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diff --git a/linguistics/src/main/java/com/yahoo/language/process/Embedder.java b/linguistics/src/main/java/com/yahoo/language/process/Embedder.java
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+++ b/linguistics/src/main/java/com/yahoo/language/process/Embedder.java
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+// Copyright Yahoo. Licensed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license. See LICENSE in the project root.
+package com.yahoo.language.process;
+
+import com.yahoo.language.Language;
+import com.yahoo.tensor.Tensor;
+import com.yahoo.tensor.TensorType;
+
+import java.util.List;
+
+/**
+ * An embedder converts a text string to a tensor
+ *
+ * @author bratseth
+ */
+public interface Embedder {
+
+    /** An instance of this which throws IllegalStateException if attempted used */
+    Embedder throwsOnUse = new FailingEmbedder();
+
+    /**
+     * Converts text into a list of token id's (a vector embedding)
+     *
+     * @param text the text to embed
+     * @param language the language of the text, or UNKNOWN to use language independent embedding
+     * @return the text embedded as a list of token ids
+     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the language is not supported by this embedder
+     */
+    List<Integer> embed(String text, Language language);
+
+    /**
+     * Converts text into tokens in a tensor.
+     * The information contained in the embedding may depend on the tensor type.
+     *
+     * @param text the text to embed
+     * @param language the language of the text, or UNKNOWN to use language independent embedding
+     * @param tensorType the type of the tensor to be returned
+     * @return the tensor embedding of the text, as the spoecified tensor type
+     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the language or tensor type is not supported by this embedder
+     */
+    Tensor embed(String text, Language language, TensorType tensorType);
+
+    class FailingEmbedder implements Embedder {
+
+        @Override
+        public List<Integer> embed(String text, Language language) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("No embedder has been configured");
+        }
+
+        @Override
+        public Tensor embed(String text, Language language, TensorType tensorType) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("No embedder has been configured");
+        }
+
+    }
+
+}