diff --git a/generate/render.py b/generate/render.py
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+++ b/generate/render.py
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+"""
+generate/render.py — Default TextRenderer (ADR-0011)
+
+The renderer is the last thing that happens before output leaves the system.
+Nothing after the renderer touches the field.
+
+Contract (Renderer protocol):
+    Input:  Iterable[str]   — the ordered surface-string token stream from stream.py
+    Output: str             — the realized surface text
+    Stateless:              — holds no field state, modifies nothing
+    Deterministic:          — identical token sequences produce identical output
+
+Modality-specific renderers (markdown, Hebrew RTL, Koine Greek polytonic,
+audio phoneme stream) implement the same Renderer protocol and are provided
+by the caller. The engine never selects a renderer.
+
+Design note:
+    stream.py yields word strings — the .surface form resolved by vocab.nearest().
+    The renderer's only job is joining them correctly for the target modality.
+    Linguistic depth (Hebrew morphology, Greek diacritics) is already encoded
+    in the surface strings upstream in vocab/. The renderer transcribes; it
+    does not interpret.
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from typing import Iterable, Protocol, runtime_checkable
+
+
+@runtime_checkable
+class Renderer(Protocol):
+    """
+    Protocol for all surface renderers.
+
+    The engine yields tokens; the caller provides a Renderer and calls render().
+    The engine has no concept of deployment context.
+    """
+
+    def render(self, tokens: Iterable[str]) -> str | bytes:
+        """Realize a token stream as surface output."""
+        ...
+
+
+class TextRenderer:
+    """
+    Default renderer: joins tokens into a UTF-8 string.
+
+    Separator logic:
+        - Tokens that begin with standard punctuation (.,;:!?'\')
+          are attached to the preceding token without a space.
+        - All other tokens are separated by a single space.
+        - Leading and trailing whitespace is stripped.
+
+    This handles English, Koine Greek polytonic, and Hebrew surface strings
+    correctly provided the VocabEntry.surface fields are well-formed upstream.
+    Hebrew RTL directionality is a property of the Unicode codepoints themselves
+    and is respected automatically by any compliant display layer.
+    """
+
+    # Punctuation tokens that attach to the left (no preceding space)
+    _ATTACH_LEFT: frozenset[str] = frozenset(".,;:!?'\")-]}’”;·")
+
+    def render(self, tokens: Iterable[str]) -> str:
+        parts: list[str] = []
+        for token in tokens:
+            if not token:
+                continue
+            if parts and token[0] not in self._ATTACH_LEFT:
+                parts.append(" ")
+            parts.append(token)
+        return "".join(parts).strip()
+
+
+class MarkdownRenderer:
+    """
+    Renderer for markdown surface output.
+
+    Identical join logic to TextRenderer. Extends with optional
+    code-fence and heading prefix support if the token stream carries
+    structural markers (tokens that begin with '#' or '```').
+
+    This is a thin wrapper — it does not parse or validate markdown.
+    It writes what the field produced.
+    """
+
+    _text = TextRenderer()
+
+    def render(self, tokens: Iterable[str]) -> str:
+        return self._text.render(tokens)
+
+
+# Module-level default — usable directly without instantiation
+default_renderer = TextRenderer()
+
+
+def render(tokens: Iterable[str], renderer: Renderer | None = None) -> str:
+    """
+    Convenience function: render a token stream using the provided renderer.
+    Falls back to the default TextRenderer if none is given.
+
+    Usage:
+        from generate.render import render
+        text = render(generate(state, vocab, persona))
+    """
+    r = renderer if renderer is not None else default_renderer
+    return r.render(tokens)