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those words are your Shibboleths, words that give your origin away.

When I was in Germany, friendly people used to compliment me on my language skill saying "your German is good!". To which I would reciprocate: "thanks, yours too!"



My ex-wife whose native language is Spanish worked hard to eliminate her accent because she got tired of people calling her accent “cute.” Her shibboleths were anything with a schwa. The whole concept of schwas offends her sense of vocalic purity.


So her shibboleths were approximately every word in the English language?


Only some schwas escaped her. “Digital” is the one that I remember best.




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