How?
Well, that is another BIG question - from where comes our instant ability to recognize incorrect usages, bad choices of words, mistakes in spelling and pronunciation, wrong structures of sentences (sic!)... ability that works sub-second and without any active effort from the native speaker's side.
Like smelling the good flower or cheese - native Britons instinctively recognize Oxford English from Edinburgh Scottish - to to mention Wales - and they immediately know when the speaker is a Yankee or an Aussi rather than from ye good ol' Brittany.
The Bible tells about a case where the difference between pronunciations in two dialects of Hebrew was not that clear. It was that s that decided between life and death!
Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, "Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites."
And the Gileadites seized the passages of the Jordan before the Ephraimites; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites who had escaped said, "Let me go over," that the men of Gilead said unto him, "Art thou an Ephraimite?" If he said, "Nay,"
then said they unto him, "Say now Shibboleth." And he said "Sibboleth," for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him at the passages of the Jordan; and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Judges 12:4-6 KJ21
And the Gileadites seized the passages of the Jordan before the Ephraimites; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites who had escaped said, "Let me go over," that the men of Gilead said unto him, "Art thou an Ephraimite?" If he said, "Nay,"
then said they unto him, "Say now Shibboleth." And he said "Sibboleth," for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him at the passages of the Jordan; and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Judges 12:4-6 KJ21
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