This one’s really fun in Bengali, where they have three relevant consonants, but they’re quite commonly all pronounced about the same: Shibboleth is শিব্বোলেত্

This one’s really fun in Bengali, where they have three relevant consonants, but they’re quite commonly all pronounced about the same: Shibboleth is শিব্বোলেত্ and Sibboleth সিব্বোলেত্ , but শ and স may be pronounced the same (though some distinguish them), which could be more like sh or like s, depending on the region and person. And, by experimentation grounded in this specific verse, apparently many of them can’t reliably hear a difference between sh and s, which I find difficult to comprehend given the significant spectral difference. But hearing is at least as much a brain thing as an ear thing. So when a Bengali is reading the verse, what they’ll speak can be basically “they said, ‘Then say “Sibboleth”’, and he said ‘Sibboleth’ because he couldn’t pronounce it properly”.