List of shibboleths

Below are listed various examples of words and phrases that have been identified as shibboleths, a word or custom whose variations in pronunciation or style can be used to differentiate members of ingroups from those of outgroups.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Shibboleths used in war and persecution

Dutch–French

• Schild en vriend: On 18 May 1302, the people of Bruges killed the French occupiers of the city during a nocturnal surprise attack. According to a famous legend, they stormed into the houses where they knew the tenants were forced to board and lodge French troops serving as city guards, roused every male person from his bed and forced them to repeat the challenge "schild en vriend" (shield and friend). The Flemings pronounced "schild" with a separate "s" /s/ and "ch" /x/" (see also "Scheveningen", later in this section). Flemings would pronounce "vriend" with a voiced v whereas French would render those as a voiceless f.

Every Frenchman who failed the test was stabbed on the spot, still in his nightgown. Because the signal for the uprising was the matins bells of the city's churches and monasteries, this became known as the Bruges Matins or Brugse Metten. Like the name of the massacre, the story may have been influenced by the Sicilian uprising mentioned below.

• The problem with this legend is that in Medieval manuscripts of that time, a shield is referred to as "skilde" as in Norse and Norse-influenced English words. Therefore it is sometimes said that the words must have been "'s gilden vriend" meaning "friend of the guilds." The combination of the 's and the g in "'s gilden" would be pronounced /sx/.

Italian/Sicilian–French

• Ciciri (chickpeas): This was used by native Sicilians to ferret out Angevin French soldiers in the late 13th century during the Sicilian Vespers, the uprising which freed the island from Angevin rule. Both the Italian soft c /tʃ/, and the Italian r, were (and are still) difficult for the French to pronounce; also French tend to stress words on the final syllable.

Frisian-Dutch

Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries

• Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gijn oprjochte Fries () means "Butter, rye bread and green cheese, whoever cannot say that is not a genuine Frisian" was used by the Frisian Pier Gerlofs Donia during a Frisian rebellion (1515–1523). Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered and soldiers who could not were beheaded by Donia himself.

Castilian Spanish – Latin-American Spanish

• During the Latin American wars of independence, the name Francisco was used by Colombian rebels to tell Americans from Spaniards. Whoever pronounced it as /fɾanˈθisko/ (as in European Spanish) would be thrown into the Magdalena River.

English–Dutch

• The Peasants' Revolt of AD 1381 (also Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising) was used by the merchants of London in an attempt to get a competitive edge in the trade with the Low Countries by reducing the number of competitors. A massacre among the Flemings in London – not just the Flemish merchants – ensued. "And many fflemmynges loste hir heedes at that tyme and namely they that koude nat say Breede and Chese, but Case and Brode."

Finnish–Russian

• [Yksi] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help): Finnish for "one", used by the White Guard to separate Russians from Finns in the Finnish Civil War during the invasion of Tampere. Many of the Russians caught had changed to civilian clothing, so suspected people were rounded up, even from hospitals, and asked to say yksi. If the prisoner pronounced it [juksi], mistaking the front vowel 'y' for an iotated 'u', he was considered a Russian foreign fighter and was shot on the spot. Any Slav or Balt, Communist or not, was killed, including some members of the White Guard.

Spanish – French and Haitian Creole

• Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo conducted a brutal massacre of undocumented Haitian settlers along the Dominican-Haitian border. The action is known as the Parsley Massacre. Suspects not fluent in Spanish either did not know or could not properly pronounce the Spanish word 'perejil' (parsley). The pronunciation of the word by Haitian citizens tended to be with an trilled r and without the 'l' at the end of the word.

Azeri–Armenian

• The Azeri word for Hazelnut, fındıq, which Armenians typically pronounce with a [p] instead of an [f].

Culture, religion and language-specific shibboleths

• English-speaking Allied personnel in Europe, during the Second World War, frequently made use of passwords in which labio-velar approximants (w-sounds) were prominent, as these are unusual in spoken German, and the letter w is normally pronounced "v" by native speakers of German. For instance:
  • following D-Day (1944) US forces used the challenge-response "Flash" – "Thunder" – "Welcome".
• Israeli forces during the 1948 Palestine war used passwords chosen to contain voiceless bilabial stops (p-sounds), which are not found in Arabic, and which native speakers of Arabic often replace with a voiced bilabial stop (b-sounds).
• In the Lebanese Civil War of 1975, Christian Lebanese soldiers targeted suspected Palestinians at checkpoints by asking how they pronounced the Arabic word for "tomato", which is pronounced "banadoura" in Lebanese Arabic and "bandoura" in Palestinian Arabic. If they said the former, they were let through; if they said the latter, they were shot on the spot.
• During the Somali Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab's 2013 shooting and hostage siege attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, the attackers asked for Islamic prophet Muhammad's mother Aminah bint Wahb's name and the shahada as religious shibboleths to determine Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims were freed, while non-Muslims were targeted. An Indian man who could not name Aminah was shot dead.
• The mostly Christian Filipino ground troops fighting in the 2013 Zamboanga City crisis used the Lord's Prayer as a way to identify Moro insurgents. Those who could not recite the Lord's Prayer in any Philippine language or even English were immediately suspected of being part of the armed Moro National Liberation Front and detained, leading to deeper inter-religious divisions as non-combatant Muslims would also fail the test.

English shibboleths for native speakers or local natives

See also: Regional accents of English and Regional vocabularies of American English

• Fish and chips: The accents of Australians and New Zealanders seem very similar, and the term fish and chips is sometimes evoked to illustrate a major difference between the two. In New Zealand pronunciation short i is a central vowel, [ɘ]. This vowel sound is sometimes caricatured as "fush and chups" by Australians. The Australian pronunciation has the front vowel [ɪ] (which is more common in most varieties of English) which, due to an overall vowel shift in New Zealand, sounds like "feesh and cheeps" to New Zealand ears.
• Pronunciation of letters of the alphabet:
  • H: in Northern Ireland pronounced 'aitch' by Protestants, 'haitch' by Catholics, per Hiberno-English. Also often pronounced 'haitch' in dialects of English spoken in former colonies of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, usually among non-native English speakers, but in the case of Australia, also among native speakers, especially those of Irish descent.
  • Z: in North America pronounced zee in the United States; typically zed in the rest of the world. Known in American history and popular culture for distinguishing American males who fled to Canada from the US to escape the military draft in the 1950s and 60s. The Canadian pronunciation was featured in the Molson Canadian I Am Canadian advertisement in 2000.
• In Highland Dress, for anyone who has served in a Scottish Regiment or played in a pipe band, or whenever said by any Scot, if ‘plaid’ is used to refer to tartan cloth, it could be pronounced: /ˈplæd/ (to rhyme with ‘had’). (NB: This usage, as a synonym for ‘tartan’, is generally only ever found in North America). More often, however, when referring to the cape-like garment – in its various forms – worn over the left shoulder as part of the traditional or formal Scottish dress, the pronunciation is: /ˈpleɪd/ (to rhyme with ‘made’); (although the OED accepts both pronunciations in this usage). To further stress the pronunciation of the garment versus the cloth, the garment has an alternative spelling ‘plaide’, although rarely used. Thus: belted-plaid, drummer's plaid, evening-plaid, fly-plaid, full-plaid, piper's plaid, et al., are pronounced /pleɪd/ by those who have worn, or are familiar, with the same. Etymology: plaide (Scots) via Scottish Gaelic meaning ‘blanket’ or ‘cloak’, (albeit usually made of tartan; most often the same tartan as the wearer's kilt or trews).
• Regional vowels

Place-name pronunciations

Main article: List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations

In Australia

• Cairns, Queensland: Pronounced [ˈkʰeːnz] or [ˈkʰæːnz] by Australians, is pronounced /ˈkɛərnz/ by speakers of rhotic dialects. Although the rhotic pronunciation is standard in the case of the English word 'cairns' referring to a stack of stones, most Australians consider it a mispronunciation when referring to the city.

In Canada

• Newfoundland: Some outsiders pronounce the island almost as if it were three separate words, "new-FOUND-lənd" rather than the local pronunciation, "Noo-fən-LAND"
• Regina, Saskatchewan: Pronounced /rˈdʒaɪnə/, similar to "vagina". Familiarity with the standard pronunciation may in some cases distinguish Canadians from Americans.

In Malaysia

• Genting Highlands: Malaysians typically pronounce the first syllable with a hard "g", whereas foreigners tend to use a soft one.

In the United States

• Houston Street, New York City: Locals pronounce the first syllable identically with "house" (/ˈhaʊstən/), while most visitors will employ the same pronunciation as in Houston, Texas (/ˈhjuːstən/). Houston Street is actually a corruption of the original name of Houstoun Street, named after Continental Congress Delegate William Houstoun, who pronounced his name in this way.
• Nevada: Nevadans say /nɨˈvædə/ nə-VAD-ə, pronouncing the first A as in 'dad'. Visitors often say /nɨˈvɑːdə/ nə-VAH-də, pronouncing the first A as in 'bra'. A similar phenomenon is also true of Colorado. Additionally, there are a number of smaller towns in other states bearing the name Nevada where locals frequently use the latter pronunciation, and in Missouri, pronounced Neh-VAY-dah. In Nevada County, Arkansas, it is pronounced with the first A as long.

Place-name terms

• Locals refer to San Francisco as "SF", or simply "the City" within the context of the San Francisco Bay Area. Tourists may sometimes say "San Fran" or "Frisco".
• The U.S. state of Oregon is home to a county, city, river, bay, state forest, museum, Native American tribe, and ice cream company called Tillamook. Residents pronounce "ook" in the word similar to the American pronunciation of "cook" or "hook," while nonresidents often mistake the pronunciation for being similar to "spook" or "fluke".
• Although Sixth Avenue in Manhattan was officially renamed “Avenue of the Americas” in 1945, the original name is most often used.
• Portland, Oregon's Couch Street rhymes with "pooch," unlike the identically-spelled sofa synonym which rhymes with "pouch."
• Boise, Idaho The city's name is commonly pronounced with the 's' sounding more like /z/. However, locals will pronounce it as an actual 's' sound, rendering the name more like "boy' see".

Non-English

Estonia

• Estonian "Jüriöö ülestõus" (St. George's Night Uprising) includes many difficult vowels for foreigners, who are sometimes put to the test of pronouncing it.

Sweden

• Swedish "Sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sju sköna sjuksköterskor på skeppet Shanghai" (Seven sea-sick sailors were taken care of by seven lovely nurses on the ship Shanghai) is extremely hard for any non-native speakers to pronounce due to the Swedish /ɧ/, or sj-sound as well as the many å, ä and ö. Longer versions of this tongue twister exists, like "Sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes själsligt i sjögång själva av sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai." (Seventy-seven seasick sailors were treated spiritually in high seas solely by seven singing nurses on the sinking ship Shanghai)

See also

• Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin
• List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations