Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Shibboleths

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Have you ever met someone who couldn’t pronounce the name nearby town, or they just spoke different enough that you could tell that they were from somewhere else? If so, you have probably learned about shibboleths without even knowing it. These differences in speech have been used to identify people for centuries. Learn more about shibboleths, what they are and how they have been used throughout history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever met someone who couldn't pronounce the name of a nearby town, or perhaps they just spoke different enough that you could tell that they were from somewhere else? If so, you have probably learned about Shibbolus without even knowing it. These differences in speech have been used to identify people for centuries. Learn more about Shibbolus, what they are, and how they've been used throughout history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed, ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow?

That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to nothing much happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. My personal relationship with the word Shibboleth dates back to when I was

coaching high school debate in the early 90s. We were doing research and came across the phrase Hori Shibbleth. And we had no idea what it meant. Neither are words that you encounter an everyday conversation. The term shibboleth actually comes from the Bible. It comes from the Hebrew word shibolet, which refers to the top of a stalk of grain. However, for this discussion and the meaning of the word in English, its original meaning isn't really relevant. In the Bible, the word shibuleth was used by the ancient Israelis as a sort of password. It comes from the book of judges chapter 12, verses 5 and 6. It reads, The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said,

let me cross over, the men of Gilead asked him, are you an Ephraimite? If he replied, no, they said, all right, say Shibuleth. If he said, Sybilith, because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. 42,000 Ephraimites were killed at this time, end quote.

The Ephraimites couldn't pronounce the shah sound because their language didn't have it. When they tried to say Shibulith, they would say Sibboleth. The meaning of the word shibboleth became associated with any word or phrase that could define a group of people, or which could define members of an outgroup. Here, I want to give fair warning that I'm probably going to mispronounce a whole bunch of words in this episode, as the whole point of this episode is how words can be used to identify people in groups. As I'm not in most of those groups, I'll be talking about, I will naturally butcher some of the pronunciations. There are a surprisingly large number of examples of Shibolest Strout history, with examples both major and minor. In fact, there are probably some very minor examples that you know of that apply to where you grew up.

Many of the notable examples from history tend to actually be rather bloody. For example, in 1302 in what is today the Belgian city of Bruges, it was occupied by the French. On May 18th, in a surprised nighttime attack, all of the French in the town were rounded up. They went to all the homes where the French soldiers were lodged and woke up all of the men. As they couldn't tell the French from the Flemish in the middle of the night, they asked them all to say the Dutch words for Shield and Friend. The French couldn't pronounce it correctly, and those that couldn't say it were killed on the spot. From 1515 to 1523, there was an uprising in the Friesland region of the Netherlands against the Habsburgs who controlled it.

The leader of the uprising was a man named Pierre-Gerlof's Donia. They would attack ships off the coast and ask the sailors to say the sentence, butter, rye bread, and green cheese. Whoever cannot say that is not a genuine Frisian. Actually, it sounded something like this. Boathe Brea and Greenie and Ciseis, what that just as a kin is kin on projof to freeze. Those ships who had crews that could say it were left alone. And those ships that didn't have crews that could say it,

even if they were otherwise Dutch, would be plundered and sometimes beheaded. During the Wars of Independence in Latin America, revolutionaries in Colombia would use language to determine who is a local and who is Spanish. They would make people say the word Francisco. The Colombians would pronounce it Francisco. and the Spanish would pronounce it Francisco with the Spanish Lisp. During the reign of the dictator Raphael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic,

there was an event called the Parsley Massacre, which took place in October of 1937. Dominican soldiers rounded up Haitians by getting them to say the Spanish word for parsley, Perejil. Estimates are that between 12,000 and 35,000 Haitians were killed in the incident. One of my favorite Shibbolists was from World War II, and it again involved the Dutch. The Dutch would use the name of a seaside town located near the Hague called Schengen-Wangen. You know what? I'll just do this. Schiaveningham.

Germans, and pretty much everyone else on the earth for that matter, cannot pronounce the word properly. The glottal sounds the Dutch use don't exist in German. Likewise in World War II, the Americans used the word Lollapalooza in the Pacific as a challenge code, as the Japanese had a hard time pronouncing the letter L. Shibbolists can also be used to separate people who are otherwise very similar to each other. In Northern Ireland, there have been conflicts between Catholics and Protestants for years. By all outward appearances, even by language, it would be difficult to tell one group from the other. It was a matter of religion, not language or ethnicity.

Yet, there were still subtle ways that the two groups could tell themselves apart. In particular, how they pronounced the eighth letter of the alphabet. Protestants would pronounce it H, and Catholics would pronounce it. pronounce it H, which is how it's pronounced in the Republic of Ireland. During the Vietnam War, Americans who fled to Canada to avoid the draft would often try to sneak back into the U.S. by pretending to be Canadians. American border guards would ask them to say the alphabet as fast as they could. They would trip them up on the last letter of the alphabet, because Canadians will say Z, whereas Americans will say Z. Speaking of Canadians and Americans, if you don't know if someone

is Canadian or American, it can be very difficult to. tell them apart. One way which really doesn't work is the word about. There's a stereotype that Canadians will pronounce it a boot, and honestly, you won't find too many people who say it in such an exaggerated manner. There are, however, differences in speech. If someone needs to use the facilities, a Canadian will usually say washroom, whereas an American will usually say bathroom or restroom. When referring to the country south of the border, Canadians will often call it the states, whereas an American will almost never say that. Those word choices are actually pretty easy to change if someone wanted to.

And I've had quite a few discussions with Canadian friends if it was possible to create a shibboleth for Canadians. If Canadians wanted to ferret out in American, it would be pretty easy to do. Americans don't know nearly as much about Canada as Canadians do about the United States. Questions about American sports or politics might not trip up most Canadians, but most Americans couldn't tell you a thing about Canadian football, or Canadian politics. The question I posed to my Canadian friends was,

what would most Americans know that most Canadians wouldn't know? The one thing we came up with, and really the only thing we could think of, is the Pledge of Allegiance. Most Americans learn to recite it growing up, and most Canadians might only know the first line of it from movies and TV shows. Shibbolists can even get more subtle

to tell differences between people from different states or towns. You can probably think of some for wherever you live. Australians and Kiwis can tell themselves apart by subtle pronunciation differences like how they say fish and chips. I was born and raised in northeastern Wisconsin and then went to school in Minnesota. You might not think that there's very much difference between Wisconsin and Minnesota, but there are, even though they're very small. As children, you might have played the game Duck Duck Goose. In Minnesota, they don't play that. They play Duck Duck Grey Duck.

Again, very small, but it's there. Likewise, where I grew up, We didn't call water fountains that you drink from water fountains. We called them bubblers. It's an extremely regional thing that most people don't even know about. Another thing we have, which separates us from them, are rather complicated-sounding places with Native American names. I grew up with them, so I have no problem pronouncing Wawatosa, Kakana, Okana, Ocana, Mojahua, Wayauga, Chukwama, or McWanago. The words themselves aren't hard to pronounce, per se, but almost everyone who isn't from Wisconsin will butcher the pronunciation

if they're trying to read it. These sort of place name pronunciations are hardly unique to where I'm from. New Orleans has Chaputula Street, which there is no way you would know how to pronounce it if you didn't beforehand from just reading it. Shibblists can extend to religions, companies, academic disciplines, and schools. I'm sure in the course of listening to this, you can think of pronunciations or words you use,

which would distinguish the place you live or the groups you belong to. They really are everywhere. Both how we pronounce words and the words we use, signify who we are and where we're from. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you two can have it read on the show.