Original in Spanish: Shibboleth
This morning Á. taught me a word that goes straight into the list of hard-to-translate words.
SHIBBOLETH
Copy-pasting his own words:
“Let’s say a shibboleth is a word (or in a broader sense, any trait) that makes it easy to distinguish one group of people (or, in the case that happened to me, things) from others they could apparently be confused with. The word comes from a Bible story, which explains that the Ephraimites pronounced this word as ‘sibboleth’, making them easily identifiable by speakers of other dialects, such as the Gileadites. So, after the latter defeated the Ephraimites in battle, to prevent the survivors from returning to their territory, they occupied the fords of the Jordan and showed those trying to cross the river a shibboleth (an ear of wheat) and asked them to say what it was. Those who pronounced it ‘wrong’ were killed.”
Then we remembered the Parsley Massacre in the Dominican Republic, where they identified who was “too” Haitian by how they pronounced “perejil”, and WW2 when the Dutch used the word “Scheveningen” to identify Germans.
The point is “that common trait that identifies a collective”. We humans are excellent at identifying patterns, maybe even too good.
I can think of Power Balance bracelets to identify people who believe in woo, football team shirts, folder in hand + jeans = university student, priests’ collars…
These examples are voluntary identity signs; in part, whoever wears them does it to give that image.
Can you think of other shibboleths that are accidental?
Like things being “de la vendimia” on AliExpress, or the guiris of Barcelona being crazy about eating at 11:30, or people over 40 stretching their arm out to read their phone screen. They don’t necessarily have to be people, they can be things too.
Smells like PostGlorioso
Gracias Á.
(Facebook, 2019-07-18)