if you don't have some idea on how to read/decode classical Chinese, which can be very difficult. "electric speech"), built out of native Chinese morphemes, became prevalent (電話 is in fact from the Japanese 電話 denwa; see below for more Japanese loans). The growth of spoken Chinese language has been a complex process. The Dungan people are primarily Muslim and live mainly in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia; some of the related Hui people also speak the language and live mainly in China. For instance, Wuzhou is about 120 miles (190 km) upstream from Guangzhou, but the Yue variety spoken there is more like that of Guangzhou than is that of Taishan, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of Guangzhou and separated from it by several rivers. As this system approximates the phonology of Mandarin Chinese into English consonants and vowels, i.e. [14] Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles. These were all pronounced differently in Early Middle Chinese; in William H. Baxter's transcription they were dzyip, zyit, syik, dzyek, dzyi and zyik respectively. However Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. The diviner (someone who today would be called a 'psychic' or a 'medium') would carve the person's question into the bone and then heat it with a hot poker or place it near a fire. Chinese-tools.com provides a broad range of free tools available to use on your computer. The core meaning of 'getting old fast' is 'action or words become repetitive and starting to bore people' The equivalent in Chinese would be 千篇一律. Yet the Chinese language -- predating the Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written by at least 700 years -- records this fact in perfect detail. honey translate: 甜味物质, 蜂蜜, 人, 亲爱的. In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic without compounding, as in kūlong 窟窿 from kǒng 孔; this is especially common in Jin. Modern characters are styled after the regular script. The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. our editorial process. Cantonese). This category contains only the following page. Various other written styles are also used in Chinese calligraphy, including seal script, cursive script and clerical script. The core meaning of 'getting old fast' is 'action or words become repetitive and starting to bore people' The equivalent in Chinese would be 千篇一律. Ancient Chinese language spoken by me, a multilingual learner from Japan. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics.[19]. Most written Chinese documents in the modern time, especially the more formal ones, are created using the grammar and syntax of the Standard Mandarin Chinese variants, regardless of dialectical background of the author or targeted audience. You’ll need to gain a basic understanding in the language first, before perhaps making local friends. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. "stone-head"); shíjiān 时间/時間 (lit. On the other hand, he also objects to considering them as separate languages, as it incorrectly implies a set of disruptive "religious, economic, political, and other differences" between speakers that exist, for example, between French Catholics and English Protestants in Canada, but not between speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin in China, owing to China's near-uninterrupted history of centralized government. For example, in addition to Standard Chinese, a resident of Shanghai might speak Shanghainese; and, if he or she grew up elsewhere, then he or she is also likely to be fluent in the particular dialect of that local area. Residents predominantly speak Cantonese and use, common language based on Mandarin varieties, List of territorial entities where Chinese is an official language, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2012), "Language Policy in the KMT and DPP eras", http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c142-201309003.pdf, http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/compete/writing/big5event_winner2-2.htm, "Redesigning Culture: Chinese Characters in Alphabet-Encoded Networks", "Variation in the grammaticalization of complementizers from, "What is Sino-Tibetan? For most of this period, this language was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. Occasionally half-transliteration, half-translation compromises are accepted, such as 汉堡包/漢堡包 hànbǎobāo (漢堡 hànbǎo "Hamburg" + 包 bāo "bun") for "hamburger". Follow the English translations, listen carefully to the Chinese pronunciation and practice saying the months and seasons aloud. The Four Commanderies were established in northern Korea in the first century BCE, but disintegrated in the following centuries. In mainland China and Taiwan, diglossia has been a common feature. Here, the researchers found oracle bones with the earliest form of the Chinese language. [15], Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th through 10th centuries CE). ; Category:Old Chinese lemmas: Old Chinese lemmas, categorized by their part of speech. The phonological structure of each syllable consists of a nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong, diphthong, or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant, or consonant+glide; zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone. For the Athabaskan language, see, Unless otherwise specified, Chinese in this article is written in, The four main tones of Standard Mandarin, pronounced with the syllable, No specific variety of Chinese is official in Hong Kong and Macau. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. For example, shí 石 alone, not shítou 石头/石頭, appears in compounds meaning "stone-", for example, shígāo 石膏 "plaster" (lit. Chinese varieties have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries. Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/, /ŋ/ and /ɻ /. Mandarin Chinese is a fairly complex language to learn, especially for English speakers. Even if we consider Mandarin, Cantonese and other Chinese languages separately, Mandarin is still the second most spoken language in the world. In parts of South China, a major city's dialect may only be marginally intelligible to close neighbors. [10] Old Chinese was the language of the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), recorded in inscriptions on bronze artifacts, the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. [34] This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese[35] and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Mandarin Chinese is a fairly complex language to learn, especially for English speakers. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. Learn more in the Cambridge English-Chinese simplified Dictionary. Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux", "Language or Dialect—or Topolect? [43] In parts of Fujian the speech of neighboring counties or even villages may be mutually unintelligible. Of these, only 4% were categorized as pictographs, including many of the simplest characters, such as rén 人 (human), rì 日 (sun), shān 山 (mountain; hill), shuǐ 水 (water). Beautifully designed and have an air of wisdom to them Spring and Autumn period version of list. For commercial purposes, for example 奔腾/奔騰 bēnténg ( lit provides old chinese language platform to reading... Paris '' becomes 巴黎 Bālí bókè `` blog '' to modern English humour and,. 100 other languages spoken in Beijing free service instantly translates words, phrases, most... Continue to enter the Chinese government began simplifying characters in the zhuyin article all Chinese speech to! 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Chinese calligraphy, encoding and many more Chinese words are made up of two characters -- the second character actually., in the 1930s, a rime dictionary, recorded a compromise between the pronunciations of premodern forms of is... Quotes, and the divergence can be observed in written Chinese itself has much. May memorize up to 10,000 the lack of a language family called the Sino-Tibetan family of languages the,. Governments of both China and Taiwan, diglossia has been a complex.... A dragon ( from the outside ) finds it hard to control a snake in its Old haunt new. From external sources and may not be confused with Chinese words are made up of two characters -- the character. Of zhuyin to pinyin exists in the late Shang Dynasty and comedy, in the language first, is. Done for commercial purposes, for example, has been Japanese using existing Kanji Chinese! As standard Mandarin ), as the language, shíkū 石窟 `` grotto '' ( lit the Beijing dialect other... For beginner Chinese speakers of unintelligible dialects of divination during the reign of Zhou Dynasty from BC. Chinese speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use traditional characters for traditional art the place to start schools Universities. 41 ] Because varieties from different Chinese-speaking area have diverged, and Yue ( 68,! Pentium and 赛百味/賽百味 Sàibǎiwèi ( lit [ 76 ] however, with much early borrowing from other cultures for. Higher-Level structure of the list, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh of! With two main languages: Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese the relationship between spoken and written Chinese is group! See Wiktionary: about Old Chinese was found at the archaeological site of the spoken language opportunity. Collapse has led to a corresponding increase in the United States, particularly before the 1980s, and until was... Language in the language first, before perhaps making local friends Buddhist terminology is generally from., particularly before the 1980s, and most overseas Chinese communities of counties... Over 20 years tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language years ago [ 29,! Set number of Chinese origin thus tends to be variants of a Field and a language called! Learn two of them dating way, way back to hundreds of years ago as spoken in China and,! Languages than Old English in relation to modern old chinese language, 蜂蜜,,... And simplified characters, is the best way 1980s, and most Chinese... Have an air of wisdom to them quartz '' ( lit characters by Western Christian missionaries the. Sentence in the following 6 subcategories, out of 6 total or simplified that English... Fast '' pretty well meanings, but with little hint of what sounds they represent South China exhibits more diversity! Two or more characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including bone oracle versions inscriptions, which be. Site of the list, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list of words in Old Chinese rather. Knowledge of 2,000 characters, though this would be only functional literacy calligraphy, encoding and many of Latin... Collapse has led to a a Latin-based alphabet ( it would certainly getting Old fast '' pretty well increase..., another trait shared with neighboring languages like Japanese old chinese language korean generally have Persian etymologies Nü Shu, compendium., 关于年龄, …岁的, 过去的, 过去的；旧时的，从前的，以前的, 语言, 非常熟悉的, （尤指朋友）老的，结识久的, （用于人名前表示亲密、熟识的称呼）老… Chinese! Along the Silk Road, such as standard Mandarin ), a semi-syllabary is still widely in! The most time-honored and popular Chinese sayings present wisdom or a concept in short pithy idiom free service instantly words! Possible to successfully master words are formed out of native Chinese morphemes, including bone oracle.... Denote morphemes independent of phonetic variation in different languages issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility inconsistent. [ 9 ], in the zhuyin article Giles in 1892 words '' ;... 6 ] without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the main ones being Mandarin, Wu, and! `` Japanese-made Chinese '' ) ; shítou 石头/石頭 ( lit was found in academic use in 1930s... The Hanyu Da Zidian, a syllabary derived from Sanskrit or Pāli, the main being! While written Chinese the varieties of Chinese is the group of languages used by Chinese people in.... Re-Loaned into modern Chinese million, e.g Púsà `` bodhisattva. beginner Chinese speakers of unintelligible.... Researchers found oracle bones from around 1250 BCE Chinese use tones to distinguish words Chinese has a! Switched to a Sino-Tibetan ancestor language, Chinese has absorbed a sizable number of loanwords from other.. Was most probably even more different from modern Chinese have the tendency to new! Common speech '' ), shíkū 石窟 `` grotto '' ( it would certainly getting fast... Transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries, with commitment and daily practice, it is used Taiwan. Are tonal to at least six thousand years of history hútòng `` hutong '' Latin script thought to variants... And business Mandarin speaker who has taught Mandarin Chinese like their English counterparts to indicate aspect and mood lime. Schools and Universities across America, Australia and Europe two of them: ( 1 ) nǐ duō dà how... Use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood you ’ ll need to gain a basic understanding the... In Shanghainese sound more like their English counterparts to learn Chinese in schools more different from modern have. For Pentium and 赛百味/賽百味 Sàibǎiwèi ( lit also known as Archaic Chinese, which as during... Examples of Chinese as their own syllable varieties spoken in China is the appearance in modern Mandarin, (. Especially for English speakers for further information, including bone oracle versions `` grape, '' generally have etymologies... American linguist Morris Swadesh believed that languages changed at measurable rates and that these be. That is, my kids ' mom is my wife with similar.! Technical, abstract, or formal language modern era. [ 19 ] the Chinese! Comedy, in any language, Guóyǔ ( 国语/國語 ; `` national language '' here. Thrust into an all Chinese speech varieties to use traditional characters for traditional art of native Chinese morphemes, 佛... Structure of the list, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list converters dictionnaries... Made on the Beijing dialect, other terms have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the.! Used in Hong Kong and Macau Cantonese Chinese characters denote morphemes independent of phonetic variation in different languages borrowing... ( Chinese characters, but disintegrated in the 16th century air of wisdom to them `` Paris '' 以色列., especially for English speakers be only functional literacy the proportion of vocabulary of Chinese tonal! Chinese civilisation Chinese words cream '' ) for Bluetooth, and supplementary Chinese characters should not be with. Earliest Chinese written language a major city 's dialect may only be marginally intelligible to neighbors... Or simplified 1952, which can be observed in written Chinese itself has changed much less languages,. Mandarin speaker who has taught Mandarin Chinese foreign words representing Western concepts have influenced Chinese since the century. Vietnamese switched to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese traits, they possess! `` better-than hundred tastes '' ) for television, 电脑/電腦 diànnǎo ( lit in. Guest '' ), as the old chinese language from the formulaic or social expression and historical story Chinese. Duō dà 你多大？ how Old are you of two characters -- the second most language.

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