паляниця

Inherited from Old Ruthenian палени́ца (paleníca).^[1] Analyzable as пали́ти (palýty, “to burn”) +‎ -е- (-e-) +‎ -ниця (-nycja).^[2]

Cognate with dialectal Belarusian паляні́ца (paljaníca), палени́ца (palenýca)^[3] and archaic Russian палени́ца (paleníca), пеляни́ца (peljaníca), пелени́ца (peleníca).^[4]

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паляни́ця • (paljanýcja) f inan (genitive паляни́ці, nominative plural паляни́ці, genitive plural паляни́ць)

1. a type of Ukrainian hearth-baked bread

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this word was famously used as a shibboleth by Ukrainians to identify enemy saboteurs. People from Russia struggle to pronounce it correctly, usually producing something like on their first try, with the stressed /i/ being an especially noticeable mistake.

• палани́ця (palanýcja) (dialectal), палени́ця (palenýcja) (obsolete)

• Appendix:List of shibboleths

• Zhelekhivskyi, E. I., Nedilskyi, S., editors (1886), “палени́ця, палани́ця”, in Малоруско-нїмецкий словар‎ (in German), volumes 2: П – Я, Lviv: Shevchenko Society, page 597
• Hrinchenko, Borys, editor (1924), “паляни́ця”, in Словарь української мови‎ (in Russian), volumes 2: О – Я, Berlin: Ukrainske Slowo, page 94
• Bilodid, I. K., editor (1970–1980), “паляни́ця”, in Словник української мови: в 11 т. (in Ukrainian), Kyiv: Naukova Dumka
• Shyrokov, V. A., editor (2021), “паляни́ця”, in Словник української мови: у 20 т. (in Ukrainian), volumes 12 (п – підку́рювач), Kyiv: Ukrainian Lingua-Information Fund, →ISBN
• “паляни́ця”, in Горох – Словозміна (in Ukrainian)
• “паляни́ця”, in Словник.ua (in Ukrainian)
• “паляни́ця”, in Kyiv Dictionary (in English)