Summarizing Romance sound shifts

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Hey guys, what’s up. If you remember the  introduction to the video where I talked about   the evolution of sounds in the Germanic languages,  you knew this was coming eventually. That’s right,   since I’ve now learned Romanian, that means I’ve  fulfilled my requirements to make a video about   the sounds of the Romance languages! Well,  technically I didn’t need to learn Catalan   for this, but I have learned it, so nothing’s  stopping me from using it. Just like last time,   I’m gonna start with the history  of the family and its branches,   then I’ll explain the phonology of the starting  language, and then I’ll go through the sounds and   how they changed. Oh ya, and about the starting  language, I’m gonna do something that’s possibly   a bit controversial here- I’m gonna use  Classical Latin as the starting point for   the sound evolution. There are two main reasons  for this- first, there are some sound changes   that had already been taking place in various  different ways by the time of Vulgar Latin, which   makes it easier to just start earlier, in the more  unified Classical Latin. But the bigger reason is   that I’m not gonna squander the opportunity to  use a well-documented, attested language as the   starting point in a language family evolution  video. So with that out of the way, let’s go! So first off, we have the history section.  The Romance languages are a branch of the   Indo-European language family. Specifically,  they’re the languages descended from Latin,   but what exactly was the timeline of  that? We should probably start in 509 BC,   with the beginning of the Roman Republic in Rome,  because that’s when the Romans started expanding.   Through a timeline of getting sacked and sacking  other places, by 218 BC they’d captured most of   what’s now Italy, and then just kept going on to  eventually the rest of the Mediterranean and then   some. During the Roman Republic, they spoke Old  Latin, and kept speaking it until near the end,   about 100 BC. At this point, the era of Classical  Latin is considered to have started, more of the   expansion happened, and later in the century in  27 BC, the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire,   followed by even more expansion, as the peak  territorial extent of the Roman Empire was in 117   AD. Anyway, Classical Latin was spoken until  sometime in the 200s AD, at which point the   general populace started speaking Vulgar Latin,  a more evolved form of Latin, but here’s where   it gets confusing. The elites of this time  preferred instead to write in Late Latin,   somewhat of an extension of Classical Latin, even  though they very much spoke Vulgar Latin natively.   After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD,  the language was much freer to evolve every which   way. But before we talk about that evolution, I  need to point something out about Vulgar Latin.   It was a dialect continuum across southern  Europe. Therefore, the “branches” I’m about   to talk about are fluid and somewhat arbitrary.  So starting from the west, there’s Ibero-Romance,   spoken on the Iberian Peninsula. It got a lot of  Arabic influence due to Muslims having control   over the region in the early middle ages, but  then the Catholics took it back in the 1100s,   and the Ibero-Romance languages today are  Portuguese, Spanish, and several other   regional languages. Then there’s Gallo-Romance,  named after the region of Gaul. Especially in   the north of the region, they got more Germanic  influence due to the Franks, and, you guessed it,   the modern Gallo-Romance languages are French,  Catalan, and some other regional languages.   By the way, Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance are  often combined into Western Romance by linguists.   So then for the east, we have Italo-Dalmatian  (which I may call “Italo-Romance” sometimes   to clarify that it’s a Romance sub-branch),  and that branch has, of course, Italian and   most of the other Italian dialects, although not  Sardinian, which is considered to make up its own   branch. And finally, there’s Eastern Romance,  which has a lot more Slavic influence, and the   main language from that branch is Romanian,  of course, with other minority languages. Alright so now we’ll just look at the phonology of  Classical Latin, to see what we’re starting from.   In terms of consonant phonemes, Classical  Latin had 17 of them, with eight plosives,   [p] [t] [k] [kʷ] [b] [d] [g] and [gʷ],  three fricatives, [f] [s] and [h], two   nasals, [m] and [n], three approximants, [ɫ]  [w] [j], and a trill, [r]. In addition, [z] was   sometimes present in Greek loanwords. As far as  allophones, /ɫ/ was dark by default, but became   light [l] when either before [i] or geminated.  Speaking of which, yes, Latin had consonant   gemination, where the consonant was held twice  as long. This will be a very important point at   various times in this video. There was also just,  the standard allophone of /n/ becoming [ŋ] before   velar consonants. Now for the vowels, there was  also, you guessed it, vowel length distinction,   between short and long. There were five basic  vowels, ten total with the lengths, although,   depending on who you ask, there may have  been quality differences between the lengths,   giving us [a] [aː] [ɛ] [eː] [ɪ] [iː] [ɔ] [oː]  [ʊ] and [uː]. Latin also had a few diphthongs,   being these, and there were two places where  vowels would become nasal: Before M at the end   of a word, and before a nasal consonant that was  itself before a fricative. As for stress rules,   they’re a bit complicated. But basically, the  stress was normally on the penultimate syllable,   unless the word was three syllables or longer,  and the penultimate syllable was short, in   which case the antepenultimate, or third-to-last  syllable, gets the stress. To close this section,   normally I wouldn’t have to do this, but I do here  since the origin language was written- I need to   go over parts of Latin orthography that may be  confusing to modern readers. Basically, here’s   the original Latin alphabet, and you’ll notice it  only has 20 letters. Ok well 23 if you count the   letters specifically used for Greek loanwords, K,  Y, and Z. First up is the reason why some letters   you may know from modern times aren’t there- I  and “U”, which looks like modern V, could both be   either the vowels /i/ and /u/, or the consonants  /j/ and /w/, and you’d know based on where it was   in the word. The letters J and U were added later  when sound changes made them necessary in various   languages, while W isn’t even used in native  words by any modern Romance language. As for other   notes, the QU digraph was still used to make the  [kʷ] sound, X did, in fact, represent /ks/, and   H was pronounced, as /h/. Finally, C and G  were always pronounced /k/ and /g/- there   was no such thing as their “soft” variants, and  spoiler alert, that will get addressed today. So now it’s time to see what happened to  the consonants, starting with the nasals,   liquids, and trills- or, as they’re collectively  known, sonorants. I’ll start with the trill, /r/,   because it introduces a lot of necessary concepts.  So first off, and probably the one y’all are the   most familiar with, in French it became uvular  /ʁ/. Easy! But the rest of the changes to Latin   /r/ are a bit less direct, and in order to set  the scene, I’ll talk about Spanish. Technically   nothing changed with the /r/ in Spanish, BUT other  stuff changed around it. Basically, even back in   Latin, when between vowels and ungeminated, /r/  was pronounced more as a tap, /ɾ/. But then,   Spanish lost consonant gemination as a feature,  but this tap vs. trill distinction remained,   which made them phonemically different  in Spanish. In fact, the only notable   modern Romance language that still has consonant  gemination is Italian. So for the other languages,   Catalan did basically the same thing as Spanish,  but they also dropped the /r/ at the ends of words   (outside of Valencia), giving us for example,  the word aterrar, meaning “land”. Meanwhile,   Portuguese actually went the extra mile and  changed the trilled form into /x/ (the exact   pronunciation of which varies by dialect). The /x/  form also took over at the beginnings of words,   since they were naturally trilled, and also  in a couple other positions only in Brazilian   Portuguese. So now for the comparative examples  of this sound. First, there’s Latin terra,   which became Portuguese terra, Spanish tierra,  Catalan terra, Italian terra, French terre,   and Romanian țară. For an example that  was ungeminated, there’s Latin hōra,   which became Portuguese hora, Spanish hora,  Italian ora, and French heure. And since we were   just talking about gemination, I’ll continue  on this theme with /ɫ/ and /n/. First off,   the whole dark L thing didn’t really get passed on  to any modern Romance languages. Portuguese does   have a dark L, but that’s its own system. But as  for the gemination, the Western Romance languages   all did palatalization of geminated /l/ and /n/  to some extent, to /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ respectively.   It’s most regular in Spanish and Catalan, but  Portuguese, French, and even Italian all had their   part. (It should also be mentioned that in most  dialects of Spanish, [ʎ] has now merged into [ʝ],   in a sound shift known as yeísmo, but I happen  to speak a dialect that didn’t do that.) For   one example, there’s Latin stēlla, which  became Spanish estrella and Catalan estrella,   but also Portuguese estrela, French étoile,  Italian stella, and even Romanian stea. Things   do get more interesting when the Latin geminated  /l/ had /i/ after it tho. In that situation,   most Romance languages are more likely to have  palatalized it- for example, there was Latin   allium, which became Romanian ai, Italian aglio,  French ail, Catalan all, Portuguese alho, and   Spanish… ajo. Wow so uhh, not that reliable  of a sound shift for Spanish anymore. And   for /n/, there’s also Latin annus, which became  Spanish año and Catalan any, but Portuguese ano,   French an, Italian anno, and Romanian an. However,  Catalan also palatalized word-initial /l/, like   with Latin lupus, which became Catalan llop,  but Spanish lobo, Portuguese lobo, French loup,   Italian lupo, and Romanian lup. So now onto  the nasals. The main thing to say about them,   other than the palatalization on /n/, is that  when any nasal consonant was in coda position,   in both French and Portuguese, they disappeared,  but made the vowel before them nasal. For example,   there was Classical Latin quīnque, which became  Vulgar Latin cīnque, and then Portuguese cinco and   French cinq, but Spanish cinco, Italian cinque,  and Romanian cinci. For an example at the end of a   word, there was the Latin accusative form leōnem,  which became French lion and Portuguese leão,   but Spanish león and Italian leone. So to end the  sonorants, we have /w/ and /j/, neither of which   are really gonna stick around. For /w/, it first  shifted over to a voiced bilabial fricative, [β],   and then went one of two directions. In Spanish  and Catalan, it stayed like that between vowels,   but elsewhere, especially word-initially, it  became [b]. And that just so happens to be   the phonemic profile of /b/ in those languages,  so… that’s a merger! In the other languages, [β]   simply shifted over to [v]. So for example, there  was Latin uentus, which became Romanian vânt,   Italian vento, French vent, and Portuguese vento,  but Spanish viento and Catalan vent. As for /j/,   at least word-initially, it became [x] in  Spanish, [ʤ] in Italian, and [ʒ] in the other four   languages. For example, there was Latin iocārī,  which became Spanish jugar and Italian giocare,   but then Portuguese jogar, Catalan jugar, French  jouer, and Romanian juca. Meanwhile in the middles   of words, it still became [ʤ] in Italian and  [ʧ] in Catalan, but otherwise it pretty much   stayed [j] (except in Spanish, where it slightly  intensified to [ʝ], and French, where it somehow   merged into the surrounding vowels). So in Latin  there was Maius, and that gives us modern Italian   maggio, Catalan maig, Spanish mayo, French  mai, Romanian mai, and Portuguese maio. Alright, we’ve gotten to the fricatives, and  there are only three of them, so let’s do this.   First off, we have [h], and uhh… it’s gone.  However, it should be mentioned that Romanian   does still have a [h] sound, but it’s due to an  abundance of Slavic loanwords. This is much the   same situation that French had from roughly 800 to  1700 AD with the H aspiré thing, but in that case,   it was due to Germanic loanwords. So for example,  we have Latin hominem, which became Romanian om,   Italian uomo, French homme, Catalan home,  Spanish hombre, and Portuguese homem. Also,   notice that the western languages actually still  write an H there, but it’s silent. In Spanish tho,   the silent H could have a different origin- F. Ya,  in Spanish, original Latin [f] first became [h],   and then disappeared altogether, largely  considered to be due to Basque influence-   sometimes. The pattern isn’t 100% consistent due  to various competing influences, but generally,   [f] was dropped unless it was before [e], [i], or  another consonant. To give an example where [f]   did disappear in Spanish, there’s Latin farīna,  which became Romanian făină, Italian farina,   French farine, Catalan farina, and Portuguese  farinha, but Spanish harina. And for an example   where Spanish kept the [f], there’s Latin flōrem,  which became Romanian floare, Italian fiore,   French fleur, Catalan flor, Portuguese flor,  and Spanish flor. And for the final fricative,   there’s [s]. Remember back when I was talking  about how [r] split up phonemically in Spanish due   to loss of consonant gemination? Well a similar  thing happened to [s], but not in Spanish (or   Romanian, which was just generally not affected  by degemination shifts). However, in Portuguese,   Catalan, French, and Italian from northern Italy,  [s] became voiced [z] when intervocalic and   ungeminated, while staying [s] if geminated. This  effectively made [z] a new phoneme in Portuguese,   Catalan, and French, while it’s still an allophone  in Italian due to still having gemination. So for   an ungeminated example, there was Latin casa,  which became Romanian casă and Spanish casa,   but Portuguese casa, Catalan casa, Italian casa,  and French… chez. Ya, interesting. And for a   geminated example, there was Latin tussīre, which  became Italian tossire, but Portuguese tossir,   Spanish toser, Catalan tossir, French tousser,  and Romanian tuși. So ya, about the Romanian word,   there was a general pattern of palatalization  before front high vowels, like in this example   with [s] becoming [ʃ]. But this will become  a bit more relevant with the plosives. So now we’re at the plosives, and we’ll pick right  up where we left off with Romanian palatalization,   an obviously Slavic-influenced feature. So we  saw [s] becoming [ʃ], but there were also two   plosives affected by this: [t] became [t͡s], and  [d] became [z]. So for an example with [t], there   was Latin tenēre, which became Portuguese ter,  Spanish tener, Catalan tenir, French tenir, and   Italian tenere, but Romanian ține. And for an  example with [d], there was Latin dīcere, which   became Portuguese dizer (or dizer in  Portugal), Spanish decir, Catalan dir,   French dire, Italian dire, and Romanian zice. But  aside from the [d] becoming [z] in Romanian, among   those examples you saw many different ways that  Latin [k] behaved, so this is a perfect segway   into the broader fronting patterns that happened  when [k] or [g] was before [e] or [i]. For [g] in   those situations, it actually did the same thing  that [j] did, where it became [x] in Spanish,   [ʤ] in Italian, and [ʒ] in French, Portuguese,  and Catalan (or at least, outside of Valencia).   The one exception is Romanian, because instead  of becoming [ʒ] like [j] did, [g] became [ʤ],   like in Italian. For example, there was Latin  gentem, which became Spanish gente, Portuguese   gente, Catalan gent, French gens, Italian gente,  and Romanian gint, which is now obsolete. But it’s   a bit more interesting what happened to [k] before  [e] and [i]. In Italian and Romanian, it became   [ʧ], while in the western languages, it initially  became [t͡s], and then split up further. In   Portuguese, Catalan, and French, this sound simply  merged into [s]. But in Spanish, it initially   shifted over to a laminal S, made with the blade  of the tongue instead of the tip, that being [s̻].   From here, in Latin American Spanish, this sound  merged into regular “apical” [s] just like in the   rest of the western Romance languages, but in  most of Spain, it instead became a voiceless   dental fricative, [θ]. So for example, there was  Latin caelum (the ae diphthong merged into [ɛ] in   Vulgar Latin), and it became Romanian cer, Italian  cielo, French ciel, Catalan cel, Portuguese céu,   and for Spanish, in Latin America it’s pronounced  cielo, and in Spain it’s pronounced cielo. But   French also did something else with [k]. When [k]  was before [a] in Old French, it initially became   [ʧ], and then later, [ʃ]. So there was Latin  capra, which became Romanian capră, Italian capra,   Portuguese cabra, Spanish cabra, and Catalan  cabra, but French chèvre. But also on that word,   notice the variation on the center consonant.  That’s our next topic. The voiceless consonants,   when between vowels (or sometimes liquids) and  ungeminated, became voiced in the western Romance   languages, and then in French, the [b] became [v],  and the rest of them… disappeared. You just saw   the example with capra becoming chèvre, so for an  example with [t], we have Latin vīta, which became   Italian vita, Portuguese vida, Spanish vida,  Catalan vida, and French… vie. It also led to   Romanian viață through a different form in Vulgar  Latin. And for an example with [kʷ], there was   Latin aqua, which became Italian acqua, Portuguese  água, Spanish agua, Catalan aigua, and French…   eau, of course. Well, it was [ˈja.wə] in Old  French, if that helps explain it. And also very   naturally, it became Romanian apă. Wait, what? Ya,  as it turns out, Romanian had a sound change where   the labial aspect of [kʷ] and [gʷ] completely took  over, and they became [p] and [b]- at least around   [a]. For an example with [gʷ], there was Latin  lingua, which became Italian lingua, Portuguese   língua, Spanish lengua, Catalan llengua,  French langue, and Romanian… limbă. However,   there is one more thing to talk about with [kʷ]  and [gʷ], and that’s when they merged into [k] and   [g]. In Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan, the  merger basically just happened before [e] and [i],   as this is commonly believed to have been part of  a chain shift also involving the [k] to [s] thing   from earlier. Meanwhile, French basically did  it everywhere, and Italian did the merger almost   nowhere. As for Romanian, when before [e] or [i],  they merged [kʷ] and [gʷ] into [k] and [g] before   they became [ʧ] and [ʤ], because only in Romanian  were Latin [kʷ] and [gʷ] affected by the fronting.   So for an example of all this, there’s the Latin  word quīndecim, which became Portuguese quinze,   Spanish quince, Catalan quinze, French quinze,  Italian quindici, and Romanian cincisprezece. So now we’ve seen all the consonants by  themselves, but there are several clusters   that defy expectations, so we gotta address  them. First off, there’s [tj], or realistically,   any time there was the Latin cluster TI before  a vowel, and it’s especially important due   to one suffix in particular. Basically, this  cluster behaved how you’d expect in Romanian,   becoming [t͡s], but it also became [t͡s] in  Italian. Now here’s a super interesting connection   that I somehow didn’t realize until recently,  and I feel kinda stupid about it. You know the   Italian administrative region where Rome is? Ya,  it’s called Lazio. You know the ancient region   that gave the Latin language its name? That’s  Latium, and ya, it’s literally the same word,   just evolved into Italian, and I spent most of my  life thinking the namesake region of Latin didn’t   survive anywhere. Anyway, this cluster also became  [t͡s] in the western Romance languages, where it   then followed the same trajectory as [k], with the  laminal [s̻] and whatnot. So for example, there   was Latin statiōnem, which became Romanian stație,  Italian stazione, French station, Catalan estació,   Spanish estación, and Portuguese estação. Ok well  most of those were technically loanwords but the   sound shift still applies. Next up is [sk]. First  off, in Spanish and French, this cluster became   [s] (or [θ] in Spain Spanish- it basically just  joined the other sounds we’ve talked about). But   in Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, and Romanian,  it became [ʃ] instead. So there was Latin piscem,   and that became Spanish pez (or pez in Spain),  French poisson, Portuguese peixe, Catalan peix,   Italian pesce, and Romanian pește. So the  next cluster is [kt], and it kinda went   all over the place. The most common change  happened in Portuguese, Catalan, and French,   where it became [it], while in Spanish this  cluster changed even further, to [ʧ]. Meanwhile,   in Italian it became geminated [tː], and in  Romanian, the [k] changed to [p]. So for example,   we have Latin noctem, which became Portuguese  noite (which I said in European Portuguese to   avoid that confusing Brazilian allophone), Catalan  nit, French nuit, Spanish noche, Italian notte,   and Romanian noapte. And finally, we have  [kl], [gl], [pl], and [bl]. To start simply,   these clusters survived unaffected into Catalan  and French. As for the rest of the shifts,   they’re highly inconsistent, mostly due to the  upper classes trying to undo sound changes that   happened in their languages, resulting in the  sound changes applying to some words, but not   others. One of the easier sound changes is that  in Italian, all these clusters switched the [l] to   [j], while only [kl] and [gl] did that in  Romanian. Similarly in Portuguese, [pl] and [bl]   became [pɾ] and [bɾ], while [kl] actually became  [ʃ]. I don’t… think [gl] changed in Portuguese,   but, ya know, I can’t be sure of that. Meanwhile  in Spanish, at least [kl] and [pl] became [ʎ], but   [kl] did it more consistently. For an example that  actually behaves well, there was Latin clāvis,   which became French clé, Catalan clau, Italian  chiave, Romanian cheie, Portuguese chave, and   Spanish llave. For an example that behaves less  well, there was Late Latin blancus, which became   Spanish blanco, Catalan blanc, French blanc,  Portuguese branco, Italian bianco, and… nothing   in Romanian, because this is a Germanic loanword  from well after the Roman Empire. The Romanian   word for “white” is alb, which does in fact come  from the Classical Latin word for “white”, albus. So now we’re on to vowels, but of course, they’re  way too confusing to actually go into detail on,   so I’ll just briefly discuss two main themes of  them. First off, I’ll specifically talk about how   the length distinction evolved into Italian, as  that’s the only one of the languages we’ve been   discussing that still has it. The thing is,  the long vowels in Italian aren’t actually   descended from the long vowels in Latin. Modern  Italian vowel length is effectively an allophonic   system based on whether the consonant after  it is geminated or not, and modern Italian   consonant gemination is descended from the  Latin feature. But basically in Italian,   short vowels come before geminated consonants, and  long vowels come before ungeminated consonants,   so they work in tandem with each other. If  you’ve watched the Swedish language overview,   this may sound familiar to you, and it turns  out, I’m not the only person who’s noticed this   before. For example, let’s revisit the Latin word  stēlla from earlier. It has both a long vowel and   a geminated consonant. But it evolved into Italian  stella, which still has a geminated consonant,   but the vowel is now short, since it comes before  the geminated consonant. The other thing about   vowels is the diphthongization that happened  in Spanish and Romanian. Ya, interesting combo,   right? So in both of those languages, mid vowels  became opening diphthongs when they were stressed,   with Spanish having the extra complication  that it only happened to formerly open-mid   vowels. In Spanish this largely resulted  in ie and ue, while in Romanian the results   were ea and oa. So for example, there was  Latin porta, which became Italian porta,   Catalan porta, French porte, and Portuguese  porta, but Spanish puerta and Romanian poartă. So of course at the end here, I gotta talk  about new things that have arisen in the   Romance languages that weren’t covered in any of  the previous sections. First off, I talked about   all the changes that happened to Latin [j], but  the modern Romance languages largely still have   [j]s of their own, so how did those develop? To  demonstrate one of the most common ways this would   happen, there was the Latin pronoun egō̆, with a  G in the middle. But later on, the G got dropped,   leaving just those two vowels, and some languages  chose to make the first one a consonant,   like Spanish with yo, and Italian with io.  French and Catalan interestingly also did this,   but then that sound merged in with [ʒ] instead,  making this point completely moot for them-   they have je and jo respectively. Other than  that, another thing that happened was that,   when a word began with S followed by another  consonant in Latin, the western Romance languages   added an epenthetic E beforehand. And then  in French, the S got deleted. So for example,   there was Latin scūtum, which became Romanian  scut, Italian scudo, Portuguese escudo,   Spanish escudo, Catalan escut, and French écu.  Now here’s something interesting: While Italian   didn’t do the epenthesis in the same way its  western relatives did, the general idea that   S-consonant clusters can’t start a word is still  felt there- namely, in terms of the articles. For   masculine singular nouns, the definite article  is normally il- but before the aforementioned   clusters (along with some others that are  considered “impure” in Italian morphophonology),   the article is lo, which noticeably ends with  a vowel. I can’t be 100% sure this is the same   process as the E-epenthesis, but it definitely  seems like more than just a coincidence. And for   the final topic of this video, I’ve got something  that has probably been on a lot of y’all’s minds   to this point- sounds disappearing off the ends  of words. Of course, French is the language most   famous for doing it, but Catalan and Romanian also  did their fair share. As for how it worked, in the   beginning, all three of those languages dropped  [o] and [u] off the ends of words. But then,   for French only, they dropped many consonants  off the ends of words. And then after that,   French also reduced and dropped [a] sounds  off the ends of words. This whole process   will become relevant when we talk about Romance  grammatical evolution in a future video. But it   should be mentioned that Catalan and  Romanian also did vowel reduction to   their [a]s- in Catalan it’s still fully  allophonic today, while in Romanian the   reduced vowel has now become phonemic due  to… their article system, of all things. So that’s it, that’s a general summary  of how sounds evolved in the Romance   languages. Obviously I was only able to  talk about the languages I’ve studied,   but if you speak another Romance language, feel  free to talk about these sound shifts in your   language in the comments. Hope y’all liked it,  thanks for watching, and I’ll see y’all next time!
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Channel: Watch your Language
Views: 64,901
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Keywords: Romance languages, Language, Linguistics, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, Romanian
Id: fm4MHQWbbwU
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Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)
Published: Wed May 01 2024
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