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This appendix lists shibboleths, in other words, expressions and phrases whose pronunciations are used to identify non-native speakers of a language or dialect or used as humorous tongue twisters that are difficult or impossible for non-native speakers.
Consisting of back-to-back phonemes (y, ä, ö; aspirated h, rolling r) hard for any non-native speaker to pronounce without an accent, it was used in WWII to detect Russians from intercepting spoken messages.
The original shibboleth, mentioned in Judges 12:5–6 of the Hebrew Bible as a word that was used to detect Ephraimites fleeing a military defeat, because they couldn't pronounce it the way those from other tribes did.
доро́га(doróga, “road; path”) (Used to check German spies during World War II, German soldiers had difficulty pronouncing Russian /r/ and/or voiced consonants.) (Vasily Zaytsev, Behind the Volga there was no land for us. Sniper's Notes, First published in 1981.)
During the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war, this word was famously used 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. The main difficulty for Russians is to pronounce a palatalised /t͡sʲ/, which is extremely rare, especially in such positions. Most Russians also tend to reduce an unstressed /ʲɐ/ to /ʲɪ/.