Shibboleth

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

Shibboleth (IPA: Template:IPA<ref name=OED>Template:Citeencyclopedia</ref>) is any language usage indicative of one's social or regional origin, or more broadly, any practice that identifies members of a group. It comes from the Hebrew word (שבולת) that literally means "ear of grain" or "torrent of water"<ref name=OED/>. In the Hebrew Bible, pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish members of a group (like Ephraim) whose dialect lacked a Template:IPA sound (as in shoe) from members of a group (like Gilead) whose dialect included such a sound. The term originated in the Book of Judges, chapter 12, where the tribe of Gilead defeats the tribe of Ephraim, around 1370–1070 BC. Some Ephraimites crossed secretly into Gilead's territory to escape retribution. In order to catch and kill these disguised refugees, the Gileadites put each refugee to a simple test:

"The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivour of Ephraim said, "Let me go over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No," they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth'." If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time." (Judges 12:5-6, NIV)

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Modern usage

Today, 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.

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. For example, the Perl programming 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. Likewise, savvy Macintosh users know 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.

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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.

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Shibboleths used in war

  • Lollapalooza: Used in World War II by the United States military to distinguish Japanese spies, who were unable to pronounce the [[alveolar lateral approximant|Template:IPA]], giving an [[alveolar approximant|Template:IPA]] instead.Template:Citation needed
  • Scheveningen: Dutch people pronounce this word with separate "s" [s] and "ch" [x], while German people pronounce sch as Template:IPA (IPA). The Dutch Resistance used this to ferret out Nazi spies during World War II.
  • Höyryjyrä: (IPA Template:IPA, 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; standard cyrillization turns it into Г [g], a completely different sound.
  • 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])
  • The Spanish word perejil (parsley) was used as a shibboleth by Dominican Republic strongman Trujillo. See [2].
  • 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: 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.
  • The Catalan sentence Setze jutges d'un jutjat mengen fetge d'un penjat Template:IPA ("Sixteen judges of a court eat the liver of a hanged man") is claimed to have been used by the Almogàvers to distinguish the Turks [3], and others of it being used during the War of Spanish Succession to distinguish the ethnic Spanish (native Castilian speakers) [4] by the means of z, ʒ and d͡ʒ sounds, difficult for native Castilian speakers. 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 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. 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".
  • In the Paraguay War (1864 - 1870), Brazilian soldiers would identify Paraguayan citizens by having them say the word pão, meaning "bread". Non-Portuguese speakers have great difficulty making the ão sound - instead, they would say pan or pao (without the tilde sound).
  • Woolloomooloo was used by Australian soldiers in the Pacific Theatre during the Second World War to identify themselves when approaching a camp.
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Humorous shibboleths

  • 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 [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".
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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 Template:IPA) 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 Ñoldorin 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. 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.
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Grammatical shibboleths

In the Victorian era, especially in Britain, the educated middle classes invented several shibboleths to distinguish themselves 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 grammatical rules used as shibboleths of a "good education" include:

  • 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)
  • 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". Ironically, an easy description of this 'incorrect' usage is: "A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with".)
  • 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)
  • 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 apostrophe for standard, non-possessive plural (e.g. Hotdog's for sale)
  • confusion of it's (verb contraction, "it is") and its (possessive for it)
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Other shibboleths

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English shibboleths for native speakers or locale natives

Template:IPA notice

  • nuclear/nucular: The word "nuclear" (Template:IPA) is sometimes pronounced "nucular" (Template:IPA) in the Southern United States. This is considered incorrect or a metathesis by many authorities, although the alternative pronunciation is common, having been used by several U.S. Presidents and other politicians.
  • 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 and the Australian pronunciation a longer vowel sound, leading to New Zealanders pronouncing "Fush & Chups".
  • 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
  • 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" (Haahvaahd Yaahd), often in the context of the stereotypical sentence, "Park the car at Harvard Yard" (Paahk the caah at Haahvaahd Yaahd), which gives many instances of this derhotacization.
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Natives of this city usually pronounce the word 'water' (WAH-ter) as 'wudder' (WUH-der).
  • 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 Template:IPA in non-Southern dialects may be rendered Template:IPA or Template:IPA 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 [[[Template:IPA]]]. Southerners will often add the word "ink" before "pen" to disambiguate.
  • Regional vowels
    • 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 Template:IPA as compared to Template:IPA or Template:IPA as said by native Californians. Template:IPA is not unique to California, however.
    • About: U.S. commentators (and popular culture) have drawn attention to the stereotypical Canadian pronunciation of about. Supposedly, Canadians pronounce the word 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. (And in fact, the pronunciation is closer to "ah-bewt," or Template:IPA, as compared to General American Template:IPA) 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 Template:IPA, while US pronunciation is Template:IPA. Ira Gershwin famously used this difference in the verse "I say to-mey-to, you say to-mah-to".
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Place names
  • Alachua County, Florida, USA: Frequently mispronounced by non-locals as "al-uh-CHU-ah", this Native American word is pronounced by locals with the stress on the second syllable: uh-LA-choo-wuh. Oddly, the town of the same name is frequently pronounced by locals as uh-LA-chuh-WAY, perhaps to distinguish between reference to the town versus the county.
  • Boise, Idaho, USA (the state capital) is pronounced by locals as "boy-see" Template:IPA. Most Americans, especially those far removed from Idaho, pronounce it "boi-zee" Template:IPA.
  • Two USA towns with the name "Hurricane"—Hurricane, Utah and Hurricane, West Virginia—are both pronounced by locals as "HUR-uh-kin." Others pronounce it like the destructive weather phenomenon, "HUR-ri-kain."
  • Pierre, South Dakota, USA (also the state capital) is properly pronounced as "Pier" (as in "dock": Template:IPA). Non-locals will pronounce it like the man's name as in French (Template:IPA).
  • Chili, a suburb of Rochester, New York, is pronounced "chye-lie" (Template:IPA), not "chih-lee" (Template:IPA) as the stew. Visitors to the Rochester area can often be distinguished by this.
  • Bellefontaine, Ohio is pronounced "Bell-fountain," with the emphasis on "fount."
  • Couch Street in Portland, Oregon, USA (named after an early settler), is pronounced by locals as rhyming with "pooch" or "smooch" (Template:IPA diphthong).
  • Detroit, Michigan: Residents stress the first syllable of this city's name; other Americans tend to stress the second. (Both ignore the "correct" French pronunciation.)
  • Houston Street, New York City, USA: locals pronounce the first syllable identically with "house" (Template:IPA), while most visitors will employ the same pronunciation as in Houston, Texas (first syllable Template:IPA). This is apparently because Houston Street refers to a man who bore the surname Houston, and pronounced it in this way. The city bears the name of a different Houston who pronounced his name in the way most visitors pronounce the street name.
  • 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.
  • Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA: native Rhode Islanders pronounce the name of the city as "p'tuckit," whereas non-natives will pronounce as "paw-tuck-et."
  • Worcester, Massachusetts, USA: Whereas non-natives will often pronounce as "War-sester" or "War-chester," the correct pronunciation of this city name is "Woo-ster" (Template:IPA). However, the true local pronounces it, often in affectionate jest, as "Wuh-stah." See Worcester, England.
  • Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA: When a non-local first sees this, they might think that it is pronounced, 'Glou-Ches-Ter.' However, it is pronounced by locals as, 'Glah-ster,' or, 'Glah-stuh.' See Gloucester, England.
  • New Haven, Connecticut, USA: While most native Connecticuters stress the second word (noo HAY-ven), most outsiders will make the mistake of stressing the first (NOO hay-ven).
  • Appalachia: pronounced "App-uh-LAT-cha" within the central portion of the region, particularly between North Carolina and West Virginia; usually pronounced "App-uh-LAY-sha" 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 (ar-kan-SAW), Kansans typically pronounce it as if the "Ar-" were a prefix added to the name of the state of Kansas (ar-KAN-zis).
  • Cairo, Egypt: The Egyptian city is pronounced "keyero" (Template:IPA), whereas assorted American locations of the same name pronounce it differently ("kā·rō", "CARE-oe" or IPA Template:IPA)
  • Milngavie, Glasgow, Scotland: correctly pronounced "mull-guy", but often pronounced "miln-gavee" by non-Glaswegians. (This is elaborated upon in the main article.)
  • Manuka: A locality (not an actual suburb) of Canberra, national capital of Australia. Local pronunciation is MAN-E-KA with equal emphasis on each syllable; new arrivals can be identified by the pronunciation ma-NU-ka with emphasis on the middle syllable.
  • Oamaru, New Zealand: Pronounced locally, and by other natives of the Otago region, as AUH-muh-ROO, a pronunciation borrowed from the local dialect of Māori. Most people from farther north in New Zealand pronounce both initial vowels separately, as o-UH-muh-ROO, borrowed from northern Māori dialects.
  • Oregon: The correct pronunciation for this US state is "Orygun". However, many non-locals, particularly in the southern and eastern United States, pronounce it "Ore-e-gone". People who use this pronunciation are often looked upon in disdain by native Oregonians.
  • Puyallup, Washington: This uniquely-named town is correctly pronounced "pew-ALL-up."
  • Norfolk, Virginia, USA: Long time residents tend to pronounce the city's name as Template:IPA, while other locals will say Template:IPA. Non-locals will pronounce the "L" in an effort to avoid a common impolite word. See Norfolk, England.
  • Rutherfordton, North Carolina, USA: Long time residents tend to pronounce the city's name as "rulfton", while visitors or new residents will stress all the segments of the name, emphasizing "fordton."
  • 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 properly.
  • Tooele, Utah, USA: (See: Wiktionary entry with audio pronunciation) pronounced as "too-ill-ah" by Utahns.
  • Yocona, Mississippi, USA: Most locals refer to the river and community as "yack nuh" or "yock knee". Passersby will refer to it as "Yo cone ah".
  • There is a Scottish proverb involving the surname Dalziel (generally recognised from the BBC TV series 'Dalziel and Pascoe') and the word "devil" (both pronounced 'die-il' in the Scots dialect):
Dalziel and de'il begin with the ane letter. De'il is nae gude, and Dalziel is nae better.
This means " 'Dalziel' and 'devil' begin with the one letter. The Devil is no good, and Dalziel is no better". "Dalziel" is referring to the Scottish clan of that name, and the phrase is intended as a slight against that clan.
  • Many English placenames act as shibboleths. Warwick, Norwich and Alnwick may be pronounced "wɔːˈwɪk", "nɔːˈwɪtʃ" and "ælnˈwɪk" by Americans, when the actual pronunciations are "ˈwɒɹɪk", "nɒɹɪtʃ" and "ˈænɪk".
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English shibboleths for non-native speakers

  • Vespene gas (a fictitious gas from the game Starcraft): Arabs tend to mispronounce this phrase, since Arabic lacks v, p, and g.
  • Ripley/ripply: If any distinction is made between the two words by a native speaker (rip-lee vs. rip-ul-ee), it will probably be lost by a native speaker of Japanese. Either pronunciation would be very difficult to say properly as the distinction between the R and L sounds is not present in Japanese. Furthermore, Japanese syllables must terminate in either a vowel or n, thus many Japanese would pronounce both words as ri-pu-ri-i, with both r sounds being somewhere between a standard English r and l.
  • Refract/reflect: similar problems as with ripley/ripply for speakers of languages that do not distinguish between r and l.
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Non-English

  • Krai kai kai 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?"[5]
  • Rødgrød med fløde Template: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 "På ön finns det en å, och i ån finns det en ö".
  • Chuchichäschtli Template:IPA in Swiss German, meaning "little box in the kitchen".
  • The sentence a oagnehm 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 shibboleth is Strč prst skrz krk, meaning "stick the finger through the throat".
  • Estamos en la huelga is a Spanish phrase meaning "We are on strike". The majority of Spaniards pronounce "huelga" (strike) as Template:IPA. Andalusians and Extremadurans, though, often pronounce the elsewhere silent /h/ and intermix /l/ and /ɾ/, pronouncing "huelga" like the Spanish word "juerga", as Template:IPA. 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) Template:IPA is pronounced "mar" (sea) Template:IPA. 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 (Template:IPA, stream) into Template:IPA or Template:IPA.
  • Also in Spanish, you can tell a Castilian from a Catalonian from their pronunciation of the letter Ll, which Catalonians will pronounce /Template:IPA/. Most dialects of Spanish have a feature called yeísmo where it is pronounced /ʝ/. This means that callar (Template:IPA, to be quiet) is pronounced Template:IPA.
  • During the Cuban independence war, prisoners caught by the insurgents were asked to pronounce the word "garbanzo" (Template:IPA in Castilian Spanish). Cubans pronounced the /ɾ/ as /l/, and /θ/ as /s/, resulting Template:IPA. 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.
  • 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 (/ka'drega/), unaware he was actually being offered just a chair (in Italian, sedia /'sɛdja/).
  • 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 Template:IPA as Template:IPA 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) 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.
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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 your computer with a password. If you enter the correct password you can log on to your computer, if you enter an incorrect password, you can go no further.

There are various classes of computer security-related shibboleth.

  • Class 1: Something you know; perhaps a password or another fact.
  • Class 2: Something you have; a card or a physical tag of some kind.
  • Class 3: Something you are; a biometric feature such as a fingerprint or an iris scan.

In general, it is considered more secure to combine various classes of shibboleth, rather than using the approach of just requiring a class 1 shibboleth that is common today. So for example, a high security system might require an authorized user to login only by entering a password, providing an encoded card, and passing a biometric test.

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References

<references/>

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See also

fy:Sjibbolet is:Sjibbólet nl:Schibbolet sv:Schibbolet

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