Shibboleth

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Shibboleth (IPA: [ˈʃɪbəlɛθ]^[1]) is any language usage indicative of one's social or regional origin, or more broadly, any practice that identifies members of a group.

1 Origin
2 Modern usage
3 Some shibboleths
4 Computer security
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Origin

The term originates from the Hebrew word שבולת‎, which literally means "stream, torrent".^[2] It derives from a story in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish members of a group (like the Ephraimites) whose dialect lacked a /ʃ/ sound (as in shoe) from members of a group (like the Gileadites) whose dialect did include such a sound.

In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead inflicted a military defeat upon the tribe of Ephraim (around 1370–1070 BC), some Ephraimites crossed secretly into Gilead's territory in an attempt to escape retribution. In order to identify and kill these disguised refugees, the Gileadites put each refugee to a simple test:

"And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand." (Judges 12:5-6, KJV)

[edit] Modern usage

Today, in the English language, a shibboleth is any word or phrase that can be used to distinguish members of a group from outsiders. The word is also sometimes used in a broader sense to mean specialized jargon, the proper use of which identifies speakers as members of a particular group or subculture. For example, people who regularly use words like "stfnal", "grok", "filk", and "gafiate" in conversation are likely members of science fiction fandom. Shibboleths can also be customs or practices, such as male circumcision.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural touchstones and shared experience can also be shibboleths of a sort. For example, people about the same age tend to have the same memories of popular songs, television shows, and events from their formative years. Much the same is true of alumni of a particular school, veterans of military service, and other groups. Discussing such memories is a common way of bonding. In-jokes can be a similar type of shared-experience shibboleth.

A shibboleth can also be the manner in which a word is spelled. In computer programming, for example, the Perl language is sometimes written PERL (in all capital letters, representing the backronym Practical Extraction and Report Language), which is a sign to Perl community members that the document lacks respect for the published materials, and is therefore from an outsider. This is frequently used to distinguish "good" job offers or books (ones that understand Perl culture and conventions) from "bad" ones. Likewise, writing Ada as ADA shows that the writer is unfamiliar with the Ada programming language, which was named in honor of Ada Lovelace. Similarly, Macintosh users can tell that anyone who comes into a Mac forum talking about a "MAC" is an outsider or a newcomer.

For a quite extreme example of spelling as community shibboleth, see Leet.

[edit] Some shibboleths

Below are listed various examples of shibboleths. Note that many apocryphal shibboleths exist, and that since, by definition, shibboleths rely on stereotypical pronunciation traits, they may not accurately describe the speech of all members of the group in question.

[edit] Shibboleths used in war

Scheveningen (example (help·info)): Dutch people pronounce this word with separate "s" /s/ and "ch" /x/, while German people pronounce sch as [ʃ] (IPA). The Dutch Resistance used this to ferret out Nazi spies during World War II.
Höyryjyrä: (IPA [høyryjyræ], Engl. "Steam Roller") Finnish soldiers in World War II used this as a password, as only a native Finnish speaker could properly say this word, which contains the Finnish front vowels Ö, Y, and Ä in combination with the rolled R used in Finnish. The leading H /h/ is particularly hard for Russian speakers, since the same sound does not exist in Russian; analogous Russian sounds /g/, /ɦ/ and /x/ are distinguishable.
Yksi: Finnish for "one", used by the White Guard to separate Russians from Finns in the Finnish Civil War during the invasion of Tampere. Many of the Russians caught had changed to civilian clothing, so suspected people were rounded up, even from hospitals, and asked to say "yksi". If the prisoner pronounced "juksi", mistaking the front vowel 'y' for an iotated 'u', he was considered a Russian foreign fighter and was shot on the spot. The problem was that any Slav or Balt, Communist or not, was killed, including some volunteers of the White Guard. (Source: Heikki Ylikangas, Tie Tampereelle, ref. at [1])
Paljanytsja: Ukrainian word "паляниця" ([pɐlʲɐˈnɪʦʲɐ]) was used by soldiers of Makhno troops to identify Russians of bolshevik food-troops, who were sent into Ukraine to expropriate food. Russians pronounce the word approximately as [pəlʲɪnʲiʦə]. The word "paljanytsja" was also used during World War II by Ukrainian nationalists to identify Russians. See [2].
The Spanish word perejil (parsley) was used as a shibboleth by Dominican Republic strongman Trujillo against Haitian immigrants at Río Massacre. See [3].
Schild en vriend: On May 18, 1302, the people of Bruges killed the French occupants during a nocturnal surprise attack. They asked every suspicious person to say "schild en vriend" (shield and friend). The Flemings pronounced it with a separate "s" /s/ and "ch" /x/" (see also "Scheveningen", earlier in this section); the French "sk". That way they could easily find the French. This day is known as the Brugse Metten.
Ciciri (Chickpeas): This was used by native Sicilians to ferret out Norman French soldiers in the late 1200s during an uprising (Sicilian Vespers) against Angevin rule. The Italian soft c /tʃ/ was (and is still) difficult for the French to pronounce.
Ba, bi, bu, be, bo Japanese used this syllabary group to detect Korean spies. Koreans would pronounce the syllables unvoiced, pa, pi, pu, pe, po.
The Catalan sentence Setze jutges d'un jutjat mengen fetge d'un penjat [ˈsɛd͡zə ˈʒud͡ʒəz ðuɲ ʒu'd͡ʒat 'meɲʒəɱ 'fed͡ʒə ðum pəɲ'ʒat] ("Sixteen judges of a court eat the liver of a hanged man") is claimed to have been used by the Almogàvers during the War of Spanish Succession to distinguish ethnic Spanish (native Castilian speakers) [4] and Turks [5] from the Catalan population. These other groups found it difficult to pronounce thr /z/, /ʒ/ and /d͡ʒ/ sounds. Oral tradition has added several different endings to the sentence.
Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries (example (help·info)) means "Butter, bread and green cheese, who cannot say that is no real Frisian" was used by the Frisian Grutte Pier during a Frisian-Holland war. Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered.
Soczewica, koło, miele, młyn ("Lentil, wheel, grinds [verb], mill)": In 1312, Wladislaus the Short quelled a rebellion in Kraków, populated mostly by Silesian, German and Czech citizens. Anyone over the age of 7 who couldn't pronounce these four Polish words was put to death, ejected from the city or had his property confiscated.
During the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War, the American forces used the challenge-response codes "Flash" - "Thunder" - "Welcome". The last response was used to identify the challenger as a native English speaker (and therefore not an enemy), whereas the German enemy would pronounce it as "Velcome".
Similarly during Operation Chariot the British raiders used the challenge "War Weapons Week" and the countersign "Welmouth", likewise unpronounceable by most Germans.
In the Paraguay War (1864–1870), Brazilian soldiers would identify Paraguayan citizens by having them say the word pão, meaning "bread". Non-native Portuguese speakers have great difficulty making the ão sound — instead, they would say pan or pao (without the nasalization indicated by the tilde).
During the Cuban independence war, prisoners caught by the insurgents were asked to pronounce the word "garbanzo" ([gaɾˈbanθo] in Castilian Spanish). Cubans pronounced the /ɾ/ as /l/, and /θ/ as /s/, resulting [galˈbanso]. Therefore they were considered as traitors.
15円 50銭 (jū-go-en, go-jū-sen) and がぎぐげご (gagigugego) were used in Japan after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake to search for Koreans, who were killed. They were accused of poisoning wells.
Woolloomooloo was used by Australian soldiers in the Pacific Theatre during the Second World War to identify themselves when approaching a camp.
During World War II the Nazis made a test to root out unidentified Jews who were amongst them by serving tea to a group of people, and placing sugar cubes on the table. The Jews would supposedly place the sugar cube in their mouths, while the ethnic Germans would place the cube into the tea. This is an example of a shibboleth through action.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Humorous shibboleths

Olin seitsemän vuotta sedälläni kodossa renkinä (Finnish for "I was seven years at my uncle's home as a servant"). This is to tease Eastern Tavastians, who pronounce 'd' as 'l'. It becomes "olin seitsemän vuotta selälläni kolossa renkinä", which means "I was seven years a servant in a hole, lying on my back" — certain connotations of being a sex slave.
Kurri etsi jarrua murkkukasasta ("Kurri sought for a brake in the ant pile."). The Finnish phoneme rolled R [r] in general is considered a "shibboleth" between normality and various types of speech defects. Small children usually learn the phoneme /r/ last, using /l/ instead. Older children can trick them to say "kulli etsi Jallua mulkkukasasta", "The cock sought for a Jallu (porn magazine) in a pile of dicks."
Germany: Oachkatzlschwoaf is used to tell true Bavarians and eastern Austrians from non-natives, mostly northern Germans. Eekkattensteert is jokingly used by northern Germans to expose Bavarians. Both words mean "squirrel tail".

[edit] Grammatical shibboleths

In the Victorian era, especially in Britain, the educated middle classes invented several shibboleths to distinguish themselves from the lower classes.^{[citation needed]} One of these was pronouncing the gerund suffix -ing as it is spelled, rhyming with sing, whereas both the lower and upper classes pronounced it as -in, rhyming with sin. However, many of the shibboleths were grammatical. These were primarily taken from the rules of Latin grammar, and had not occurred in English prior to this time. For instance, in Latin it is impossible to split an infinitive, because a Latin infinitive (such as ferre "to bring") is a single word; therefore, prescriptivist grammarians decided that people should not split English infinitives either. (That is, to boldly go "should" be boldly to go or to go boldly, as if to go were a single word as it is in Latin.) Despite centuries of contrary use, this became a mark of a good education, and is still taught in schools. In order to be dismissively called a shibboleth in this sense, a grammatical "rule" should go counter to a common usage, and even perhaps be accompanied by slips in those most dogmatic about a usage.^{[citation needed]} Some grammatical rules that have been used as shibboleths of a "good education" include:^{[citation needed]}

no prepositions at the end of sentences (which often provokes the reply, apocryphally attributed to Churchill, that "this is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put".)
no verbless sentences (these are common in literature: Not so. Really?)
use different from rather than different than (different than has been well established in literature for centuries; cf. different to)
no initial ands or buts (in literature, and and but can even begin a paragraph: But suppose all this is rubbish? or, And so it turns out ...)
use a possessive noun with a gerund: women's having the vote would be ... (actually, women having the vote is traditional usage)
no use of themself or theirselves as pronouns to refer to singular nouns or persons: The teacher will introduce themself at the beginning of the lecture. (This usage is contentious, with supporters on both sides of the argument. This has developed as a gender-neutral alternative.)
use of the subjunctive mood. The "correct" form is "If it were so..." rather than, "If it was..." and "Whether it were..." rather than "Whether it was..." While the subjunctive is frequently dropped, especially in colloquial English, it is still a widely used part of the language and an educated speaker will find fault in such examples as "would that it was so", rather than "would that it were so."
between you and I (more properly between you and me; "me" is objective case, suited for use in a prepositional phrase. However, because "me" is often used for "I" in informal speech, and sometimes judged incorrect according to grammatical standards, speakers often resort to hypercorrection, producing this phrase, which is used as a negative shibboleth indicating a social climber. An interesting case because it is a shibboleth produced by trying to avoid another shibboleth.)^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Shibboleths in fiction

Unionized: Isaac Asimov introduced this shibboleth that distinguishes chemists from non-chemists. When reading this word aloud with no context, a chemist will pronounce it "un-ionized", whereas a non-chemist will pronounce it "union-ized".
In his essay "The Shibboleth of Fëanor", J. R. R. Tolkien describes how the Noldorin Elves change the sound th (IPA /θ/) to s in the Quenya language. Strife occurs when the king's second wife adopts the name Indis (with an s) to emphasize her acceptance of Noldorin culture; however, king's son Fëanor considered this change to be an insult to his dead mother Therindë who had refused to be called Serindë.
In the TV series "West Wing" in an episode titled "Shibboleth", President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) utilizes knowledge of the Biblical term to determine whether a group of supposedly Christian Chinese refugees are legitimate in their desire for seeking religious freedom. His expectation is that, while anyone can learn the text or concepts of the Bible, a true Christian would speak of his faith differently. When the designated leader of the refugees states that faith cannot be demonstrated through knowledge of the Bible alone, but that faith is the true "Shibboleth", Bartlet knows they're on the level and finds a way for them to remain in the U.S.
The TV series "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" also features an episode titled "Shibboleth". In the episode, a serial rapist/murderer is identified largely because of his peculiar enunciation of the /t/ sound in certain words.

[edit] Other shibboleths

[edit] English shibboleths for native speakers or locale natives

nuclear/nucular: The word "nuclear" ([ˈn(j)uː.kli.ə(ɹ)]) is sometimes pronounced "nucular" ([ˈn(j)uːkjə.lə(ɹ)]) in parts of the United States. This is considered incorrect or a metathesis by many authorities, although the alternative pronunciation is common, having been used by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.S. President George W. Bush and other politicians. This is common in some midwestern states, particularly those in the southern part of the region.
Fish and chips: The accents of Australians and New Zealanders seem very similar, and the term fish and chips is sometimes evoked to illustrate a major difference between the two. The New Zealand pronunciation features a shorter, clipped vowel sound which Australians often caricature as "fush and chups" but is more accurately f'sh and ch'ps with the vowel almost dropped. The Australian pronunciation has a longer vowel sound which sounds like "feesh and cheeps" to New Zealand ears.
Sixth: English people, especially middle class, will often pronounce this as "sickth".
loch: Scottish people have been known to ask suspected English impersonators to say this (the Scots Gaelic word for a lake or fjord, which occurs in many placenames) since this includes the hard "ch" sound (voiceless velar fricative) not found in standard English. English people usually pronounce it "lock", and this pronunciation has also spread into southern Scotland recently.
Pronunciation of letters of the alphabet:
- H: in Northern Ireland pronounced 'aitch' by Protestants, 'haitch' by Catholics, as per Hiberno-English. Also often pronounced 'haitch' in dialects of English spoken in the ethnically non-Anglo-Saxon English colonies of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
- Z: in North America pronounced zee in the United States; typically zed in Canada (as in the rest of the Commonwealth). Known in American history and popular culture for distinguishing American males who fled to Canada from the US to escape the military draft in the 1960s.
New England, United States: certain words/phrases are well known in other regions of the United States and often serve as stereotypes or shibboleths for New England natives (especially from the Boston area, considered by many as an informal "standard" or central area of the dialect region. Typical as "How are you?" pronounced in a clipped manner, "H'w ar'ya?", and the well-known "Harvard Yard" (with non-rhotic pronunciation), often in the context of the stereotypical sentence, "Park the car at Harvard Yard", which gives many instances of this derhotacization.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Natives of this city usually pronounce the word 'water' [wʊɾɚ] instead of [wɑːtɚ].
Regional vowels
- About: U.S. commentators (and popular culture) have drawn attention to the stereotypical Canadian pronunciation of about. While the stereotypical pronunciation sounds like "a boot", Canadians actually pronounce the word [əˈbəʊt] which sounds more like "a boat", as compared to General American [əˈbaʊt]. This phenomenon is known in linguistics as Canadian raising, and is not restricted to just Canada, as many Northern U.S. dialects have clear Canadian Raising as well.
- Tomato: UK pronunciation is usually [təˈmɑtəʊ], while US pronunciation is usually [təˈmeto] or [təˈmeɪtoʊ]. Ira Gershwin famously used this difference in the verse "You like to-may-to, I like to-mah-to".

[edit] Place names

Main article: List of names in English with non-intuitive pronunciations

Albany, New York, USA: The first syllable is frequently pronounced by non-locals as Al (as in Alfred), while locals pronounce the first syllable as "All"
Alachua County, Florida, USA: Frequently pronounced by non-locals with the stress on the third syllable. This Native American word is pronounced by locals with the stress on the second syllable. Oddly, the town of the same name is frequently pronounced by locals as [əˈlætʃəweɪ], perhaps to distinguish between reference to the town versus the county.
A similar pronunciation applies to Mantua, Utah. Outsiders will pronounce it as the Italian city, where locals will say [mænəweɪ]
Many US cities and towns are named after larger cities elsewhere, yet have a locally different pronunciation of their name. Outsiders generally pronounce them as their more famous counterparts. For example, Havana, Florida, (locally [heɪˈvænə]; Versailles, Kentucky, Versailles, Ohio, North Versailles, Pennsylvania and Versailles, New York (all [vɚˈseɪlz] locally); assorted American locations named Cairo (locally [ˈkeɪɹoʊ]); Lima, Ohio, (locally [ˈlaɪmə]); and Berlin, New Hampshire (locally [ˈbɛɹlən]).
Boise, Idaho, USA (the state capital) is generally pronounced by locals as [bɔɪˈsiː]. Most Americans, especially those far removed from Idaho, pronounce it [ˈbɔɪziː].
Two USA towns with the name "Hurricane"—Hurricane, Utah and Hurricane, West Virginia—are both pronounced by locals as [ˈhɚrəkɪn]. Others pronounce it like the destructive weather phenomenon.
Canberra, the national capital city of Australia, is locally and correctly pronounced "Can-bruh", yet is widely and incorrectly pronounced, often by people wanting to be derogatory of the national parliament or bureaucracy, as "KAN-ber-arr", "Kan-bear-rar", "Kan-Ber-rar", or "Kam-bra".
Pierre, South Dakota, USA (also the state capital) is locally pronounced as "Pier" (as in "dock": [piːɹ]). Non-locals will pronounce it like the French name of the same spelling, (piˈeɹ]).
DuBois, Pennsylvania, USA . Locals pronounce it [dʊˈbɔɪz]. Non-locals usually pronounce it [dʊˈbwɑː] as in French.
Houston Street, New York City, USA and Houston, Georgia: Locals pronounce the first syllable identically with "house" ([haustən]), while most visitors will employ the same pronunciation as in Houston, Texas ([hjustən]). Houston Street is actually a corruption of the original name of Houstoun Street, named after Continental Congress Delegate William Houstoun, who pronounced his name in this way.
Avenue of the Americas, Manhattan, New York City, USA: native New Yorkers typically give the name as "Sixth Avenue", despite the officially re-named version of the street, the only one known to (most) non-natives^{[citation needed]}.
Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA: native Rhode Islanders pronounce the name of the city as [pəˈtʌkət] whereas non-natives will pronounce as [pɔˈtʌkət]."
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA: Whereas non-natives will often pronounce as [wɑɹsɛstɚ] or [wɑɹʧɛstɚ] the local pronunciation of this city name is [wʊstɚ], like the English city.
Appalachia: pronounced [æpəˈlæʧə] within the central portion of the region, particularly between North Carolina and West Virginia; usually pronounced [æpəˈleɪʃə] elsewhere.
Arkansas River: While in most places the name of this river is pronounced the same way as the name of the state of Arkansas ([ˈɑɹkənˌsɑː]), Kansans typically pronounce it as if the "Ar-" were a prefix added to the name of the state of Kansas.
Gorinchem, in The Netherlands, is pronounced as the alternate spelling of its name: Gorkum.
Milngavie, Glasgow, Scotland: locally pronounced [mʊlgaɪ] but often pronounced [mɪləngæviː] by non-Glaswegians. (This is elaborated upon in the article on the town.)
Manuka: A locality (not an actual suburb) of Canberra, national capital of Australia. Local pronunciation is with equal emphasis on each syllable; new arrivals can be identified by the pronunciation with emphasis on the middle syllable.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Locals (and most Canadians) pronounce the name of the city as [mʌntɹiˈɑːl] whereas most Americans pronounce it as [mɔntɹiˈɑːl] . The same applies to the name Quebec, which is pronounced [kwɪˈbɛk] by most Americans, whereas local English speakers pronounce it [kəˈbɛk].
Oamaru, New Zealand: Pronounced locally, and by other natives of the Otago region, as [ɔməruː], a pronunciation borrowed from the local dialect of Māori. Most Māori speakers from farther north in New Zealand pronounce both initial vowels separately, as [oamaru], while non-Māori-speakers will pronounce it [əʊməruː] .
Ouachita: This is a region in southwest Arkansas that lends its name to a mountain range as well as a local university. It's pronounced [ˈwɑːʃɪtɑː] by Arkansans, whereas non-locals would say [uːˈʧɪtɑː] or [ˈoʊʧɪtɑː].
Tulalip, Washington: Locally pronounced [tʊˈleɪlɪp]; out-of-towners may pronounce it as [ˈtuːləlɪp].
Norfolk, Virginia, USA: Long time residents tend to pronounce the city's name as [nɑːfʌk], while other locals will say [noʊɹfɪk]. Non-locals may pronounce it [nɔɹfɔɫk]. See Norfolk, England.
Forest City, North Carolina, USA: Locals tend to pronounce the city's name as "Far City", while visitors or new residents will pronouce the city's name the way it is spelled.
Yocona, Mississippi, USA: Most locals refer to the river and community as [jæknə] or [jɔkniː]. Non-locals may refer to it as [jəkoʊnə].
Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Non-locals (especially those familiar with Spanish) will at first tend to pronounce this as the name of the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, while locals pronounce "León" much as the common Anglo given name ([liːɑːn]).
Louisville, Kentucky, USA: Most people not from the Louisville area pronounce its name "Looey-ville." Louisville area natives, by contrast, tend to use one of several local pronunciations. "Loo-uh-vull", "Loo-vull", "Luh-vull", "Luh-uh-vul" or Loo-ville.".
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA: Locals pronounce the city's name as [ˈnoʊlɪns] or sometimes [ˈnjɔːlɪnz], while outsiders tend to pronounce it as [nuː ɔɹˈliːnz].
Many English placenames act as shibboleths. Warwick, Norwich and Alnwick may be pronounced [wɔɹˈwɪk], [nɔɹˈwɪtʃ] and [ælnˈwɪk] respectively by Americans, when the local pronunciations are [ˈwɒɹɪk], [nɒɹɪtʃ], and [ˈænɪk].
Chalybeate, Tennessee is pronounced by locals as [kliːbɪt] whereas outsiders may refer to it as [ʧælɪbiːti] or [ʧælɪbaɪt].
Greenwich, London is pronounced by locals as [ˈgrɪnɪʧ] whereas most Britons (including most non-native Londoners) pronounce it [ˈgrɛnɪʧ].
Newcastle upon Tyne in the North-East of England is pronounced [njʊˈkasɘl] by locals and many other natives of the North-East, but [ˈnjuːkɑːsɘl] in Standard English (equivalent to [ˈnjuːkasɘl] in the local pronunciation)

[edit] Non-English

Krai kai kai gai (ใครขายไข่ไก่) or Kai kai kai: This phrase is used to teach Thai children the subtleties of their tonal language. When each word is pronounced with the proper tone, the phrase means, "Who sells chicken eggs?"[6]
Rødgrød med fløde [ˈʁøðgʁøːˀð mɛð ˈfløːðɛ]: This is the standard Danish (English: 'Red porridge with cream').
A æ u å æ ø i æ å : a well-known Danish vowels-only way of judging someone's ability to speak Jysk, the general dialect of Jutland. Often/usually practiced on visitors from Copenhagen. In standard Danish, the sentence would be Jeg er ude på øen i åen ("I'm on the island in the stream").
I öa ä e å, o i åa ä e ö, a Swedish phrase from Värmland. "On the island is a river, and in the river an island". In standard Swedish it would be "På ön finns det en å, och i ån finns det en ö".
Chuchichäschtli [ˈχʊχiːˌχæʃtli] in Swiss German, meaning "little kitchen cupboard".
The sentence a o'agnehm grean agstrichns Gartatihrle (a garden door painted in an awful shade of green) serves as Swabian shibboleth. The consecutive nasal sounds are almost unspeakable for other German speakers.
A Czech or Slovak shibboleth is Strč prst skrz krk, meaning "stick the finger through the throat". This is usually used to verify whether someone is drunk or not. It is also a sentence made only of consonants.
Estamos de huelga is a Spanish phrase meaning "We are on strike". The majority of Spaniards pronounce "huelga" (strike) as [ˈwelga]. Andalusians and Extremadurans, though, often pronounce the elsewhere silent /h/ and intermix /l/ and /ɾ/, pronouncing "huelga" like the Spanish word "juerga", as [ˈxweɾga]. This will change the meaning of the sentence to "We are having fun". The same happens in the Southwestern region of the Dominican Republic, where for example "mal" (bad) [mal] is pronounced "mar" (sea) [maɾ]. Similarly, Puerto Ricans change the sound of a mid-word /ɾ/ to an /l/, thus a Puerto Rican will say "I come from Puelto Rico".
In Spanish, most Argentinians and Uruguayans pronounce /ʝ/ as /ʒ/ or /ʃ/. This for example turns arroyo ([a'roʝo], stream) into [aˈroʒo] or [aˈroʃo].
Also in Spanish, you can tell a Castilian from a Catalonian from their pronunciation of the letter Ll, which Catalonians will pronounce /ʎ/. Many dialects of Spanish, especially those in the Americas, have a feature called yeísmo where it is pronounced /ʝ/. This means that callar ([kaˈʎaɾ], to be quiet) is pronounced [kaˈʝaɾ].
Northern-Italian dialects have ü and ö sounds as French or German, which are not present in standard Italian language or southern dialects. Words like föra [ˈføra] (out) may be used to discern whether one is from the north. Comedians Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo presented a whole scene about a similar shibboleth in their first movie, the Lombard word cadrega: a guest, suspected to be a southerner, would be shown a table with many sorts of fruit, and offered to take a cadrega ([kaˈdrega]), unaware he was actually being offered just a chair (in Italian, sedia [ˈsɛdja]).
Italians travelling abroad and wishing to dine at an Italian restaurant often check the menu's grammar to verify whether the restaurant can be trusted to be authentic. Common errors are missing prepositions as in "spaghetti bolognese" instead of "spaghetti alla bolognese", missing accents, such as "tiramisu" instead of "tiramisù" and uncommon misspellings such as "mozarella" (mozzarella).
In Chile, the pronunciation of /tʃ/ as /ʃ/ is oftenly associated with the lower classes. Hence, humorous phrases like "el shansho con shaleco" (corruption of "el chancho con chaleco", the pig with a sweater) denotes a person with a genuine lower class pronunciation, or just somebody impersonating it, in jest.
The German words Streichholzschächtelchen (small box of matches), Eichhörnchen (squirrel), Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences) and Strickstrumpf (knitted sock) serve as shibboleths for distinguishing native speakers from foreigners, due to their many ch sounds and the large number of consonants.
In Mandarin Chinese, the sentence sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí (四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十; four is four, ten is ten, fourteen is fourteen, forty is forty) is used to distinguish between native speakers of northern varieties of Mandarin from northern China, and native speakers of other Chinese varieties from central and southern China, including Jianghuai Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min Nan, and so forth, most of which lacks the retroflex consonant sh /ʂ/.
A Polish shibboleth is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie (in Szczebrzeszyn the beetle skirls in the reed).
In Finnish, shibboleths include höyryjyrä /ˈhøyryˌjyræ/ (steam roller) and the loanword öljylamppu /ˈøljyˌlampːu/ (oil lamp).
In Quebec French, the phrase Je m'en câlisse is sometimes used as a shibboleth, distinguishing natives of France from Québecois.

[edit] Computer security

Main article: Shibboleth (computer security)

Within the field of computer security, the word shibboleth is sometimes used with a different meaning than the usual meaning of verbal, linguistic differentiation. The general concept of shibboleth is to test something, and based on that response to take a particular course of action. This principle is frequently used in computer security. The most commonly seen usage is logging on to a computer with a password. If the correct password is entered, the user is logged on; if an incorrect password is entered, s/he can go no further.

[edit] References

^ "shibboleth". Oxford English Dictionary (second). (1989).
^ shibboleth. American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition. shibboleth. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Cf. Isaiah 27:12.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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