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

Shibboleth originally comes from the Hebrew word (שבולת) that literally means "torrent of water" or "ear of grain". In the Hebrew Bible, pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish members of a group (like Ephraim) whose dialect lacked a "sh" sound from members of a group (like Gilead) whose dialect included such a sound. This term originated in the Book of Judges, chapter 12, which details a violent dispute between the tribes of Gilead and Ephraim. During this conflict, which occurred between , Gilead defeated Ephraim, and some Ephraimites began to cross 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:

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, KJV)

Or for a more modern translation:

"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)

Modern usage

Today, "shibboleth" refers to words and phrases that can be used in a similar way—to distinguish members of

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

• Lollapalooza: Used in World War II by the United States military to distinguish Japanese spies, who were unable to pronounce the "l", giving an "r" instead. is pronounced with the proper tone, the phrase means, "Who sells chicken eggs?"
• Rødgrød med fløde : 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 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 . Andalusians and Extremadurans, though, often pronounce the elsewhere silent /h/ and intermix /l/ and /ɾ/, pronouncing "huelga" like the Spanish word "juerga", as . 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) is pronounced "mar" (sea) . 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 (, stream) into or .
• Also in Spanish, the letter Ll was formerly pronounced /ʎ/, and is still today in bilingual regions that also have this phoneme. However most dialects have a feature called yeísmo where it is pronounced /ʝ/. This means that callar (, to be quiet) is pronounced .
• During the Cuban independence war, prisoners caught by the insurgents were asked to pronounce the word "garbanzo" ( in Castillian Spanish). Cubans pronounced the /ɾ/ as /l/, and /θ/ as /s/, resulting . Therefore they were considered as traitors.
• 15円 50銭 (jû-go-en, go-jû-sen) was used in Japan after the Great Kantō 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 alüra (then) or föra (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 /'sedja/).
• 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) 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.

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.

See also

• Linguistics
• Phonology
• Shibboleth (Internet2)
• Tongue-twister
• U and non-U English Schibboleth

fy:Sjibbolet Sjibbólet Schibbolet Schibbolet