diff --git a/src/edu/stanford/nlp/pipeline/ProtobufAnnotationSerializer.java b/src/edu/stanford/nlp/pipeline/ProtobufAnnotationSerializer.java
index faa5418566..cf9fc89c35 100644
--- a/src/edu/stanford/nlp/pipeline/ProtobufAnnotationSerializer.java
+++ b/src/edu/stanford/nlp/pipeline/ProtobufAnnotationSerializer.java
@@ -2551,7 +2551,9 @@ public static SentenceFragment fromProto(CoreNLPProtos.SentenceFragment fragment
    * @return A Java Map corresponding to the serialized map.
    */
   public static HashMap<String, String> fromProto(CoreNLPProtos.MapStringString proto) {
-    HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
+    // LinkedHashMap so that the pieces stay in the order we receive them
+    // (could also use a TreeMap instead to enforce sorted by key)
+    HashMap<String, String> map = new LinkedHashMap<>();
     for (int i = 0; i < proto.getKeyCount(); ++i) {
       map.put(proto.getKey(i), proto.getValue(i));
     }