Linguistics thread

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby dEhiN » 2017-11-03, 16:43

vijayjohn wrote:
Vlürch wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:For example, there's a word in both languages that means 'mother', but even though it's just one of a few perfectly normal words for 'mother' in Tamil, in Malayalam, it sounds archaic, and people avoid using it especially because that's the word for 'mother' that we use in the word for 'motherfucker'. :P

Malayalam (ml) അമ്മ / Tamil (ta) அம்மா or something else?

Something else: Malayalam (ml) തായ [ˈt̪aːja] / Tamil (ta) தாய (in Tamil, I guess this would be [ˈt̪aːjə] or something)

In Tamil it's actually தாய் ['t̪aːj] (at least according to Literary Tamil rules, or spelling pronunciation; spoken varieties of Tamil, especially in India, could say it differently).
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-03, 18:04

dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Vlürch wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:For example, there's a word in both languages that means 'mother', but even though it's just one of a few perfectly normal words for 'mother' in Tamil, in Malayalam, it sounds archaic, and people avoid using it especially because that's the word for 'mother' that we use in the word for 'motherfucker'. :P

Malayalam (ml) അമ്മ / Tamil (ta) அம்மா or something else?

Something else: Malayalam (ml) തായ [ˈt̪aːja] / Tamil (ta) தாய (in Tamil, I guess this would be [ˈt̪aːjə] or something)

In Tamil it's actually தாய் ['t̪aːj] (at least according to Literary Tamil rules, or spelling pronunciation; spoken varieties of Tamil, especially in India, could say it differently).

Ahh, and apparently, it can be either one in Malayalam!

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Naava » 2017-11-03, 18:37

Vlürch wrote:Yeah, it's kinda funny. It probably has something to do with me being from Roihuvuori, which is basically a not-exactly-wealthy-but-not-really-poor-anymore-either part of eastern Helsinki.

And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Finnish really is logical, kinda like Finns... but THAT'S SAPIR-WHORFIST. Seriously, though, it's probably one of the important reasons why I struggle with basically every language. Irregularities give me nightmares... :oops:

I don't know what's wrong with me but I struggle with the rules, not with the irregularities. :lol:

I'd like to take one myself but I don't really have a good reason why; I know where my family comes from so I don't think there would be many great surprises that would blow my mind or something. :/

You never know!

That's why I haven't given up on it yet. :D Dad's side of the family has studied their history and apparently they've been living in Southern Ostrobothnia ever since the 17th century. Mum's told me her side has Swedish, Karelian, and Polish blood. So... I don't know what the DNA test could reveal that would really surprise me anymore. :D

But come to think of it, I feel like this conversation being had online in English really makes it seem less than half as awkward as it would be in Finnish, especially in person...

Anything becomes 100 times more awkward when you translate it into Finnish. That's why I try to avoid books that have been translated into Finnish. The dialogues are just unbearable.

It does help with making parody songs, though.

On a somewhat related note, everyone seems to think that everyone from the Middle East is an Arab, which somehow includes all of Central Asia and North Africa as well... and I've heard/seen Finns talk about "going to the east on a holiday" and turning out to mean Morocco of all places, which is about as far west as one could go without going to America... and it wasn't long ago that something on TV, although I don't remember in what context, was said about Morocco and it was referred to as being "in the east".

A bit like when someone says 'Europe', what I think is basically Western Europe. I was kinda mind=blown when I realised that I'm a European, too. :P

Well, depending on how the size and distances of Europe are defined, Finland may not be spoken anywhere near Germany, so I guess that would've made sense even if he had thought that all languages spoken anywhere near Germany were Germanic. :P

But Finnish isn't spoken anywhere near Ural either. (And it was she, btw.)

Anyway, I know of at least one famous person having said something like that, although it was in the context of music: Samu Haber on Vain elämää.

You watch Vain elämää?

an Eastern European iskelmä singer

I don't know what to think about this. :lol:

Yeah, Suomi on venäläinen and Suomi on ruotsalainen. The third series was Suomi on suomalainen.

I didn't know they made a third part.

Saim wrote:
Aurinĭa wrote:As someone who has talked about this with Hungarians when they were learning Finnish, no, knowing Hungarian doesn't really help. It only helps in the sense that you don't need to be taught what cases are.
Some of the basic vocabulary is vaguely similar, but this only helps in the way knowing English helps to learn Serbian (brother/brat, milk/mleko, three/tri, yes/jeste) or Hindi (eight/aath, me/main, mother/mata). You're not going to instantly recognise any of it but it's surely easier than going from Hungarian to, say, Mandarin or Arabic.

I haven't studied Hungarian but I'd imagine there's at least something similar in the grammar, too. :hmm:

vijayjohn wrote:
Naava wrote:Oh, no, I'm not! I'm from Southern Ostrobothnia, about 400 km to the north of Helsinki. I lived there for 20 years until I moved to Tampere.
Ah, you've probably told me before, too, or at least said so on the forum. I have a bad memory. Sorry!

It's fine, I couldn't really blame anyone for that because I never remember anyone's name, age or face so... :lol:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby dEhiN » 2017-11-03, 18:45

Naava wrote:Anything becomes 100 times more awkward when you translate it into Finnish. That's why I try to avoid books that have been translated into Finnish. The dialogues are just unbearable.

It does help with making parody songs, though.

I don't even know the original English song, and that parody was awesome! Does Finnish have a trilled r, or was that done for effect?
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby IpseDixit » 2017-11-03, 18:49

dEhiN wrote:
Naava wrote:Anything becomes 100 times more awkward when you translate it into Finnish. That's why I try to avoid books that have been translated into Finnish. The dialogues are just unbearable.

It does help with making parody songs, though.

I don't even know the original English song, and that parody was awesome!


Do you speak Finnish? Otherwise, how can you say it was awesome? :lol:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Naava » 2017-11-03, 18:50

dEhiN wrote:
Naava wrote:Anything becomes 100 times more awkward when you translate it into Finnish. That's why I try to avoid books that have been translated into Finnish. The dialogues are just unbearable.

It does help with making parody songs, though.

I don't even know the original English song, and that parody was awesome! Does Finnish have a trilled r, or was that done for effect?

Yep, Finnish has a trilled r. :) This is the original song. I'm surprised you haven't seen Mulan. :O

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby dEhiN » 2017-11-03, 19:15

IpseDixit wrote:Do you speak Finnish? Otherwise, how can you say it was awesome? :lol:

Because I thought it was awesome?

Naava wrote:Yep, Finnish has a trilled r. :) This is the original song. I'm surprised you haven't seen Mulan. :O

Thanks. Yeah I've never been a huge Disney fan. Some movies I like or want to watch but that was never the case with Mulan.
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Naava » 2017-11-03, 19:42

dEhiN wrote:
Naava wrote:Yep, Finnish has a trilled r. :) This is the original song. I'm surprised you haven't seen Mulan. :O

Thanks. Yeah I've never been a huge Disney fan. Some movies I like or want to watch but that was never the case with Mulan.

Well, it's not like I was a fan either because I didn't have a choice. :P I was raised by my parents, Disney movies, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Moomins in equal measure.

I don't remember much of Mulan anymore but I do remember Mushu and especially his dishonor rant.

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-03, 21:21

Naava wrote:And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Well, if it helps you feel any better, my dad was a farm boy. :P
I don't know what's wrong with me but I struggle with the rules, not with the irregularities. :lol:

Maybe there are more rules than irregularities?
Anything becomes 100 times more awkward when you translate it into Finnish. That's why I try to avoid books that have been translated into Finnish. The dialogues are just unbearable.

It does help with making parody songs, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm8WmiKj5go
Saim wrote:As someone who has talked about this with Hungarians when they were learning Finnish, no, knowing Hungarian doesn't really help. It only helps in the sense that you don't need to be taught what cases are.
Some of the basic vocabulary is vaguely similar, but this only helps in the way knowing English helps to learn Serbian (brother/brat, milk/mleko, three/tri, yes/jeste) or Hindi (eight/aath, me/main, mother/mata). You're not going to instantly recognise any of it but it's surely easier than going from Hungarian to, say, Mandarin or Arabic.

I haven't studied Hungarian but I'd imagine there's at least something similar in the grammar, too. :hmm:

There is something similar in the grammar: (large numbers of) cases! :) Also, European languages tend not to be all that different (from a global/cross-linguistic perspective) when it comes to (an overview of the) grammar.
dEhiN wrote:
IpseDixit wrote:Do you speak Finnish? Otherwise, how can you say it was awesome? :lol:

Because I thought it was awesome?

I agree. I don't speak Icelandic, either, but the Icelandic version of "I Won't Say I'm In Love" is definitely one of my favorites (along with Hungarian, which I speak a little bit of, I guess). It definitely sounds better than the original, which just sounds a bit awkward by comparison. The Icelandic one seems to fit the tune better.
Yeah I've never been a huge Disney fan. Some movies I like or want to watch but that was never the case with Mulan.

I don't think I ever have been, either, and the only reason why I have seen Mulan is because my aunt happened to take some of us out to see it on opening night, and then back when I was in grad school (I think), my mom said she'd never seen it so we rented it from Netflix and watched it together. :lol: I would say I liked it more than any Disney production I'd seen before that, but it's a joke compared to the original Ballad of Mulan. I have since tried to memorize the original multiple times.

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Vlürch » 2017-11-03, 23:04

Naava wrote:
Vlürch wrote:Yeah, it's kinda funny. It probably has something to do with me being from Roihuvuori, which is basically a not-exactly-wealthy-but-not-really-poor-anymore-either part of eastern Helsinki.

And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Now I wish I'd been in the middle of a field at least once... maybe someday...
Naava wrote:
Finnish really is logical, kinda like Finns... but THAT'S SAPIR-WHORFIST. Seriously, though, it's probably one of the important reasons why I struggle with basically every language. Irregularities give me nightmares... :oops:

I don't know what's wrong with me but I struggle with the rules, not with the irregularities. :lol:

That's how I struggle when it comes to making music. :lol:
Naava wrote:since the 17th century

I don't know if my ancestors even existed yet... well... you know what I mean. :P
Naava wrote:The dialogues are just unbearable.

That's one of the truest truths ever.
Naava wrote:It does help with making parody songs, though.

I knew it'd be that! :lol:
Naava wrote:
On a somewhat related note, everyone seems to think that everyone from the Middle East is an Arab, which somehow includes all of Central Asia and North Africa as well... and I've heard/seen Finns talk about "going to the east on a holiday" and turning out to mean Morocco of all places, which is about as far west as one could go without going to America... and it wasn't long ago that something on TV, although I don't remember in what context, was said about Morocco and it was referred to as being "in the east".

A bit like when someone says 'Europe', what I think is basically Western Europe. I was kinda mind=blown when I realised that I'm a European, too. :P

Oh, yeah. And you can never know for sure whether the person saying it means to include Finland and whatnot, or if they actually do mean just Western Europe... so being like "yo im fins" might not always be the best idea.
Naava wrote:
Well, depending on how the size and distances of Europe are defined, Finland may not be spoken anywhere near Germany, so I guess that would've made sense even if he had thought that all languages spoken anywhere near Germany were Germanic. :P

But Finnish isn't spoken anywhere near Ural either. (And it was she, btw.)

Well, yeah, but it used to be once upon a time, but the Germanic Urheimat was more or less exactly where Germanic languages are still spoken. (That word always feels a bit weird to type, since it's only one letter off from urheimmat (for non-Finnish-speakers, "the bravest" (plural)). (And ok.)
Naava wrote:
Anyway, I know of at least one famous person having said something like that, although it was in the context of music: Samu Haber on Vain elämää.

You watch Vain elämää?

Yeah. You don't? :P
Naava wrote:I haven't studied Hungarian but I'd imagine there's at least something similar in the grammar, too. :hmm:

What little I've learned on my occasional wanderlusts, Hungarian grammar is like Finland on all the drugs in the world. IIRC it has something like at least four times as many case suffixes to remember, more conjugations, and more vowel harmonies to remember. If I could learn it, I'd be so happy... but I'm not at the level where I can feel comfortable even seriously trying yet, since I struggle even with the Turkic case suffixes that aren't the most basic and obvious. :oops:
dEhiN wrote:Does Finnish have a trilled r, or was that done for effect?

Yes, Finnish has a trilled R. It's trilled by default, but can be a tap/flap/whatever without changing any meanings, but don't let that trick you into relaxing if you can't trill naturally: you'd probably have trouble being understood, even though trilling is technically unnecessary, because there are words like kerros (layer, storey (of a building)), which have a syllable that ends in /r/ followed by a syllable that beings with /r/. In words like that, the trill should come naturally, since there's really no other way to pronounce two consecutive taps/flaps than for them to become one trill. You'd still better lengthen the trill, though, because otherwise it could be interpreted as *keros, which isn't a meaningful word, but... well, it'd just sound weird.
Naava wrote:Well, it's not like I was a fan either because I didn't have a choice. :P I was raised by my parents, Disney movies, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Moomins in equal measure.

The story of every Finn born between... uh... 1917 and 2000?
vijayjohn wrote:
Naava wrote:And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Well, if it helps you feel any better, my dad was a farm boy. :P

You don't want to know what I think of when I hear "farm boy"... somehow my mind immediately interprets it as a gay porn star shooting in the barn. If your dad was like that, that's cool (as is being whatever "farm boy" actually means, I guess, although I can't really say since I don't know what it means), but I hope I didn't offend you. I had to tell you what it made me think of anyway, because otherwise you could've thought I thought something about "animal husbandry" if you know what I mean...
vijayjohn wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm8WmiKj5go

:rotfl:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-03, 23:47

Vlürch wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Naava wrote:And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Well, if it helps you feel any better, my dad was a farm boy. :P

You don't want to know what I think of when I hear "farm boy"... somehow my mind immediately interprets it as a gay porn star shooting in the barn.

:rotfl:
If your dad was like that, that's cool (as is being whatever "farm boy" actually means, I guess, although I can't really say since I don't know what it means), but I hope I didn't offend you. I had to tell you what it made me think of anyway, because otherwise you could've thought I thought something about "animal husbandry" if you know what I mean...

I never would've guessed. :lol: :lol: But no, it pretty much just means they had a cow and grew some plants. Owning a cow involves a lot of work! The typical Malayalee house is basically surrounded by a mini-jungle misleadingly called a "garden," except in the front (definitely not in the front these days since people have driveways!). :P

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby OldBoring » 2017-11-03, 23:49

We all know that the purpose of a tree in India is to dance around it.

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-04, 1:10

I honestly never got where this "dancing around trees" stereotype came from. I don't seem to almost ever see people dancing around trees in Bollywood movies, just walking around singing in a forest or dancing in forest clearings with no trees in them. And even that is so 1980s Malayalam movie. These days in Bollywood movies, they'd probably look like they were on some fancy-ass Hollywood set or something and not dance at all. :P

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Naava » 2017-11-04, 10:22

vijayjohn wrote:
Naava wrote:And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Well, if it helps you feel any better, my dad was a farm boy. :P

I don't really feel bad about it, I only meant that my life has been quite different from Vlürch's. :P My family has never been farmers, but my grandparents were. By the time I was born, all that was left were the fields (which we got after my grandmother died and which we rent to someone else every year) and a horse (which was actually my grandmother's, not ours). There's also less fields left than when I was a kid because people (including my brothers) have bought land from us and built a house there. The place is starting to look less and less like countryside, though there are still lots of fields and forests nearby.

Maybe there are more rules than irregularities?

Maybe? :D I also prefer to learn by heart rather than by using logic. Eg. I know that it's в школу when you're going to school but в школе when you're in/at school, but I have no idea what those cases are. It was quite annoying when my teacher didn't accept that as an answer, we had to know the case. :x If you tried to give the answer as it is, he would always say "yes, but what's the case you use here with в?" but if you answered with nothing but the name of the case like "genitive" or "accusative", he was happy to accept it.

So I guess irregularities have been easier for me because you just have to memorise them. No rules! :lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm8WmiKj5go

Awesome! :rotfl:

Btw the actual Finnish lyrics are brilliant too. The last line is "not mosquitoes nor mosquitoes but ducks". It's good they made it clear so that we know what to expect from a cartoon called Duck Tales.

Also, European languages tend not to be all that different (from a global/cross-linguistic perspective) when it comes to (an overview of the) grammar.

Well, that's true.

I would say I liked it more than any Disney production I'd seen before that, but it's a joke compared to the original Ballad of Mulan.

Disney loves to change the stories as much as they can. I, for one, truly believe they should've kept the original ending of The Little Mermaid. :twisted:

Vlürch wrote:
Naava wrote:
Vlürch wrote:Yeah, it's kinda funny. It probably has something to do with me being from Roihuvuori, which is basically a not-exactly-wealthy-but-not-really-poor-anymore-either part of eastern Helsinki.

And a lot to do with you being from the capital city while I've spent most of my life in the middle of a field. I'm not even exaggerating.

Now I wish I'd been in the middle of a field at least once... maybe someday...

As long as that day isn't in the spring. :D If you think having a boring class in late afternoon is bad, try to imagine what it's like when they're fertilising the fields next to the school.

Naava wrote:since the 17th century

I don't know if my ancestors even existed yet... well... you know what I mean. :P

Depends on where they lived. My dad's family has lived in Southern Ostrobothnia for hundreds of years so I think it was somewhat easy to find their names. I don't think that'd be the case with my mother's mother's family because she herself is from that part of Karelia that now belongs to Russia. Even though I know where she was born, the parish registers must've been lost or destroyed by now. :/ And her ancestors, then... it gets even harder because I don't even know if there's been any registers like that in other countries. Even if there were, I wouldn't know where to look from other than "Sweden" and "Poland" which doesn't help much.

Naava wrote:It does help with making parody songs, though.

I knew it'd be that!

It's a classic, isn't it? :lol:

Well, yeah, but it used to be once upon a time, but the Germanic Urheimat was more or less exactly where Germanic languages are still spoken

She didn't know about Proto-Uralic language at all. That's why I would've expected her to believe that Finnish belongs to "Scandinavian language family" or something like that, but no, even she knew that it's related to Estonian and Hungarian. I don't remember if she called them Uralic or Finno-Ugric but in any case, she hadn't thought that it means they've been one and the same language long ago.

You watch Vain elämää?

Yeah. You don't? :P

Seems like everyone does. :D I watched the first two seasons but I stopped when there started to be so many artists who I had never heard of. Now they've got artists I know but I've been too busy to watch TV. I've seen Toni's and Kaija Koo's days but that's all.

Hungarian grammar is like Finland on all the drugs in the world

So if you take Finnish and add some alcohol, you get Estonian, and if you add drugs, you get Hungarian? :lol:

You'd still better lengthen the trill, though, because otherwise it could be interpreted as *keros, which isn't a meaningful word, but... well, it'd just sound weird

Actually, it is the (spoken Finnish) inessive of kero. I don't really know how to translate that into English. The treeless top of mountains in Lapland? :lol:

Well, it's not like I was a fan either because I didn't have a choice. :P I was raised by my parents, Disney movies, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Moomins in equal measure.

The story of every Finn born between... uh... 1917 and 2000?

:lol:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby OldBoring » 2017-11-04, 14:51

I remember someone critisizing me for calling Romania "West". From an Asian prospective it's definitely West...

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-04, 15:25

Anything that's part of Europe is definitely the West for us!
Naava wrote:Eg. I know that it's в школу when you're going to school but в школе when you're in/at school, but I have no idea what those cases are.

Just in case you're curious, the first one is accusative and the second is locative. :)
Btw the actual Finnish lyrics are brilliant too. The last line is "not mosquitoes nor mosquitoes but ducks". It's good they made it clear so that we know what to expect from a cartoon called Duck Tales.

Well, you could probably argue that about the last line of the original, too. :lol: But this also reminds me of the Tagalog version of the "Titanic" song with fake English subtitles ("bring a bee, suck on a penis..."). Apparently, the Tagalog translation was performed by a comedian or something and was already meant to be humorous.
Disney loves to change the stories as much as they can. I, for one, truly believe they should've kept the original ending of The Little Mermaid. :twisted:

Oh, I know. In this case, probably one of the funniest things is how they hid all these references to the original ballad. For example, the original has nothing to do with defending China from barbarians or whatever; if anything, it has to do with serving the khan, who is basically the local barbarian leader himself! :P Then she asks the khan for a fast camel (at least I don't see how 明驼 can mean anything other than a camel) to take her home. But in the movie, Khan is the name of her horse, and she says, "Khan, let's go home." :lol:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby księżycowy » 2017-11-04, 15:49

You're reminding me of a Tlingit video I was watching on YouTube just this morning. I happened to turn on the English cc, thinking it would give me an English translation. Nope. It was "recognizing" the Tlingit as English and giving some sort of weird, drug-induced string of unrelated words. I think it broke the system, quite frankly. :lol:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-04, 18:41

It always does that. This is why I try to never, ever click on CC without clicking on the little gear icon next to it first to see what the language options are. If there isn't an option that lacks the word "(automatic)," I don't bother with it.

księżycowy

Re: Linguistics thread

Postby księżycowy » 2017-11-04, 20:01

I found it quite comical actually. It was suppose to be a funny story too. :P

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-04, 20:11

Oh, yeah, I get it. It's just that YouTube doesn't know when a joke gets old. :D


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