Kâši
Judeo-Kashani
- Glottocode: kash1282
Judeo-Kashani belongs to the Central Plateau Iranic language group spoken around Kashan, having outlived the rapid process of Persianization. Judeo-Kashani shows striking similarities to the dialects of Jewish communities in other cities, such as Hamadan and Isfahan, where the non-Jewish population today is Persian-speaking. There are few if any native Jews left in Kashan. Mass emigration to Tehran began in the mid-20th century, with most leaving having left for Israel or North America after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. California, sometimes called "Kāšifornia" by the community, especially Los Angeles, has been a primary destination, but there is a small concentration of Kashani Jews in suburban Great Neck and its vicinity in Long Island, numbering in the hundreds, although Judeo-Kashani is essentially no longer spoken, with Persian (and increasingly English) now dominant. According to 2015-2019 American Community Survey data, there are roughly 6,693 Persian speakers in Great Neck and surrounding towns, the overwhelming majority of whom are probably Jewish, and a small number of whom are probably speakers of these quite different languages spoken by regional Jewish communities in Iran.
Sites
NYC neighborhoods or towns in the metro region where the language community has a significant site, marked by a point on the map: