Just Joshin' #78 (Shibboleth)
1 Family Photo: Shibboleth
A Shibboleth is a word or custom that distinguishes one group of people from another.
Native English speakers might not even be aware there are two th sounds. There's the buzzing th sound in words like this and that. There's also the floating th sound in think and throw. Portuguese has no th sounds at all. With no native sound, Brazilians learning English frequently cheat, using a d sound for the buzzing th and a f sound for the floating th.
A Brazilian arguing with a baseball umpire might yell, "I fink dat dis frow was a strike!"
So Shibboleth, with its floating th, is a shibboleth for distinguishing native English speakers from Brazilians speaking English.
Calvin uses the Brazilian version of the floating th. He forms the sound by touching his bottom lip to his top teeth (instead of tip of his tongue to his teeth) and releases a fff. I wonder if it's something I should correct. I wonder if he'll learn it the other way on his own. I wonder if it will even matter if he grows up and never pronounces th quite like his classmates.
Th is a classic Shibboleth sound. In WWII, the Allied forces used "Flash" and "Thunder" as a challenge/password because of the lack of a floating th sound in German. (The floating th is properly known as the voiceless dental fricative)
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The Hebrew word Shibboleth refers to the part of a plant containing grain. It's original use as a shibboleth is in Judges 12, where the Israelites (of Gilead) used it to identify and kill the Ephraimites (a tribe of Israel). The Ephraimites had trouble saying the first part of the word.
Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.
Why did the Gileadites kill the Ephraimites? Because the Gileadites killed the Ammonites and the Ephraimites were mad at the Gileadites for not inviting them to also kill the Ammonites.
Why did the Gileadites kill the Ammonites? You have to go back to Judges 11 for this, but basically the Ammonites complained the Israelites took their land when they came out of Egypt. The Gileadite leader Jephthah (a great example of the voiceless dental fricative), explained, "You see, long ago when we came out of Egypt, we tried to peacefully pass through your land. But your leaders attacked us, so we drove them out, and now it's our land. Let's not fight."
The Ammonite king left that message on read. So...
Then Jephthah and the Gileadites slaughtered the Ammonites. Victorious, Jephthah returned home greeted by his daughter running out the door of his house.
Jephthah gave his daughter two months to "roam the hills" and mourn his vow. Then, when she came back, he fulfilled his vow and killed his only child.
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It doesn't feel like a family story. It's not in my kids' picture bible. What's the appropriate age to read it with my sons?
I'm not sure I understand the story myself - if any of my subscribers are or know bible scholars, I'm open to interpretations.
My shallow takeaway is it's an example of the long history of land conflicts and violence in the Middle East. And the most famous shibboleths are used to separate who should and should not be killed.
I hope my sons' lives are never determined by a voiceless dental fricative.
1 Dad Joke: Nose Knows
Highlights: Friends and Others
How to Live Near Your Friends by Priya
Plus, they've become familiar with each other.
#5: Make Friends Nearby
Our Only Quota by James Bailey
In Ben’s sales organization, our only quota was high-quality questions and masterful listening.
You're not going to like what comes after Pax Americana by Noah Smith
Of course, it’s difficult to draw the line between interventions that prevent conflict and interventions that stir it up. Was the Vietnam War a U.S. attempt to halt a North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam, or was it the U.S. intervening in an internal South Vietnamese civil war? The answer depends on your point of view. But note that even the possibility of an intervention that ultimately makes a conflict worse can still serve as a deterrent. If there’s a crazy guy who will go anywhere there’s a fight and start shooting bullets into the crowd, that’s a good reason to avoid starting a fight.
"We’re Going to Die Here" By Yair Rosenberg
Firsthand account from journalist Amir Tibon. Tibon and his family live in Nahal Oz, a small community bordering Gaza. On Saturday October 7th, Nahal Oz came under mortar fire from above and was invaded on the ground by Hamas terrorists.
[T]he fact that they shot the mortars at our community before they broke through the border saved a lot of people’s lives, because it caused people to run into the safe room. And this safe room, if you lock it properly, is very hard to open from the outside. A lot of people were barricaded in those safe rooms for hours and sometimes an entire day. In a lot of cases, the terrorists tried to break in, and they couldn’t.
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And we’re telling our daughters, “You have to be quiet now. You have to be absolutely quiet. Not a word. You can’t cry. Can’t talk. It’s dangerous.” And my girls were absolute heroes. They waited silently in the dark for 10 hours, and they did not cry. They understood. Maybe that’s not the right word, but they felt that we were dead serious about this. So we’re with them in the dark, and they’re completely silent.
I called Amos, but I also called my father. My father is a retired general. He’s 62 years old. He lives in Tel Aviv. And my parents told me, “We’re coming. It’s an hour-and-20-minute drive.” Now, this goes against all logic. But I told myself, Okay, right now I’m asking my two young daughters to put complete faith in me and my wife, in their parents, to do what we’re telling them in order to save their lives, which is to be very, very quiet and understand that we cannot get out of the room, we cannot go get food, we cannot go to the bathroom, we cannot go out to play, and I’m asking them to put their faith in me completely.
And I told myself, I have to do the same thing right now. I have to trust my father, who is a trustworthy man, that if he said he will come here and save us, he will do it.
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But we start hearing gunfire again—and this time, it’s two kinds of guns. And we realize there is a battle. We realize that there is an exchange of fire. And I tell my wife, “He’s coming. My father is coming. They’re fighting. He’s with these soldiers.”
The story of Amir Tibon's father getting to them is epic. Worth reading the article.
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