shibboleth的词源
英文词源
- shibboleth
- shibboleth: [14] Hebrew shibbōleth meant ‘stream’. According to the Bible, the Gileadites used it as a password, for they knew their enemies the Ephraimites could not pronounce the sh properly (‘And it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay, then they said unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right’, Judges 12:5–6).
In 17th-century English it came to be applied generically to any word used as a test of pronunciation, particularly as a sign of belonging to a group, and hence by extension to any catchword or slogan adopted by a group, and this eventually evolved into the modern sense ‘outmoded slogan, practice, etc still adhered to’.
- shibboleth (n.)
- late 14c., the Hebrew word shibboleth, meaning "flood, stream," also "ear of corn;" in Judges xii:4-6. It was the password used by the Gileadites to distinguish their own men from fleeing Ephraimites, because Ephraimites could not pronounce the -sh- sound. Hence the figurative sense of "watchword" (first recorded 1630s), which evolved by 1862 to "outmoded slogan still adhered to." A similar test-word was cicera "chick pease," used by the Italians to identify the French (who could not pronounce it correctly) during the massacre called the Sicilian Vespers (1282).
中文词源
来自希伯来语 shibboleth,麦穗。 现词义来自圣经中记载的小故事，两民族 Gileadites 和 Ephraimites 打战，Ephraimites 人打败了逃跑，但由于这两个民族人长得一样，从长相上无 法辨别，但是口音有差别，Ephraimites 人无法发-sh-音，于是，Gileadites 人在关卡上让所有 通过的人念 shibboleth 这个词，不能正确的发-sh-的人就抓起来。因而引申诸相关词义。类 似于中国南北东西口音差异。
该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：shibboleth 词源，shibboleth 含义。
