Azerbaijani

Azerbaijani (also Azeri, Azari, Azeri Turkic, and Azerbaijani Turkic) is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran. Azeri is member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages and is related to Turkish, Afshar, Qashqai, and Turkmen languages.

History and evolution

The Azeri language of today evolved from the Eastern Oghuz dialect of Western (Oghuz) Turkic which spread to Southwestern Asia during medieval Turkic migrations, and was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic words mainly through the intermediary of literary new Persian.

It gradually supplanted the previous Iranian languages—Tat, Azari, and Middle Persian in northern Iran, and a variety of Caucasian languages in the Caucasus, particularly Udi, and had become the dominant language before the time of the Safavid dynasty; however, some of the minorities in both the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran continue to speak the earlier Iranian languages to this day.

The historical development of Azeri can be divided into two major periods: early (circa 16th to 18th century) and modern (18th century to present). Old Azeri differs from its descendant in that it contained a much greater amount of Persian, and Arabic loanwords, phrases and syntactic elements.

As Azeri 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, bulky Iranisms and Ottomanisms, and other words, expressions, and rules that failed to gain popularity among Azeri-speaking masses.

The Russian conquest of the South Caucasus in the 19th century split the speech community across two states; the Soviet Union promoted development of the language, but set it back considerably with two successive script changes - from Perso-Arabic script to Latin and then to Cyrillic - while Iranian Azeris continued to use the Perso-Arabic script. Despite the wide use of Azeri during the Soviet era, it became the official language of Azerbaijan only in 1978. After independence, the Republic of Azerbaijan decided to switch to the Latin script, following the Turkish model.

Classical literature in Azeri was formed in 14th century based on the Early Middle Ages dialects of Tabriz and Shirvan. Modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is mainly based on the Shirvani dialect, while in Iran it is based on the Tabrizi one. The first newspaper in Azeri was published in 1875.

In mid 19th century it was taught in the schools of Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Since 1845, it has also been taught in the University of St. Petersburg in Russia.

Azeri served as a lingua franca in most parts of Transcaucasia, in Southern Dagestan, Eastern Turkey, and Iranian Azerbaijan from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century.

Azeri is divided into two varieties, North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani, and a large number of dialects. Turkic Khalaj, Qashqa'i, and Salchuq are considered by some to be separate languages in the Azerbaijani language class. South Azeri Turks use the Arabic script.

Despite their relatively large number, dialects of Azeri do not differ substantially. Speakers of various dialects normally do not have problems understanding each other. However, minor problems may occur between Azeri-speakers from the Caucasus and Iran, as some of the words used by the latter that are of Persian or Arabic origin may be unknown to the former.

North Azeri is the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is spoken in Azerbaijan, and southern Dagestan, along the Caspian coast in the southern Caucasus Mountains. and also in Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia (Asia), Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

South Azeri is spoken in Iran. Iranian Azeris often call it Türki, Türki Azari or Azari. It is mainly spoken in East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, and parts of Kordestan, Hamedan, Qazvin, Markazi and Gilan provinces. It is spoken in many districts of Tehran city and across Tehran Province. It is also spoken in parts of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Syria, and Asian Turkey.

North Azeri now officially uses the Latin alphabet in the Republic of Azerbaijan, but the Cyrillic alphabet is also in wide use, while South Azeri uses the Perso-Arabic script in Iran. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets for North Azeri (the Cyrillic alphabet has a different order).

Before 1929, Azeri was only written in the Perso-Arabic script. In 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet was in use for North Azeri (though it was different from the one used now). From 1938 to 1991 the Cyrillic alphabet was used, and in 1991 the current Latin alphabet was introduced.

Information: Wikipedia