Shibboleth

:For the Internet2 research project, see Shibboleth (Internet2).

Some shibboleths

Below are listed various examples of shibboleths. Please note that there are many apocryphal shibboleths in existence, 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.

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Shibboleths used in war

• Scheveningen: Dutch people pronounce this word beginning with separate "s" and "ch" ; a German would pronounce sch as {{IPA|}} (IPA). The Dutch Resistance used this to ferret out Nazi spies during World War II.
• Höyryjyrä: (IPA {{IPA|}}, Engl. "Steam Roller") Finnish soldiers in World War II would use this as a password, as none but a true Finnish native 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 is particularly hard for Russian speakers to pronounce correctly; standard cyrillization would turn it into Г , a completely different sound.
• Yksi: Finnish for "one". The Whites used "yksi" as a shibboleth 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 suspicious people were rounded up, even from hospitals, and each one was 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 http://www.uta.fi/koskivoimaa/valta/1918-40/venalai1.htm)
• The Spanish word perejil (parsley) was used as a shibboleth by Dominican Republic strongman Trujillo. See http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/shibboleth.html.
• 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" and "ch" " (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: 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 c and r were (and are 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.
• Setze jutges d'un jutjat mengen fetge d'un penjat {{IPA|}} means "Sixteen judges of a court are eating the liver of a hung man" in Catalan. There are claims of it being used by the Almogàvers to distinguish the Turks http://www.barcelonetes.com/arxius/000244.html and others of it being used during the Spanish Succession War to distinguish the Spanish http://www.ceafinney.com/miscellania/shibboleth.html by the means of the tricky (for Castilian speaking people) z, ? and d?? sounds. Oral tradition has added several different endings to the sentence.

Humorous shibboleths

• Coax: Information technology professionals often pronounce this as "co-ax", short for "coaxial cable", instead of as the English word "coax".
• Olin seitsemän vuotta sedälläni kodossa renkinä (Finnish). "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 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."
• Oachkatzlschwoaf is used to tell true Bavarians from non-natives, mostly northern Germans. Eekkattensteert is jokingly used by northern Germans to expose Bavarians. Both words mean "squirrel tail".

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 Ñoldorin Elves change the sound th (IPA {{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 appropriately 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. When the designated leader of the refugees mentions "Shibboleth" in another context--but is clearly using it as a "password"--Bartlet knows they're on the level and finds a way for them to remain in the U.S.

Grammatical shibboleths

In the Victorian era, especially in Britain, the educated middle classes invented several shibboleths to distinguish them from the lower classes. 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 vadere "to go") 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. Other invented grammatical rules used as shibboleths include:

Related Topics:
Victorian era - Gerund - Latin grammar - Split an infinitive

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• between you and I (more properly between you and me)
• no final prepositions (which often provokes the ironic reply, falsely attributed to Churchill, that this is nonsense "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.)
• 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)

Other shibboleths

Non-English

• Rødgrød med fløde {{IPA|}}: 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 "I ön finns det en å, och i ån finns det en ö".
• Chuchichäschtli {{IPA|}} in Swiss German.
• Estamos en la huelga Spanish phrase, "We are on strike". Majority of Spaniards pronounce "huelga" (strike) as {{IPA|}}. Andalusians and Extremadurans, though, often pronounce the elsewhere silent h and intermix l and r, pronouncing "huelga" like the Spanish word "juerga", as {{IPA|}}. This will change the contents of the sentence as "We are having fun".

English shibboleths for native speakers

• Fish and chips: To people outside those two countries, the accents of Australians and New Zealanders seem indistinguishable. The New Zealand pronunciation of fish and chips is frequently evoked as the way to distinguish the accents, as the shortened i of the New Zealand accent causes those more used to a stretched vowel sound to hear it as "fush and chups", where as Australians pronounce it closer to "feesh 'n cheaps".
• 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".
• H: in Northern Ireland pronounced 'aitch' by Protestants, 'haitch' by Catholics, as per Hiberno-English.
• Z: in North America pronounced zee in the United States; typically zed in Canada, as per Commonwealth English . Known in American popular culture for distinguishing American men who fled to Canada from the US to escape the draft in the 1960s.
• Southern United States: There are several noticeable differences between the stereotypical pronunciation of Southerners and those of other parts of the United States. Certain vowels experience monophthongization or diphthongization as compared to vowels in other American and North American dialects of English. For example, the vowel in non-Southern dialects may be rendered or in Southern dialects.
• Pen: Some people from the Southern United States and Midwest pronounce pen the way other Americans would pronounce pin. Furthermore, some have difficulty hearing the difference between the two. This is known as the Pin-pen merger, and occurs before .
• Orange: Put as a test by Californians to distinguish natives from rustbelt or New York immigrants, who tend to pronounce a different initial vowel, usually pronouncing the word as as compared to or as said by native Californians. is not unique to California, however.
• About: U.S. commentators have drawn attention to the stereotypical Canadian pronunciation of about. Supposedly, Canadians pronounce it ah-boot, while Americans pronounce it uh-bowt. In fact, many Canadians feel that the shibboleth is more reflective of Toronto pronunciation than a general Canadian pronunciation. (In reality, the pronunciation is closer to "ah-boat," or , as compared to General American ) 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 , while US pronunciation is . This has given idea for a verse "I say to-mah-to, you say to-mey-to".
• Pierre the state capital of South Dakota is properly pronounced as "Pier" (as in dock). Folks who are not native to the area will pronounce it with a French accent. (And find many SoDak's laughing at them.) "SoDak" is pronounced with a long "o" and a short "a".

Shibboleth jokes

There is a Scottish proverb over surname Dalziel made famous by BBC TV series 'Dalziel and Pascoe':

Related Topics:
BBC - Dalziel and Pascoe

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Dalziel and de'il begin with the ane letter. De'il is nae gude, and Dalziel is nae better

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