shibboleth
Date Submitted: 03/14/2004 19:10:06
Category: / Society & Culture / Religion
Length: 1 pages (348 words)
Category: / Society & Culture / Religion
Length: 1 pages (348 words)
The Story of the Shibboleth
A shibboleth is a kind of linguistic password: A way of speaking (a pronunciation, or the use of a
particular expression) that identifies one as a member of an 'in' group. The purpose of a shibboleth is
exclusionary as much as inclusionary: A person whose way of speaking violates a shibboleth is identified
as an outsider and thereby excluded by the group. (This phenomenon is part of the "Judge a …
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…so, that
when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said
unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he say Nay;
6 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: and there
fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
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