Azerbaijani
Azeri
Azərbaycan dili, آذربایجان دیلی, Азәрбајҹан дили[note 1]
Azerbaijani in Perso-Arabic Nastaliq (Iran), Latin (Azerbaijan), and Cyrillic (Russia).
Pronunciation	[ɑːzæɾbɑjˈdʒɑn diˈli]
Native to	Azerbaijan Iran Russia Turkey Iraq[a] Georgia
Region	Iranian Azerbaijan, South Caucasus
Ethnicity	Azerbaijanis
Native speakers	24 million (2022)[2]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Western Oghuz Azerbaijani
Early forms	Old Anatolian Turkish Ajem-Turkic
Standard forms	Shirvani (For North Azerbaijani variety in Republic of Azerbaijan) Tabrizi (For South Azerbaijani variety in Iranian Azerbaijan)
Dialects	Various
Writing system	In Azerbaijan: Latin script[3] (Azerbaijani Latin alphabet) In Iran: Perso-Arabic script[4] (Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet)[5] In Russia: Cyrillic script[3] In Georgia: Georgian script (rarely)
Official status
Official language in	Azerbaijan Dagestan (Russia) Organization of Turkic States
Regulated by	Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (North Azerbaijani) No regulatory body (South Azerbaijani)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	az
ISO 639-2	aze
ISO 639-3	aze – inclusive code Individual codes: azj – North Azerbaijani azb – South Azerbaijani
Glottolog	azer1255  Central Oghuz
Linguasphere	part of 44-AAB-a
Areas that speak Azerbaijani   The majority speak Azerbaijani   A sizable minority speaks Azerbaijani
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Azerbaijani (/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒæni, -ɑːni/ AZ-ər-by-JAN-ee) or Azeri (/æˈzɛəri, ɑː-, ə-/ az-AIR-ee, ah-, ə-), also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who live mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan, where the North Azerbaijani variety is spoken, while Iranian Azerbaijanis in the Azerbaijan region of Iran, speak the South Azerbaijani variety. Azerbaijani has official status in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan (a federal subject of Russia), but it does not have official status in Iran, where the majority of Iranian Azerbaijani people live. Azerbaijani is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Azerbaijani communities of Georgia and Turkey and by diaspora communities, primarily in Europe and North America.

Although there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between both forms of Azerbaijani, there are significant differences in phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and sources of loanwords. The standardized form of North Azerbaijani (spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Russia) is based on the Shirvani dialect, while South Azerbaijani uses variety of regional dialects. Since the Republic of Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Northern Azerbaijani has used the Latin script. On the other hand, South Azerbaijani has always used and continues to use the Perso-Arabic script.

Azerbaijani is closely related to Turkmen, Turkish, Gagauz, and Qashqai, being mutually intelligible with each of these languages to varying degrees.

Etymology and background

Historically, the language was referred to by its native speakers as türk dili or türkcə,^[6] meaning either "Turkish" or "Turkic". In the early years following the establishment of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, the language was still referred to as "Turkish" in official documents. However, in the 1930s, its name was officially changed to "Azerbaijani".^[7][8] The language is often still referred to as Turki or Torki in Iranian Azerbaijan.^[9] The term "Azeri", generally interchangeable with "Azerbaijani", is from Turkish Azeri^[10] which is used for the people (azerice being used for the language in Turkish), itself from Persian آذری, Āzarī. The term is also used for Old Azeri, the ancient Iranian language spoken in the region until the 17th century.

History and evolution

Azerbaijani evolved from the Eastern branch of Oghuz Turkic ("Western Turkic")^[11] which spread to the Caucasus, in Eastern Europe,^[12][13] and northern Iran, in Western Asia, during the medieval Turkic migrations.^[14] Persian and Arabic influenced the language, but Arabic words were mainly transmitted through the intermediary of literary Persian.^[15] Azerbaijani is, perhaps after Uzbek, the Turkic language upon which Persian and other Iranian languages have exerted the strongest impact—mainly in phonology, syntax, and vocabulary, less in morphology.^[14]

The Turkic language of Azerbaijan gradually supplanted the Iranian languages in what is now northwestern Iran, and a variety of languages of the Caucasus and Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus, particularly Udi and Old Azeri. By the beginning of the 16th century, it had become the dominant language of the region. It was one of the spoken languages in the court of the Safavids, Afsharids and Qajars.

The historical development of Azerbaijani can be divided into two major periods: early (c. 14th to 18th century) and modern (18th century to present). Early Azerbaijani differs from its descendant in that it contained a much larger number of Persian and Arabic loanwords, phrases and syntactic elements. Early writings in Azerbaijani also demonstrate linguistic interchangeability between Oghuz and Kypchak elements in many aspects (such as pronouns, case endings, participles, etc.). As Azerbaijani gradually moved from being merely a language of epic and lyric poetry to being also a language of journalism and scientific research, its literary version has become more or less unified and simplified with the loss of many archaic Turkic elements, stilted Iranisms and Ottomanisms, and other words, expressions, and rules that failed to gain popularity among the Azerbaijani masses.

The Russian annexation of Iran's territories in the Caucasus through the Russo-Iranian wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1828 split the language community across two states. Afterwards, the Tsarist administration encouraged the spread of Azerbaijani in eastern Transcaucasia as a replacement for Persian spoken by the upper classes, and as a measure against Persian influence in the region.^[16][17]

Between c. 1900 and 1930, there were several competing approaches to the unification of the national language in what is now the Azerbaijan Republic, popularized by scholars such as Hasan bey Zardabi and Mammad agha Shahtakhtinski. Despite major differences, they all aimed primarily at making it easy for semi-literate masses to read and understand literature. They all criticized the overuse of Persian, Arabic, and European elements in both colloquial and literary language and called for a simpler and more popular style.

The Soviet Union promoted the development of the language but set it back considerably with two successive script changes^[18] – from the Persian to Latin and then to the Cyrillic script – while Iranian Azerbaijanis continued to use the Persian script as they always had. Despite the wide use of Azerbaijani in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, it became the official language of Azerbaijan only in 1956.^[19] After independence, the Republic of Azerbaijan decided to switch back to a modified Latin script.

Azerbaijani literature

The development of Azerbaijani literature is closely associated with Anatolian Turkish, written in Perso-Arabic script. Examples of its detachment date to the 14th century or earlier.^[20][21] Kadi Burhan al-Din, Hasanoghlu, and Imadaddin Nasimi helped to establish Azerbaiijani as a literary language in the 14th century through poetry and other works.^[21] One ruler of the Qara Qoyunlu state, Jahanshah, wrote poems in Azerbaijani language with the nickname "Haqiqi".^[22][23] Sultan Yaqub, a ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu state, wrote poems in the Azerbaijani language.^[24] The ruler and poet Ismail I wrote under the pen name Khatā'ī (which means "sinner" in Persian) during the fifteenth century.^[25][26] During the 16th century, the poet, writer and thinker Fuzûlî wrote mainly in Azerbaijani but also translated his poems into Arabic and Persian.^[25]

Starting in the 1830s, several newspapers were published in Iran during the reign of the Azerbaijani speaking Qajar dynasty, but it is unknown whether any of these newspapers were written in Azerbaijani. In 1875, Akinchi (Əkinçi / اکينچی) ("The Ploughman") became the first Azerbaijani newspaper to be published in the Russian Empire. It was started by Hasan bey Zardabi, a journalist and education advocate.^[21]

Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar is an important figure in Azerbaijani poetry. His most important work is Heydar Babaya Salam and it is considered to be a pinnacle of Azerbaijani literature and gained popularity in the Turkic-speaking world. It was translated into more than 30 languages.^[27]

In the mid-19th century, Azerbaijani literature was taught at schools in Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Since 1845, it has also been taught in the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. In 2018, Azerbaijani language and literature programs are offered in the United States at several universities, including Indiana University, UCLA, and University of Texas at Austin.^[21] The vast majority, if not all Azerbaijani language courses teach North Azerbaijani written in the Latin script and not South Azerbaijani written in the Perso-Arabic script.

Modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is primarily based on the Shirvani dialect, while in the Iranian Azerbaijan region (historic Azerbaijan) it is based on the Tabrizi one.

Lingua franca

An Azerbaijani koine served as a lingua franca throughout most parts of Transcaucasia except the Black Sea coast, in southern Dagestan,^[28][29][30] the Eastern Anatolia Region and all over Iran^[31] from the 16th to the early 20th centuries,^[32][33] alongside cultural, administrative, court literature, and most importantly official language (along with Azerbaijani) of all these regions, namely Persian.^[34] From the early 16th century up to the course of the 19th century, these regions and territories were all ruled by the Safavids, Afsharids, and Qajars until the cession of Transcaucasia proper and Dagestan by Qajar Iran to the Russian Empire per the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay. Per the 1829 Caucasus School Statute, Azerbaijani was to be taught in all district schools of Ganja, Shusha, Nukha (present-day Shaki), Shamakhi, Quba, Baku, Derbent, Yerevan, Nakhchivan, Akhaltsikhe, and Lankaran. Beginning in 1834, it was introduced as a language of study in Kutaisi instead of Armenian. In 1853, Azerbaijani became a compulsory language for students of all backgrounds in all of Transcaucasia with the exception of the Tiflis Governorate.^[35]

Dialects of Azerbaijani

Azerbaijani is one of the Oghuz languages within the Turkic language family. Ethnologue lists North Azerbaijani (spoken mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Russia) and South Azerbaijani (spoken in Iran, Iraq, and Syria) as two groups within the Azerbaijani macrolanguage with "significant differences in phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and loanwords" between the two.^[3] The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) considers Northern and Southern Azerbaijani to be distinct languages.^[36] Linguists Mohammad Salehi and Aydin Neysani write that "there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility" between North and South Azerbaijani.^[36]

Svante Cornell wrote in his 2001 book Small Nations and Great Powers that "it is certain that Russian and Iranian words (sic), respectively, have entered the vocabulary on either side of the Araxes river, but this has not occurred to an extent that it could pose difficulties for communication".^[37] There are numerous dialects, with 21 North Azerbaijani dialects and 11 South Azerbaijani dialects identified by Ethnologue.^[3][4]

Three varieties have been accorded ISO 639-3 language codes: North Azerbaijani, South Azerbaijani and Qashqai. The Glottolog 4.1 database classifies North Azerbaijani, with 20 dialects, and South Azerbaijani, with 13 dialects, under the Modern Azeric family, a branch of Central Oghuz.^[38]

In the northern dialects of the Azerbaijani language, linguists find traces of the influence of the Khazar language.^[39]

According to Encyclopedia Iranica:^[25]

We may distinguish the following Azeri dialects: (1) eastern group: Derbent (Darband), Kuba, Shemakha (Šamāḵī), Baku, Salyani (Salyānī), and Lenkoran (Lankarān), (2) western group: Kazakh (not to be confounded with the Kipchak-Turkic language of the same name), the dialect of the Ayrïm (Āyrom) tribe (which, however, resembles Turkish), and the dialect spoken in the region of the Borchala river; (3) northern group: Zakataly, Nukha, and Kutkashen; (4) southern group: Yerevan (Īravān), Nakhichevan (Naḵjavān), and Ordubad (Ordūbād); (5) central group: Ganja (Kirovabad) and Shusha; (6) North Iraqi dialects; (7) Northwest Iranian dialects: Tabrīz, Reżāʾīya (Urmia), etc., extended east to about Qazvīn; (8) Southeast Caspian dialect (Galūgāh). Optionally, we may adjoin as Azeri (or "Azeroid") dialects: (9) East Anatolian, (10) Qašqāʾī, (11) Aynallū, (12) Sonqorī, (13) dialects south of Qom, (14) Kabul Afšārī.

North Azerbaijani

North Azerbaijani,^[3] or Northern Azerbaijani, is the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is closely related to modern-day Istanbul Turkish, the official language of Turkey. It is also spoken in southern Dagestan, along the Caspian coast in the southern Caucasus Mountains and in scattered regions throughout Central Asia. As of 2011^[update], there are some 9.23 million speakers of North Azerbaijani including 4 million monolingual speakers (many North Azerbaijani speakers also speak Russian, as is common throughout former USSR countries).^[3]

The Shirvan dialect as spoken in Baku is the basis of standard Azerbaijani. Since 1992, it has been officially written with a Latin script in the Republic of Azerbaijan, but the older Cyrillic script was still widely used in the late 1990s.^[40]

Ethnologue lists 21 North Azerbaijani dialects: "Quba, Derbend, Baku, Shamakhi, Salyan, Lenkaran, Qazakh, Airym, Borcala, Terekeme, Qyzylbash, Nukha, Zaqatala (Mugaly), Qabala, Nakhchivan, Ordubad, Ganja, Shusha (Karabakh), Karapapak, Kutkashen, Kuba".^[3]

South Azerbaijani

South Azerbaijani,^[4] or Iranian Azerbaijani,^[b] is widely spoken in Iranian Azerbaijan and, to a lesser extent, in neighboring regions of Turkey and Iraq, with smaller communities in Syria. In Iran, the Persian word for Azerbaijani is borrowed as Torki "Turkic".^[4] In Iran, it is spoken mainly in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan. It is also spoken in Tehran and across the Tehran Province, as Azerbaijanis form by far the largest minority in the city and the wider province,^[42] comprising about 1⁄6^[43][44] of its total population. The CIA World Factbook reports that in 2010, the percentage of Iranian Azerbaijani speakers was at around 16 percent of the Iranian population, or approximately 13 million people worldwide,^[45] and ethnic Azeris form by far the second largest ethnic group of Iran, thus making the language also the second most spoken language in the nation. Ethnologue reports 10.9 million Iranian Azerbaijani in Iran in 2016 and 13,823,350 worldwide.^[4] Dialects of South Azerbaijani include: "Aynallu (often considered a separate language^[46][47][48]), Karapapakh (often considered a separate language.^[49] The second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam mentions that it is close to both "Āzerī and the Turkish of Turkey".^[50] The historian George Bournoutian only mentions that it is close to present-day Azeri-Türki.^[51]), Afshari (often considered a separate language^[52][53]), Shahsavani (sometimes considered its own dialect, distinct from other Turkic languages of northwestern Iran^[54]), Baharlu (Kamesh), Moqaddam, Nafar, Qaragozlu, Pishagchi, Bayat, Qajar, Tabriz".^[4]

Comparison with other Turkic languages

Russian comparatist Oleg Mudrak [ru] calls the Turkmen language the closest relative of Azerbaijani.^[55]

Azerbaijani and Turkish

Speakers of Turkish and Azerbaijani can, to an extent, communicate with each other as both languages have substantial variation and are to a degree mutually intelligible, though it is easier for a speaker of Azerbaijani to understand Turkish than the other way around.^[56] Turkish soap operas are very popular with Azeris in both Iran and Azerbaijan. Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran (who spoke South Azerbaijani) met with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey (who spoke Turkish) in 1934; the two were filmed speaking their respective language to each other and communicated effectively.^[57][58]

In a 2011 study, 30 Turkish participants were tested to determine how well they understood written and spoken Azerbaijani. It was found that even though Turkish and Azerbaijani are typologically similar languages, on the part of Turkish speakers the intelligibility is not as high as is estimated.^[59] In a 2017 study, Iranian Azerbaijanis scored in average 56% of receptive intelligibility in spoken language of Turkish.^[60]

Azerbaijani exhibits a similar stress pattern to Turkish but simpler in some respects. Azerbaijani is a strongly stressed and partially stress-timed language, unlike Turkish which is weakly stressed and syllable-timed.^{[citation needed]}

Below are some cognates with different spelling in Azerbaijani and Turkish:

Azerbaijani and Turkmen

The 1st person personal pronoun is mən in Azerbaijani just as men in Turkmen, whereas it is ben in Turkish. The same is true for demonstrative pronouns bu, where sound b is replaced with sound m. For example: bunun>munun/mının, muna/mına, munu/munı, munda/mında, mundan/mından.^[62] This is observed in the Turkmen literary language as well, where the demonstrative pronoun bu undergoes some changes just as in: munuñ, munı, muña, munda, mundan, munça.^[63] b>m replacement is encountered in many dialects of the Turkmen language and may be observed in such words as: boyun>moyın in Yomut – Gunbatar dialect, büdüremek>müdüremek in Ersari and Stavropol Turkmens' dialects, bol>mol in Karakalpak Turkmens' dialects, buzav>mizov in Kirac dialects.^[64]

Here are some words from the Swadesh list to compare Azerbaijani with Turkmen:^[65]

Oghuric

Azerbaijani dialects share paradigms of verbs in some tenses with the Chuvash language,^[39] on which linguists also rely in the study and reconstruction of the Khazar language.^[39]

Phonology

Phonotactics

Azerbaijani phonotactics is similar to that of other Oghuz Turkic languages, except:

• Trimoraic syllables with long vowels are permissible.
• There is an ongoing metathesis of neighboring consonants in a word.^[66] Speakers tend to reorder consonants in the order of decreasing sonority and back-to-front (for example, iləri becomes irəli, köprü becomes körpü, topraq becomes torpaq). Some of the metatheses are so common in the educated speech that they are reflected in orthography (all the above examples are like that). This phenomenon is more common in rural dialects but observed even in educated young urban speakers, but noticeably absent from some Southern dialects.
• Intramorpheme q /g/ becomes /x/.

Consonants

1. The sound is used only in loanwords; the historical unpalatalized became voiced to . In Iran the sound is kept, and did not shift to .
2. /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ are realised as and respectively in the areas around Tabriz and to the west, south and southwest of Tabriz (including Kirkuk in Iraq); in the Nakhchivan and Ayrum dialects, in Cəbrayil and some Caspian coastal dialects;.^[67]
3. Sounds /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ may also be recognized as separate phonemic sounds in the Tabrizi and southern dialects.^[68]
4. In most dialects of Azerbaijani, /c/ is realized as [ç] when it is found in the syllabic coda or is preceded by a voiceless consonant (as in çörək – "bread"; səksən – "eighty").
5. ?pojem= exists in the Kirkuk dialect as an allophone of /v/ in Arabic loanwords.
6. In colloquial speech, /x/ (but not intramorpheme transformed from /g/) is usually pronounced as

Dialectal consonants

Works on Azerbaijani dialectology use the following notations for dialectal consonants:^[69][70][71]

• Ⱪ ⱪ—
• X` x`—
• Ŋ ŋ—
• Ц ц—
• Dz dz—
• Ž ž—
• W w—

Examples:

• —ⱪış
• —üzüx` ʔyzyç
• ŋ—ataŋın ʔɑt̪ɑŋɯn̪
• t͡s—цay t͡sɑj
• d͡z—dzan d͡zɑn̪
• ð—əžəli ʔæðæl̪ɪ
• w—dowşan d̪ɔːwʃɑn̪
• ɥ—töwlə t̪œːɥl̪æ

Vowels

The vowels of the Azerbaijani are, in alphabetical order,^[72] a /ɑ/, e /e/, ə /æ/, ı /ɯ/, i /i/, o /o/, ö /œ/, u /u/, ü /y/.^[73][74][75]

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