--- In cybalist@..., guto rhys <gutorhys@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting about glides - it is one of the most persistent
problems with learners of Welsh (who have English as a mother
language). It is also one of the main things that give away English
speakers who have learnt Spanish. by the way, what is 'shibboleth'?
>
> Thanks
>
> Guto
>
Ah - a second chance to peddle my shibboleth theory!
The story is from somewhere in the Old Testament - after a battle the
Israelites were trying to do an IFF - identication friend or foe - on
those who fled the battlefield, so they asked them to pronounce the
word "shibboleth" (meaning "grain", I believe). Those who
said "sibboleth", because that was how the neighboring tribes
pronounced it, were killed. Funny thing is I've heard exactly the
same story from Sweden and Holland, so I've decided to build it into
a home-made theory. It's all there to read in
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html
BTW, I saw that there exists a Montenegrin magazine "Vijesti",
supposedly modern liberal European etc, so I wondered: Since
Montenegro is supposed Serbian-speaking, and therefore should have
had e-kanie ("mleko"), not ije-kanie ("mlijeko") as Croatian has, is
the publisher making a political statment by not calling it "Vesti"?
The Bosnohrvatskosrpski pages on text TV of Danish state TV
consistently writes "vijesti/vesti".
Torsten