Judeo-Hamadani was originally associated with Northwestern Iranian languages (NWI), as opposed to Southwestern Iranian "Population and community. According to Ehsan Yarshater’s informants, the Jewish community had dwindled from around 13,000 souls in 1920 to less than 1,000 by 1969, and of these about half originated from the Jewish communities of Malāyer, Tuyserkān, and various points in Kurdistan. The Jewish population lived mostly in the Darb-e Kalim-ḵāna quarter of Hamadān. Haideh Sahim reports that in the mid-1970s the community numbered only about 350 (Sahim, p. 173, quoting an informant). According to members of the community that Donald Stilo encountered in 2001-02, there were only eight people from the Jewish community left in Hamadān at the time, but others can still be found in Israel, New York City, and most predominantly in Los Angeles. He was also informed that only people born before the mid-1940s were raised speaking the dialect."