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Security + Language = Shibboleth

Started by Daniel Miessler · 7 months ago

While listening to an academic debate on Atheism the other day I came across one of the coolest words I’d seen in years: Shibboleth.
Shibboleth is the Hebrew word that literally means “ear of wheat”. In the Hebrew Bible, pronunciation of this word was used t ... Continue reading »

4 comments

  • Allie

    2 years ago

    This was used in an episode of west wing to determine if someone was faking a religion or not.
    reply
  • Jason Powell

    2 years ago

    "...and based on the response you can tell whether the person is part of the secret club or not..."

    I think it's more specific to say, "based on the delivery of the response."
    reply
  • Daniel Miessler

    2 years ago

    Good point -- fixed now. :)
    reply
  • Steven G. Harms

    2 years ago

    I learned about another practical instance of this when I was learning Dutch.

    There is a famous beach near The Hague ( Den Haag or des Gravenhage, has 'twas known in days of yore ) called Scheveningen.

    The syllable of that Sch is unique to Dutch, it's a rolling gutteral and is markedly different from the Sch sound in German ( which is like Sh in the English word Sheep ).

    Thus, similar to the WW reference above, Scheveningen was a shibboleth during WWII to identify Germans from Dutchmen.

    Being a studious-minded guy I managed to get the phoneme before my departure. It really gets the ol' Vollmer bone buzzing.
    reply

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