ABSTRACT
The word shibboleth derives from a Hebrew word shibboleth meaning ‘stream’. In the Book of Judges 12:5ff. we learn how the Gileadites tested people to find out if they were Ephraimites:
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 Jordan…
Today, shibboleth tends to refer to a linguistic usage regarded as capable of marking one group out from another. Thus, the pronunciation of the eighth letter of the alphabet is a shibboleth in Northern Ireland where Catholics say haitch and Protestants aitch; and the preference for lift as opposed to elevator could be enough to distinguish a Briton from an American.
