Shibboleths are words or phrases that non-native speakers have difficulty pronouncing correctly or without an accent. They have been used in times of war to identify spies.
The classic Danish ones are “rødgrød med fløde” and “røget ørreder på rugbrød”. Basically anything involving Scandinavian letter and the soft D that’s unique to Danish can potentially qualify.
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Oachkatzlschwoaf is the Shiboleth to identify Germans in Austria. Those not capable of pronouncing it are Piefke.
I’ve always heard that the town of Scheveningen was used in the War to identify German spies by pronounciation. But it works for most languages because there’s very few languages that have the same ch/g sound as is used in Dutch and outside of native speakers of those languages there’s very few people that can properly pronounce it. See for example the horrendous way that English speakers pronounce the airport Schiphol.
To be honest, most native Basque speakers have a distinct dialect. I would guess it’s very, very, very, very hard to learn a dialect later in life. There are just so many regional words and sounds, and words are shortened in particular ways. Can a dialect be considered a shibboleth?
I guess stuff like čučoriedka(blueberry) or guľôčka(small ball). If our Czech brothers have trouble pronouncing them, than everyone has lol.
For Polish it is practically any word with more than two consecutive consonants. Non Polish speakers always complain (and the English-speakers are, as usual, among the worst to pronounce anything) 🙃
A classic would be something like the name Brzęczyszczykiewicz
England has Leicester, Scotland has Wemyss and Wales has Welsh.
In Ireland it tends to be personal names (or, to some extent, place names).
The Irish language is written with the Latin alphabet but many letters and letter combinations are pronounced differently than they are in English, and there are a large number of silent letters and letter-combinations that are there for sound grammatical reasons but look odd to an Englishman or American.
This gives you some names that Brits and Americans can’t figure out at all, like “Sadhbh,” “Medb,” and “Caoimhe”, and worse, some that they think they can pronounce but can’t, like “Colm,” “Niamh,” and “Padraig”.
Another tell that the person isn’t from around here is when they call our head of government the “Prime Minister” or “Irish Prime Minister” instead of his proper title, the Taoiseach.
honestly any word with either RR or LL, xD
its fun to hear tourist say Paea or paela instead of Paella (/paeyah/).
In Iceland that is at least every other word 🤣
Eyjafjallajökull is a common one.
Even if by some miracle you pronounce it right your accent will give you away.
“Chuchichäschtli” (~kitchen cupboard) is the Swiss-German classic.
Dundonians are convinced that no one else can correctly pronounce, “*twa plen bridies an an ingin een an aa*”
considering very few people learn polish, not to mention getting fluent – all words.
Historically from what i remember one super simple word was used – [Maciuś](https://voca.ro/13til7Wacncx) (dimunitive from of name Maciej, Matthew in english)
Derry/Londonderry
Putting your toaster in the press (cupboard)
I don’t think your definition of shibboleth is really correct. These are examples of what I consider the proper meaning.
27 , tjugosju is very hard for none Swedish to pronounce.
Phrase? I wouldn’t know but I never met non-Portuguese that could confortably pronounce the nasal diphthong ão.
I’d say any word with “Щ” and/or “Ы”, such as “щипцы”.
Although wikipedia says that during WW2 Russians used the word “дорога” (doroga – road) to detect Nazi spies, who’d mispronounce it as “toroka”. Sounds like some tall tale tbh.
The most notorious one is “schild en vriend”, where foreigners, particularly French speakers cannot properly pronounce the “sch” sound.
In italian Is for sure “precipitevolissimevolmente”
It’s hardly used for obvious reasons it’s 26 letters and I needed Google to write It correctly. It’s also the longest Word in italian, It Means to do something in a hurry
Probably some words that have the letter ř in them – for example řízení (driving), hříbeček (small [google says] bolete)
We have loads, and most learn them in the military service as code words. A pair of words that would be nigh impossible for Russians to pronounce.
Ärjyvä – Älämölö
Polyrottinki – Ärräpää
Hääyöaie – Väkevä
Näkinkengät – Ähtäri
We’ve actually been using ours to identify the subversive intelligence groups, and it sorta became a meme on the internet when if you think that your interlocutor might be Russian you ask him to pronounce it in the voice message. The word is паляниця (palianytsia), which is a round loaf of bread with a cut on the side. It has a palatalized ts sound which is absent in Russian language, and they have a different y sound. Every Ukrainian, even the Russian speakers will have no problems pronouncing it, but it’s near impossible for Russians without proper practice
I don’t know if we have official ones. Polish in general is difficult to pronounce without an accent. If one masters Polish enough to pass for native in general, there doesn’t seem to be any super difficult words that would identify them. Though maybe the difference between long soft consonants and short soft cononants, most foreigners don’teven hear the difference. “To śmie**ć**” – “Nie ma śmie**ci**” (It’s a trash – There’s no trash) , “To sło**ń**ce” – “To sło**ni**ce” (It’s the sun – They’re female elephants).
>Edit: from Wikipedia:
>Soczewica, koło, miele, młyn (Old Polish pronunciation: [ˈs̪ɔt͡ʃɛvit͡sʲa ˈkɔɫɔ ˈmʲɛlʲɛ ˈmɫɪn̪]), meaning “lentil, wheel, grinds [verb], mill”: In 1312, the Polish Prince Ladislaus the Elbow-high quelled the Rebellion of wójt Albert in Kraków, populated mostly by Silesian, German and Czech citizens. Anyone over the age of 7 who could not pronounce these Polish words was put to death, ejected from the city or had their property confiscated. ‘Ł’ (then pronounced as a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, aka dark l) and dental [s̪] are both unlikely to be pronounced properly by Germans since they cannot make out the difference from their own sounds [l] and [s]. (The former was approximated by Germans as l, and has evolved now into a sound similar to English w).
Dark L practically disappeared from Polish language though, so it’d be useless nowadays.
Volkswagen and Porsche.
But do you mean shibboleths to identify if someone is a native speaker or for certain dialects of German?
To test if someone is a native German speakers: pretty much anything with an Umlaut, a *ch* for English speakers or a *h* for Russian speakers.
Or let them read: Das Kind nicht umfahren sondern umfahren!
There’s a couple of English words that non-native speakers often have extra difficulty with like *arthritis* and *squirrel*.
In general though I’d say the closest thing to OP’s concept England has is some of its oddly written place names (that don’t make any intuitive sense in terms of English orthography). Examples: Worcestershire (pronounced like ‘wustershur’), Bicester (‘bister’), Holborn (‘ho-burn’), Frome (‘froom’), Belvoir (‘beaver’), Chiswick (‘chizick’), Gloucester (‘glosster’), Leicester (‘lestur’), Leominster (‘lemster’), Warwick (‘warick’), Towcester (‘toaster’), Alnwick (‘annick’), Beaulieu (‘bow-lee’), Durham (‘duram’), Cholmondeley (‘chum-lee’), Mousehole (‘mowzel’), Godmanchester (‘gumster’), Magdelen College (‘*maudlin*’ college) etc.
You either know their pronunciation or you don’t. They’re probably used to make non-locals feel out of place more than they’re used to identify foreigners or non-native speakers though to be honest.
Seriously? The stress is always on the first syllable. Yes, really. No, you just think you are doing that but you just don’t.
There are people who are living here for years, speak perfect Czech on paper but as soon as they open their mouth, its clear that they are not native.
Basically most of my language. Non native speakers are very easy to spot.
We have a few tongue twisters though that can even trip up native soeakers like
Sárga bögre görbe bögre.
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Egyszer egy icike-picike pocok pocakon pöckölt egy másik icike-picike pockot, mire a pocakon pöckölt icike-picike pocok pocakon pöckölte az őt pocakon pöckölő icike-picike pocok pocakját.
Az ipafai papnak fa pipája van. Ezért az ipafai fapipa papi fapipa.
Ede, de bedezodoroztad magad.
Moszkvics slusszkulcs
Jamaica a jamaikaiaké
There’s an old folk legend that claims that during the War of the Sicilian vespers French troops could be identified by their inability to correctly pronounce the local word for “chick peas” (in Sicilian “ciciri”, in Italian “ceci”). Of course, being a folk legend, it’s unclear whether there’s any truth behind it.
Whole Estonian language is Shibboleth. You have to start learning it as a child to speak perfectly. Some adult learners speak pretty well but they would still have a bit of accent and make some minor grammar mistakes. Shibboleth for Russians are any words that end with v, especially V after consonant: külv, karv, kasv. They would pronounce it as f or try too hard. Local Russians who started learning Estonian early and speak without accent fail with V-endings.
Starówka is a Mazovian/Varsovian word for stare miasto (old town)