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Without passports or border controls, how do you know if someone is not from your country?

I'll go with Michael Savage's definition. A country is defined by language, borders, culture.

Presumably, if one demonstrates mastery of language(1) and cultural knowledge(2), he can be assumed to be a countryman.

1) This practice dates back to biblical times. "Shibboleth": mid 17th cent.: from Hebrew šibbōleṯ ‘ear of corn,’ used as a test of nationality by its difficult pronunciation (Judg. 12:6).

2) Common example: During WW2, if a suspected spy were encountered, mastery of language and accent may not be enough to assess his status. Cultural questions were asked: Where does the NY Mets play? What's Mickey Mouse's girlfriend's name? Questions could also be about celebrities, movie stars, music, novels, etc.

Maybe it's nitpicking but the shibboleth was used to differentiate between members of different tribes of the same people involved in what amounted to a civil war. It is useless for distinguishing between speakers of different languages.

No, that's a good point. My intention was to use it as an example of distinguishing regional dialects, accents, etc. but also native speakers from second-language speakers.

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