Shibboleth
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A shibboleth is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords, simple ways of self-identification, signaling loyalty and affinity, maintaining traditional segregation, or protecting from real or perceived threats.
A New Orleans resident challenges out-of-towners who had come to protest against the 2017 removal of the Robert E. Lee Monument. The out-of-towners' inability to pronounce "Tchoupitoulas Street" according to the local fashion would be a shibboleth marking them as outsiders.
Villagers of Ungheni, Bessarabia Governorate, displaying Christian icons on their homes in order to discriminate themselves from Judaism and defend themselves from a pogrom in 1905, as depicted by Hermanus Willem Koekkoek (1867–1929)
Doris Salcedo's artwork Shibboleth, at Tate Modern, London
Biblical Hebrew
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Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea. The term "Hebrew" (ivrit) was not used for the language in the Hebrew Bible, which was referred to as שְֹפַת כְּנַעַן or יְהוּדִית, but the name was used in Ancient Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts.
Siloam Inscription at Istanbul Archaeological Museum
Coin issued during the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Paleo-Hebrew text reads שמעון "Simeon" on the front and לחרות ירושלם "for the freedom of Jerusalem" on the back.