About the language

Judeo-Hamadani is a language of the Northwestern branch of the Iranian languages, spoken around the provinces of Hamadan and Lorestan, in Iran. Although the language is now moribund, it was once a common dialect of the 13,000 Jews who lived in the city of Hamadan in 1920. This number fell to less than 1,000 speakers by 1969, with most choosing to abandon the dialect in favour of Persian, the lingua franca of Iran.

The language declined due to the marginalisation of Jewish Iranians within Iranian society, which caused speakers of it to adopt Persian as a main language to be able to climb in social status and afford greater educational and professional opportunities which would not be offered to Jews.

The Jewish community in Iran dates back to the 8th century BCE, and as a result a distinct Iranian Jewish culture has developed, with its own culinary, artistic and linguistic traditions. Judeo-Hamadani is one of several Jewish dialects native Iran, such as Judeo-Esfahani or Juhuri (2,000-7,000 speakers as of 2023), Judeo-Shirazi (200 speakers as of 2023) and Judeo-Tat (80,000 speakers as of 2010s).