Do These Similar-Sounding and Similar-Meaning Hebrew Slang Words Come from the Same Place?

Two young Israeli sociologists, Moti Gigi of the Sapir Academic College and Guy Shani of Tel Aviv University, have asked for my input on the similar-sounding Hebrew slang words shlukh and shlokh. These words are curious because, while having somewhat similar meanings, they are used by different populations and have different connotations in the speech of each.

Shlukh, commonly spelled with a ḥet as its final consonant, is largely confined to Israelis of Moroccan or North African descent and is a derogatory term for a lower-class, coarse-mannered, and mentally simple person. Contrastingly, shlokh is a word used mostly by Israelis of Ashkenazi background. Spelled with a khaf and denoting someone of neglected or unkempt appearance, it is not always negative. Used neutrally or positively, it can refer to an individual who simply does not care enough about outward details to bother with them.

The shlukh/shlokh distinction, Shani and Gigi point out, reveals contrasting sets of social values. The first word occurs in the speech of a population that has had to fight hard and not always successfully for middle-class status in Israel; uncouthly lower-class co-ethnics are upsetting or threatening to it. Interestingly, Shani has told me, shlukh is used by such Israelis only when referring to others with ancestry like their own, and is not applied by them to lower-class Ashkenazim; it is a bit analogous, he says, to the way “white trash” was used in the American South for lower-class Southerners but never for lower-class Northerners.