This video shows a native Zulu speaker discussing the local shibboleths used to tell local from foreigner.

Also, this may be the only time EVER I use the word “shibboleth” in its Biblical sense. Which is cool.

I was going to describe it as the “original, literal sense,” but that would be wrong; as you may recall from bible school or the West Wing, the term is actually a Hebrew word that was difficult to pronounce properly for nonnative Hebrew speakers:

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right . Judges 12:6

It wasn’t a made-up word; it meant “the part of the plant with grain in it.”