ABSTRACT

Since adherence to religious community is of fundamental importance in the Levant (e.g. conflicts in 1979 in Syria between Sunni and Alawite; the constitution of the Lebanese parliament, Christian and Muslim in the ratio of 6 to 5; the name of the Kingdom of Jordan, ‘Hashemite’), it is not surprising that evidence of adherence to community is found in speech. Indeed it is this area which gave the word shibboleth to the English language: possibly the most famous example in world history of betrayal of community origins and belief by a single word (see the Introduction).