Ancient Hebrew in a Modern Context
In order to prove that learning Hebrew is not useless (not that anyone would argue such), one need look no further than The Economist. A Hebrew word appears in the title of the recent article “Shares and shibboleths”. A shibboleth (שבלת) is literally translated as meaning the part of a plant containing grains. However, its adoption into modern English stems from the biblical story recorded in the Book of Judges. In the story, shibboleth is used as a sort of passcode to differentiate between locals (people with the familiar pronunciation) and outsiders.
Pretty cool stuff. I’ve posted the link to the original article as well as a link to a Wikipedia explanation.
original article:
http://www.economist.com/node/21550273
Wikipedia on shibboleth:
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