Shibboleth
From Freepedia
- For the Internet2 research project, see Shibboleth (Internet2).
Shibboleth is the Hebrew word that literally means "torrent of water" or "stream".[1] In the Hebrew Bible, pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish members of a group whose dialect lacked a "sh" sound from members of a group whose dialect included such a sound. The consequences of getting it wrong were fatal:
- And the Gileadites seized the passages of the Jordan before the Ephraimites; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites who had 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 the Jordan; and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. (Judges 12:5-6, King James Version of the Bible)
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Modern usage
Today, "shibboleth" refers to words and phrases that can be used in a similar way—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 reveals 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, to veterans of military service, and to other groups. Discussing such memories is a common way of bonding.
A shibboleth can also be the manner in which a word is spelled. For example, the Perl programming language is sometimes rendered as PERL (in all capital letters, as if it were an acronym), which is a clear 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 sort out "good" job offers (where the job shop understands Perl culture) from "bad" job offers (where they are not aware of cultural conventions) or to detect that a book on Perl probably is not useful, since the typography shows a lack of familiarity with the conventions of the language. Likewise, rendering Ada as ADA is a sign that the writer is unfamiliar with the Ada programming language, which was named in honor of Ada Lovelace.
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.
Shibboleths used in war
- Scheveningen: Dutch people pronounce this word beginning with separate "s" [s] and "ch" [x]; a German would 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 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 [h] is particularly hard for Russian speakers to pronounce correctly; standard cyrillization would turn it into Г [g], 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 [2])
- The Spanish word perejil (parsley) was used as a shibboleth by Dominican Republic strongman Trujillo. 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: 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 ['sɛd͡zə 'ʒud͡ʒəz 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 to distinguish the Turks [4], and others of it being used during the War of Spanish Succession to distinguish the ethnic Spanish (native Castilian speakers) [5] 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 grass cheese, who cannot say that is no real Frisian" was used by the the Frisian Grutte Pier during a Frisian-Holland war. Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered.
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 [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 /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:
- between you and I (more properly between you and me)
- no final prepositions (which often provokes the reply, apocryphally attributed to Churchill, that this is nonsense "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)
- in writing, the misuse of apostrophe, such as for a general plural noun not normally needing on
- it's and its used incorrectly, particularly
Other shibboleths
Non-English
- 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 "I ön finns det en å, och i ån finns det en ö".
- Chuchichäschtli [ˈχʊχːiˌχæʃtli] in Swiss German.
- Estamos en la huelga Spanish phrase, "We are on strike". Majority of Spaniards pronounce "huelga" (strike) as [ˈwelga]. Andalusians and Extremadurans, though, often pronounce the elsewhere silent h and intermix l and r, pronouncing "huelga" like the Spanish word "juerga", as [ˈxweɾga]. This will change the contents of the sentence as "We are having fun".
English shibboleths for native speakers
| Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
- 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 [aɪ] in non-Southern dialects may be rendered [a] or [æ] 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 [n].
- 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 [ˈɑɹəndʒ] as compared to [ˈɔɹɪndʒ] or [ˈɔɹəndʒ] as said by native Californians. [ˈɔɹɪndʒ] 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 [əˈbəʊt], 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 [to-mah-to], while US pronunciation is [to-mey-to]. Cole Porter famously used this difference in the 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 like the man's name, with a French accent. (And find many SoDak's laughing at them.) "SoDak" is pronounced with a long "o" and a short "a".
- Chili, a suburb of Rochester, New York, is pronounced "chie-lie", not "chih-lee" as the soup. Visitors to the Rochester area can often be distinguished by this.
- Couch Street in Portland, Oregon (named after an early settler), is pronounced so that it rhymes with smooch. Visitors and newcomers inevitably pronounce it as if referring to a piece of furniture.
Shibboleth jokes
There is a Scottish proverb over surname Dalziel [pronounced 'dee-el'] made famous by BBC TV series 'Dalziel and Pascoe':
Dalziel and de'il begin with the ane letter. De'il is nae gude, and Dalziel is nae better
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.
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, one might carry a smart card that allows one to login only by both entering a password and passing a biometric test.
