# cardinal numbers - gender



## Tamar

I'm looking for languages where you can find Cardinal numerals that agree in gender with the noun they count.
Hebrew has it and I think Arabic does too; Hebrew nouns have two genders - masculin and feminine, and two sets of cardinal numbers accordingly.

So:
One boy - ילד *אחד *- yeled *ekhad*
One girl - ילדה *אחת  *- yalda *akhat*

Two computers - *שני *מחשבים - *shney *makhshevim
Two televisions - *שתי *טלוויזיות - *shtey *televizyot

Ten pianos - ע*שרה פ*סנתרים - *asara *psanterim
Ten gitars - *עשר *גיטרות - *eser *gitarot

We have it with all numbers (besides 20, 30, 40 and on).
I saw on line that Greek has it as well?

Do you have such a thing in your langauge? Even if does not apply to all numbers (I saw that in Icelandic it only applies to 1-4. Is that true?)

Thanks.


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## jazyk

In Portuguese:

one:
masculine - um: um homem (one man)
feminine - uma: uma mulher (onw woman)

two:
masculine - dois: dois homens (two men)
feminine - duas: duas mulheres (two women)

Then it's the same number for both gender, except the hundreds, ending in entos for masculine and entas for women:
duzentos homens (two hundred men)
duzentas mulheres (two hundred women)
trezentos homens (three hundred men)
trezentas mulheres (three hundred women)


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## AutumnOwl

Swedish have common and neuter gender, (masculine and feminine when it comes to persons and some animals are a part of the common gender). The only numeral that differentiates between common and neuter gender are the number one. 
En bok, en pojke, en flicka - one book, one boy, one girl (common gender)
Ett bord - one table (neuter gender)


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## DearPrudence

In *French*,
only "*1*" (& its compounds like 21 - 31 ... - 101 - 1001,... (except 11 (onze) & 91 (quatre-vingt-onze))) has a visible agreement with the gender (& incidentally, "un" = 1 or the definite article).

_un garçon (one boy (or a boy))_
_une fille (one girl (or a girl)

vingt-et-un garçons (21 boys)
vingt-et-une filles (21 girls)_


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## bibax

Latin and the Slavic languages have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter.

Latin:
1: unus, una, unum;
2: duo, duae, duo (also ambo, ambae, ambo = both);
3: tres, tres, tria;

There is a peculiarity in Latin: the _plurale tantum_ nouns use special numeral adjectives that agree with the nouns in gender like any "normal" adjectives. Example: trinae rotae = 3 chariots (tres rotae would means three wheels), trina castra = 3 camps (not tria castra), etc.

Czech:
1: jeden, jedna, jedno;
2: dva, dvě, dvě (also oba, obě, obě = both);

In Czech there is also another set of numerals for the _plurale tantums_ like in Latin.

Necessary to add that in Czech the cardinal numerals are declinable (so they have several different forms).


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## rusita preciosa

Russian had three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.


The numerals 1 and 2 agree in gender, others have a single form for all genders.
Ion addition, different numerals call for different case (declination) of the noun:
1 calls for nominative
2-4 calls for genitive singular
5+ calls for genitive plural

So,
One boy (m) /girl (f) / window (n): 
од*ин* мальчик [od*in* malchik] / од*на* девочка [od*na* devochka] / од*но* окнo [od*no* okno] 

Two boys (m) /girls (f) / windows (n): 
дв*а *мальчика [dva malchika] / дв*е* девочки [dve devochki] / дв*а* окна [dva okna]

Five boys (m) /girls (f) / windows (n): 
пять мальчиков [piat malchikov] / пять девочек [piat devochek] / пять окон [piat okon]


In addition, there are separate forms for collective numerals and plurale tantum:
од*ни* очки [odni otchki]  / дв*ое* очков [dvoye otchkov] / пят*еро* очков [piatero otchkov]– 1,2,5 pairs of glasses
дв*ое *мальчиков [dvoye malchikov]- [a group of] two boys
пят*еро* мальчиков [piatero malchikov] – [a group of] five boys


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## apmoy70

In Greek:

The numerals 1, 3, 4 agree in gender, the other are indeclinable, e.g:
One man, woman, child--> «Ένας άνδρας» ('enas 'anðras, _both masculine_), «μία γυναίκα» ('mia ji'neka, _both feminine_), «ένα παιδί» ('ena pe'ði, _both neuter_).
Three men, women, children--> «Τρεις άνδρες» (tris 'anðres, _both masculine_), «τρεις γυναίκες» (tris ji'neces, _both feminine_), «τρία παιδιά» ('tria pe'ðja, _both neuter_).
Four men, women, children--> «Τέσσερεις άνδρες» ('teseris 'anðres, _both masculine_), «τέσσερεις γυναίκες» ('teseris ji'neces, _both feminine_), «τέσσερα παιδιά» ('tesera pe'ðja, _both neuter_).


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## Gavril

In Icelandic, the numerals from 1-4 have separate forms in all three genders:

1: _einn_ (masculine), _ein_ (feminine), _eitt_ (neuter)
2: _tveir_ (m.), _tvær_ (f.), _tvö_ (n.)
3: _þrír _(m.), _þrjár _(f.), _þrjú _(n.)
4: _fjórir _(m.), _fjórar _(f.), _fjögur _(n.)


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## Rallino

apmoy70 said:


> In Greek:
> 
> The numerals 1, 3, 4 agree in gender, ...



Does χιλιάδα (1000) also have a similar feature? Thanks in advance.


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## Tamar

> In Greek:
> 
> The numerals 1, 3, 4 agree in gender, the other are indeclinable, ...


I wonder what happened to 2?

I also wonder about Icelandic - what's special about 1-4?

Interesting to see that most of the langauges so far mentioned here have gender for just number 1.


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## apmoy70

Rallino said:


> Does χιλιάδα (1000) also have a similar feature? Thanks in advance.


You are right of course, I just didn't count up to 1000 
1000 men, women, children--> «χίλιοι άνδρες» ('çilii, colloquially çiʎi, 'anðres), «χίλιες γυναίκες» (çilies, colloquially çiʎes, ji'neces), «χίλια παιδιά» ('çilia, colloquially çiʎa pe'ðja).
Also
«Μια χιλιάδα άνδρες, γυναίκες, παιδιά» (mi'a [feminine nominative sing.] çi'ʎaða [feminine nominative sing.] 'anðres [maculine nominative pl.], ji'neces  [feminine nominative pl.], pe'ðja [neuter nominative pl.]) lit. "a chiliad of men, women, children"
Also
«μια εκατοντάδα άνδρες, γυναίκες, παιδιά» (mi'a [feminine nominative sing.] ekaton'daða [feminine nominative sing.] 'anðres [maculine nominative pl.], ji'neces  [feminine nominative pl.], pe'ðja [neuter nominative pl.]) lit. "a fivescore of men, women, children"
«δύο εκατοντάδες άνδρες, γυναίκες, παιδιά» ('ðio ekaton'daðes   [feminine nominative pl.] 'anðres [maculine nominative pl.], ji'neces  [feminine nominative pl.], pe'ðja [neuter nominative pl.]) lit. "two fivescore of men, women, children"
etc


Tamar said:


> I wonder what happened to 2?


That's because the dual number was early abandoned in Greek, unlike Hebrew (Homer was using it sporadically in Odyssey and Iiad while in the classical language was all but lost)


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## bibax

I also wonder what happened to 1? (enas, mia, ...  )


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## Gavril

Tamar said:


> I also wonder about Icelandic - what's special about 1-4?



It seems common in Indo-European languages for 1-4 to be declinable, while the rest of the basic numbers (1-10) are uninflected and have no gender agreement. Other than Germanic, you can see the same pattern in Greek (as Apmoy70 described), Celtic, and possibly other branches of IE.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why 1-4 are treated as special -- it might have to do with people having 5 fingers per hand.


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## bibax

> It seems common in Indo-European languages for 1-4 to be declinable, while the rest of the basic numbers (1-10) are uninflected and have no gender agreement.


You mixed up declension and gender agreement. In Czech all cardinal numerals are declinable, however only the numerals 1 and 2 have different forms depending on gender.

For example:

Nom. Acc. tři (= three), Dat. třem, etc. for all genders.


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## catlady60

English adjectives change from the singular to the plural form, but doesn't have a grammatical gender agreement.

For example:
One _man_ - two *men* (irregular plural).
One _woman_ - two *women.*

One hundred *men*
One hundred *women*
Two hundred* boys*
Two hundred *girls*.


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## Tjahzi

I believe the fact that the numerals one to four behave differently is a trait inherited from proto-IE. Whereas the other numerals were originally nouns, _one _to _four_ were adjectives. As such, they agreed with the nouns in terms of gender, where as other numerals required the noun to take the genitive case. Later on, these systems merged, which can be seen in the above presentation of Russian. I also believe Icelandic allows both nominative and genitive for numerals _two_ to _four_.

While I know that Arabic has a genitive case, I'm curious to learn whether Hebrew uses genitive, and whether or not it's used for nouns governed by numerals numerals?


catlady60 said:


> English adjectives change from the singular to the plural form, but doesn't have a grammatical gender agreement.
> 
> For example:
> One _man_ - two *men* (irregular plural).
> One _woman_ - two *women.*
> 
> One hundred *men*
> One hundred *women*
> Two hundred* boys*
> Two hundred *girls*.


Sorry, I don't mean to be picky, but those words in bold are _nouns_, not _adjectives_, and this thread is about _numerals_.


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## Alxmrphi

Doesn't Hebrew gender switch? I remember listening to a lecture on how numbers can vary across language and specifically remember an example about Hebrew where when a certain number goes with a gender of a noun, it has to switch and be opposite. I can't remember the exact details, but if someone can explain the rule again here I'd be grateful 


> I also believe Icelandic allows both nominative and genitive for numerals _two_ to _four_.


Not _one_ to _four_?
*
Masculine: ................ Feminine .................... Neuter*
(Nom): Einn ................. Ein...............................Eitt
(Acc): Einn .................. Eina ............................Eitt
(Dat): Einum ................. Einni ...........................Einu
(Gen): Eins ....................Einnar .........................Eins

Seems to behave like the others 



> Whereas the other numerals were originally nouns, _one _to _four_  were adjectives. As such, they agreed with the nouns in terms of  gender, where as other numerals required the noun to take the genitive  case



Didn't know that!
Interesting info


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## Gavril

Alxmrphi said:


> Doesn't Hebrew gender switch? I remember listening to a lecture on how numbers can vary across language and specifically remember an example about Hebrew where when a certain number goes with a gender of a noun, it has to switch and be opposite. I can't remember the exact details, but if someone can explain the rule again here I'd be grateful



I'm not sure about Hebrew, but in another Semitic language, Akkadian, this pattern applies to the numerals 3-19, but not 1-2. For example, the word for "1" has masculine _ištēn _and feminine _i__štēt_:

_šarrum ištēn_ "one king" (where _šarrum_ "king" is masculine)
_šarratum ištēt_ "one queen"  (_šarratum_ "queen" = feminine)

But in the case of "4", which has masc. _erbe _and fem. _erbet, _there is a gender switch: 

_šarrū erbet_ "four kings"
_šarrātum erbe _"four queens"


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## Alxmrphi

Aha, I found the explanation:


> In Hebrew and other languages in its Semitic family, there is something that truly makes no damned sense and you just have to deal with it. Adjectives take a feminine ending when used with a feminine noun, no surprise there. Adjectives come after the noun, and so _mazal tov_ ("Good luck"), but _ šana tova_ ("Good year"). But for some reason, numbers above two turn it around: they take a feminine ending with masculine nouns and no ending with feminine ones. Kibbutzes are male in Hebrew, and so three kibbutzes: _šlo__š*a *__(feminine) __kibutzim._ Bananas are women, and so three bananas is _šalo__š __(no ending) __bananot_. This just is. Israelis don't "_not like_" it. It's been that way forever, it's that way in Arabic, it's just that way.



From John McWhorter's "Our Magnificient Bastard Tongue", in his (very generally aimed, as you can tell) book specifically talking about the stupidness of prescriptivism, and how logic across a wide range of languages brings up all sorts of weird and wonderful quirks that also don't follow a logical pattern (a great read).


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## Tjahzi

Sorry, I was a bit unclear. What I meant to say with "I also believe Icelandic allows both nominative and genitive for numerals _two_ to _four_" was that when governed by a numeral _two_ to _four_, a noun can take both nominative and genitive (as opposed to Russian, as seen above). As such, it would be correct to say both _Þrír manns eru... _as well as _Þrír menn eru... _(and possibly also _manna_). However, I believe the genitive usage is regarded as quite literary, then again, a native needs to confirm this. Just as with the above information, I just remember reading/hearing it, but am unable to find a source right now.


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## Tamar

> While I know that Arabic has a genitive case, I'm curious to learn whether Hebrew uses genitive, and whether or not it's used for nouns governed by numerals numerals?


Hebrew has no cases.



> Aha, I found the explanation:
> 
> In Hebrew and other languages in its Semitic family, there is something that truly makes no damned sense and you just have to deal with it. Adjectives take a feminine ending when used with a feminine noun, no surprise there. Adjectives come after the noun, and so _mazal tov_ ("Good luck"), but _ šana tova_ ("Good year"). But for some reason, numbers above two turn it around: they take a feminine ending with masculine nouns and no ending with feminine ones. Kibbutzes are male in Hebrew, and so three kibbutzes: _šlo__š*a *__(feminine) __kibutzim._ Bananas are women, and so three bananas is _šalo__š __(no ending) __bananot_. This just is. Israelis don't "_not like_" it. It's been that way forever, it's that way in Arabic, it's just that way.
> 
> 
> From John McWhorter's "Our Magnificient Bastard Tongue", in his (very generally aimed, as you can tell) book specifically talking about the stupidness of prescriptivism, and how logic across a wide range of languages brings up all sorts of weird and wonderful quirks that also don't follow a logical pattern (a great read).


McWhorter is right, that is how it works.
However, the part about "Israelis don't "not like it" " is not true any longer. This actually why thread started; a friend at work keep confusing feminine and masculin numerals, like most Hebrew speakers today.
He uses masculin numerals with feminine nouns and vice versa. He was corrected by another person and started arguing that Hebrew is the only language in the world that has such a phenomenon, without ever checking this (and he apparently doesn't consider most languages "real language" - languages that are "worth" taking into consideration). 
Anyway, besides the fact that it's interesting, I want to prove gim wrong.
And so far in this thread, Hebrew seems to make sense regarding this phenomenon  (first time in my life I say such a thing!) - it applies to all numerals, not just 1-4 numbers (there are such incredible languages  )



> Whereas the other numerals were originally nouns, _one _to _four_  were adjectives. As such, they agreed with the nouns in terms of  gender, where as other numerals required the noun to take the genitive  case
> 
> 
> Didn't know that!
> Interesting info


Wonderful! And still I wonder how come 1-4 were adj. what is it about those numbers that's unique? 

Here's another question for everyone - what happens when you get to 21, 22, 23 and on?
In Hebrew we still have the gender distinction.
23 beds  - עשרים ושלוש מיטות  - esrim ve- *shalosh *mitot
23 houses - עשרים ושלושה בתים - esrim ve- *shlosha *batim


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## Tjahzi

Tamar said:


> Wonderful! And still I wonder how come 1-4 were adj. what is it about those numbers that's unique?



Well, this time, I'm purely speculating on my own, but I imagine them being reminiscent of early PIE usage of numerals. Firstly, numerals _are_ very similar to adjectives, both when used attributively (which is standard) but also when used predicatively (which is rare, but theoretically functional). Just compare it with the following phrases. Try replacing the numeral with a normal adjective, such as _red_ or _big_. (And try it for all languages you know, and change the noun too see how/if the adjectives inflect.) They will work perfectly, although they might sound a bit odd since most languages consider number to be such an essential information that some notion usually is made about it.

_- She is only one._
- _Yesterday I ate two apples.
-_ _The people remaining were three.
- The four girls crossed the street._

(_One_ and _three_ exemplifying predicative usage and _two_ and _four_ attribute.)

Let's just assume this was how people used to count at the very beginning of the "history of counting", and do keep in mind that there wasn't around an awful lot of stuff worth counting. You had three or four children and you caught one or two rabbits and that was it. However, after a while, other numeric expression started to take shape. Concepts such as _many_ or _a dozen _appeared. But while the prehistoric speaker seems to have preferred _I see one bird_, it was more natural to say _Today I saw a lot of birds, _that is, using a genitive construction. Not all such expressions demand genitive (_of, _that is) in English, but if we turn to Russian, we find that all these expressions do. _Many of something_, _(a) few_ _of something_ and so on. We can also conclude that the genitive construction _can_ be applied even with lower numbers, simply because English can express there numbers using nouns. Compare the previous examples rewritten.

_- There is only one of her._
- _Yesterday I ate a pair of apples.
- There was a triplet of people renaming.
- A quartet of girls crossed the street._

However, what I've demonstrated above is merely that there are (at least) two methods of counting, using adjectives and nouns. I can't answer why some languages, such as PIE and Slavic languages prefer a mix, while other languages, such as English and Hebrew seem to count only using adjectives. (Well, given the fact that Hebrew belongs to a different family, that's of course another story.) Though, even while providing no real answers to the actual question, I believe knowing this is a good start.


Tamar said:


> Here's another question for everyone - what happens when you get to 21, 22, 23 and on?
> In Hebrew we still have the gender distinction.
> 23 beds  - עשרים ושלוש מיטות  - esrim ve- *shalosh *mitot
> 23 houses - עשרים ושלושה בתים - esrim ve- *shlosha *batim



The peculiar case/number usage described above by Rusita still applies here and they are still use their separate gender form. _Three, twenty-three _and so on all demand genitive singular, while _five_, _twenty-five_ and so on all demand genitive plural. However, all numerals from _five_ to _nineteen_ demand genitive plural as well (meaning, while 22 is indeed _twenty-(plus)-two_, _twelve _is an independent entity (although etymologically formed through _two-on-ten_)).

Of the Germanic languages, only Icelandic inflects numerals higher than _one_ for gender (including ones ending in _-1, -2, -3 _and _-4_).


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## catlady60

Tjahzi said:


> Sorry, I don't mean to be picky, but those words in bold are _nouns_, not _adjectives_, and this thread is about _numerals_.


My error.  I said _adjective_ by mistake; I meant to say _numeral form._


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## Tjahzi

Uhh, isn't _numeral_ _form_ the form of a number written with digits? As in, the numeral form of _twelve_ is _12_?

What your example shows is that English inflects nouns for number.


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## Alxmrphi

Tjahzi said:


> Uhh, isn't _numeral_ _form_ the form of a number written with digits? As in, the numeral form of _twelve_ is _12_?


Hi Tjahzi,

Linguistically, "numerals" would be synonymous with both "twelve" and "12", if categorising it as a numeral quantifier, or a numeral, or I guess a "numeral form" (a term which I'm not familiar with, but would automatically include the written form within).
Like, "*I will have three/3 regular ordinary Swedish breakfasts D))*" would have a numeral (form/quantifier) in each of the two options.

In a less-linguistically/language-related context, you'd be perfectly right, "in numerical/numer/numeral form" would indeed be digits like 1234567890 (I did that like on a keyboard then ).


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## Favara

In Catalan, only cardinals ending in 1 or 2 (except 11 and 12), and multiples of 100 (except 100 itself), agree in gender:

1 - u/un*, una
2 - dos, dues
3 - tres
11 - onze
12 - dotze
21 - vint-i-u/vint-i-un, vint-i-una
22 - vint-i-dos, vint-i-dues
72 - setanta-dos, setanta-dues
100 - cent
200 - dos-cents, dos-centes
433 - quatre-cents trenta-tres, quatre-centes trenta-tres
591 - cinc-cents noranta-u/un, cinc-centes noranta-una

*: _u_ refers to the number itself ("the number 51" = _el número cinquanta-u_), while _un_ actually indicates a quantity ("51 trees" = _cent-un arbres_).


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## apmoy70

Tamar said:


> Here's another question for everyone - what happens when you get to 21, 22, 23 and on?
> In Hebrew we still have the gender distinction.
> 23 beds  - עשרים ושלוש מיטות  - esrim ve- *shalosh *mitot
> 23 houses - עשרים ושלושה בתים - esrim ve- *shlosha *batim



In Greek, 21, 23, 24 (again not 22) have to agree in gender and case, e.g:
«εικοσιένας άνδρες» (twenty one men)
/ikosi'enas 'anðres/ _(m. nominative pl.)_
«εικοσιενός ανδρών» (of twenty one men)
/ikosie'nos anð'ron/ _(m. genitive pl.)_
«εικοσιτρεiς ημέρες» (twenty three days)
/ikosi'tris i'meres/ _(f. nominative pl)_
«εικοσιτέσσερα παιχνίδια» (twenty four toys)
/ikosi'tesera pex'niðja/ _(n. nominative pl.)_
«εικοσιτεσσάρων ημερών» (of twenty four days)
/ikosite'saron ime'ron/ _(f. genitive pl.)_


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## XiaoRoel

En galego:
1: masc. *un*; fem. *unha*.
2: masc. *dous*; fem. *dúas*.


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## francisgranada

*Hungarian*

No agreement at all, neither in gender (that does not exist at all) but nor in number and case:

egy ház - (_lit._ one house)
két ház - (l_it_. two house)
ezer ház - (_lit._ thousend house)
...

egy házban - in a/one house (_lit._ one house in)
két házban - in two houses (l_it_. two house in)
ezer házban - in thousend houses (_lit._ thousend house in)
...


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## Orlin

In Bulgarian the numbers _1_ and _2_ (and all compounds that end in 1 and 2, i. e. all numbers ending in -1 and -2 except -11 and -12) have gender differentiation: 1: _един (m.)_, _една (f.)_, _едно (n.)_; 2: _два (m.)_, _две (f., n.)_; the other numbers have only 1 form for all genders. 
Bulgarian has no noun declension, after the number 1 singular is used, numbers 2+ go with "ordinary" plural except masculine numbers that don't mean persons - they have a specific form for such a case, e. g. нож*ове* (knives), *2* нож*а* (2 knives).


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