shibboleth

Shibboleth (pronounced /ˈʃɪbəlɛθ/^[1] or /ˈʃɪbələθ/^[2]) is any distinguishing practice which is indicative of one's social or regional origin. It usually refers to features of language, and particularly to a word whose pronunciation identifies its speaker as being a member or not a member of a particular group.

Statue of Pier Gerlofs Donia, known for his legendary strength and size and the invention of a famous shibboleth

Origin

The term originates from the Hebrew word "shibbólet" (שִׁבֹּלֶת), which literally means the part of a plant containing grains, such as an ear of corn or a stalk of grain^[3] or, in different contexts, "stream, torrent".^[4][5] It derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect lacked a /ʃ/ sound (as in shoe), from 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), the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross the Jordan River back into their home territory and the Gileadites secured the river's fords to stop them. In order to identify and kill these refugees, the Gileadites put each refugee to a simple test:

Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say Shibboleth.' If anyone said, 'Sibboleth', because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion.

– Judges 12:5-6, NJB

Modern usage

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In numerous cases of conflict between groups speaking different languages or dialects, one side used shibboleths in a way similar to the above-mentioned Biblical use, i.e., to discover hiding members of the opposing group. Christians might have been familiar with the Biblical story and directly inspired by it, or might have independently invented the same method under similar circumstances. Modern researchers use the term "Shibboleth" for all such usages, whether or not the people involved were using it themselves.

Today, in the English language, a shibboleth also has a wider meaning, referring to any "in-crowd" word or phrase that can be used to distinguish members of a group from outsiders - even when not used by a hostile other group. The word is also sometimes used in a broader sense to mean jargon, the proper use of which identifies speakers as members of a particular group or subculture.

Shibboleths can also be customs or practices, such as male circumcision, or a signifier, such as a semiotic.

Cultural touchstones and shared experience can also be shibboleths of a sort. For example, people about the same age who are from the same nation 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.

Notable shibboleths

A notable if indirect reference to shibboleth in modern poetry is "the synagogue of the ear of corn" in the Dylan Thomas poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London".

Shibboleths have been used by different subcultures throughout the world at different times. Regional differences, level of expertise and computer coding techniques are several forms that shibboleths have taken. For example, during the Battle of the Bulge, American soldiers used knowledge of baseball to determine if others were fellow Americans or if they were German infiltrators in American uniform. The Dutch famously used the name of the port town Scheveningen as a shibboleth to tell Germans from the Dutch (the Dutch pronounce the S separately from the ch). Some shibboleths are jokes.

During World War II, some United States soldiers in the Pacific theater used the word "lollapalooza" as a shibboleth to verbally test people who were hiding and unidentified, on the premise that Japanese people often pronounce the letter L as R, and that the word is an American colloquialism that even a foreign person fairly well-versed in American English would probably mispronounce and/or be unfamiliar with.^[6] In George Stimpson's A Book about a Thousand Things, the author notes that, in the war, Japanese spies would often approach checkpoints posing as American or Filipino military personnel. A shibboleth such as "lollapalooza" would be used by the sentry, who, if the first two syllables come back as rorra, would "open fire without waiting to hear the remainder".^[7]

Prior to the Guldensporenslag, the Flemish slaughtered every Frenchman they could find in the city of Bruges. They are said to have identified Frenchmen based on their inability to pronounce the phrase "Scilt ende Vriend" ("Shield and Friend"), or possibly "'s Guilden vriend" ("Friend of the Guilds").

Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries ( example (help·info)) means "Butter, rye bread and green cheese, who cannot say that is not a genuine Frisian" was used by the Frisian Pier Gerlofs Donia during a Frisian rebellion war (1515-1523). Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered and soldiers who could not were beheaded by Donia himself.^[8]

See also

Look up shibboleth in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Linguistics
• Phonology
• Tongue-twister
• U and non-U English
• Parsley Massacre
• List of shibboleths

References

External links

• The Story of the Shibboleth
• Word of the Day: Shibboleth
• Australia's use of language tests (Tim McNamara, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Melbourne University).