Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:45, 18 December 2007

The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, Azari, Azeri Turkish, or Azerbaijani Turkish, is the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

It is called Azərbaycan dili in Azerbaijani. Iranian Azerbaijanis often call it Türki. Some dialects of the language are spoken in many parts of Iran, most notably in Iranian Azerbaijan, where it is the most dominant language and lingua franca. Iran is home to the majority of Azeri speakers in the world. The language is also spoken in Russia's Republic of Dagestan, south-eastern Georgia, northern Iraq, and eastern Turkey.

Estimates of the CIA factbook gives the number of speakers around 25 million. It is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch, closely related to Turkish and also historically influenced by Persian and Arabic.

In addition, Azerbaijani is mutually intelligible with other Oghuz languages, which include the Turkish language as it is spoken in Turkey, the Caucasus, Cyprus, the Balkans, Iraq, Syria, and Western Europe, as well as the Turkmen language.

History and evolution

For the languages spoken in Azerbaijan before the Turks' arrival, see:

• Languages of Azerbaijan
• Old Azari language

The Azerbaijani language of today is based on the Oghuz language (brought from Central Asia by Seljuk Turks) heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic.

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 by the time of the Safavid dynasty; however, minorities in both the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran continue to speak the earlier Iranian languages to this day, and Middle- and New Persian loanwords are numerous in Azerbaijani.

The historical development of Azerbaijani can be divided into two major periods: early (ca. 16th to 18th century) and modern (18th century to present). Old Azerbaijani differs from its descendant in that it contained a much greater amount of Persian, Arabic, and Ottoman Turkish loanwords, phrases and syntactic elements. Early writings in Azerbaijani also demonstrate lingustic 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, bulky Iranisms and Ottomanisms, and other words, expressions, and rules that failed to gain popularity among Azerbaijani-speaking masses.

Between ca. 1900 and 1930, there were several competing approaches to the unification of the national language in Azerbaijan popularized by the literati. Despite major differences, they all aimed primarily at making it easy for semiliterate masses to read and understand literature. They all criticized the overuse of Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and European (mainly Russian) elements in both colloquial and literary language and called for a more simple and popular style.

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 Arabic alphabet to Latin to Cyrillic - while Iranian Azeris continued to use the Arabic script as they always had. Despite the wide use of Azerbaijani during the Soviet era, it became the official language of Azerbaijan only in 1978 (along with Georgian in Georgia and Armenian in Armenia). After independence, the Republic of Azerbaijan decided to switch again to the Latin script, following the Turkish model.

Literature

Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in 14th century based on the Tabrizi and Shirvani dialects (these dialects were used by classical Azerbaijani writers Nasimi, Fuzuli, and Khatai). Modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect only, while in Iran it is based on the Tabrizi one. The first newspaper in Azerbaijani, Əkinçi 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.

Famous literary works in Azerbaijani are the Book of Dada Gorgud, the Epic of Köroğlu, Leyli and Majnun, and Heydar Babaya Salam. Important poets and writers of the Azerbaijani language include Imadeddin Nasimi, Muhammed Fuzuli, Hasanoglu Izeddin, Shah Ismail I, Khurshidbanu Natavan, Mirza Fatali Akhundov, Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Bakhtiyar Vahabzade, and Mohammad Hossein Shahriar.

Distribution of native speakers

Since early last century, successive Iranian governments have avoided publishing any statistics on ethnic groups. This policy presents difficulty in providing any statistics on distribution and size of ethnicity in Iran.

The estimated size of all Azeri speakers within Azerbaijan and Iran combined, according to two sources, differs from 23.4 to 30 million. This total does not include the Azeri speakers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Georgia, Dagestan and other smaller pockets within the Middle East and Russia. Ethnologue adds 864,000 for the speakers out of Iran and Republic of Azerbaijan.

Regions where Azerbaijani is spoken by significant group of people

• Azerbaijani (North Dialect)1

Azerbaijan, and southern Dagestan, along the Caspian coast in the southern Caucasus Mountains. Also spoken in Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia (Asia), Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

• Azerbaijani (South Dialect) 2

East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan,and part of Kordestan, Hamedan,Markazi and Gilan provinces. Many in districts of Tehran. Some Azerbaijani-speaking groups are in Fars Province and other parts of Iran. Also spoken in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey (Asia), USA.

Dialects

Despite their relatively large number, dialects of Azerbaijani do not differ substantially. Speakers of various dialects normally do not have problems understanding each other. However minor problems may occur between Azerbaijani-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. For example, the word firqə ("political party") used by Iranian Azeris may not be understood in Azerbaijan, where the word partiya is used to describe the same object. Such phenomenon is explained by the fact that both words have been in wide use since after the split of the two speech communities in 1828.

The following list reflects only one of several perspectives on the dialectology of Azerbaijani. Some dialects may be varieties of others.

• Ardabil dialect (Ardabil and western Gilan, Iran)
• Ayrum dialect (northwestern Azerbaijan; northeastern Armenia(refactored from arm))
• Baku dialect (eastern Azerbaijan)
• Borchali dialect (southern Georgia; northern Armenia(refactored from arm))
• Derbent dialect (southern Russia)
• Gabala (Gutgashen) dialect (northern Azerbaijan)
• Ganja dialect (western Azerbaijan)
• Gazakh dialect (northwestern Azerbaijan)
• Guba dialect (northeastern Azerbaijan)
• Hamadan dialect (Hamadan, Iran)
• Karabakh dialect (central Azerbaijan)
• Karadagh dialect (East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, Iran)
• Kars dialect (eastern Turkey and northwestern Armenia(refactored from arm))
• Kirkuk dialect (northern Iraq)
• Lankaran dialect (southeast Azerbaijan)
• Maragheh dialect (East Azerbaijan, Iran)
• Mughan (Salyan) dialect (central Azerbaijan)
• Nakhichevan dialect (southwestern Azerbaijan)
• Ordubad dialect (southwestern Azerbaijan; southern Armenia(refactored from arm))
• Shaki (Nukha) dialect (northern Azerbaijan)
• Shirvan (Shamakhy) dialect (eastern Azerbaijan)
• Tabriz dialect (East Azerbaijan, Iran)
• Urmia dialect (West Azerbaijan, Iran)
• Yamji dialect (West Azerbaijan, Iran)
• Yerevan dialect (central Armenia(refactored from arm))
• Zagatala-Gakh dialect (northern Azerbaijan)
• Zanjan dialect (Zanjan, Iran)

Template:Ent The denoted dialects were traditionally spoken in the given area until recent times. As a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict virtually all Azeris fled Armenia by 1991, which is why Azerbaijani is no longer spoken there.

Phonology

Consonants

1. In some dialects of Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan), West Azerbaijan (Iran) and Kirkuk (Iraq), and occur as allophones of /ʧ/ and /ʤ/, and/or /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively.
2. In many dialects of Azeri, /c/ is realized as when it is found in the coda position or is preceded by a voiceless consonant (as in çörək - "bread"; səksən - "eighty").
3. /k/ appears only in words borrowed from Russian or French (spelled, as with /c/, with a k).
4. /w/ exists in the Kirkuk dialect as an allophone of /v/ in Arabic loanwords.
5. In the Baku dialect, /ov/ may be realised as , and /ev/ and /œv/ as , e.g. /ɡovurˈma/ → , /sevˈda/ → , /dœvˈran/ →

Vowels

Vowel phonemes of Standard Azeri

Alphabets

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

Before 1929, Azerbaijani was only written in the Arabic alphabet. In 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet was in use (although 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, although the transition to it has been rather slow. The Azerbaijani speakers in Iran have always continued to use the Arabic alphabet, although the spelling and orthography is not yet standardized.

The Azerbaijani language, if written in Latin, transliterates all foreign words to its own spelling. For example, "Bush" becomes "Buş", and "Schröder" becomes "Şröder".

Nomenclature

During the initial period of the Republic of Azerbaijan's independence, the official language of Azerbaijan was called "Türk dili" ("Turkish"), but since 1994 the older name of the language, "Azərbaycan dili" ("Azerbaijani"), has been re-established. The most important literary magazine of the language published in Iran, Varliq, uses the English term "Turkish" and the Persian term "torki" for the language. Most Iranians casually call the language Torki, distinguishing it from Turkey's official language, Turkish, by calling the latter a term which can be translated as Istanbuli Turkish. Some people also consider "Azerbaijani" a dialect of a greater "Turkish" language and call it "Azerbaijani-Turkish". ISO and the Unicode Consortium, call the language "Azerbaijani".

See also

• Azerbaijani people
• Historical linguistics
• Language families and languages
• Old Azari language

References

1. CIA factbook about Iran and CIA factbook about Azerbaijan Republic
2. " Ethnologue"
3. UCLA Language Materials Project: Azerbaijani
4. CIA factbook about Iran and CIA factbook about Azerbaijan Republic

External links

• AZERI.org - Azerbaijan Literature and English translation
• Alphabet and Language in Transition. Entire issue of Azerbaijan International (AZER.com), Spring 2000 (8.1)
• Editorial: Azerbaijani Alphabet & Language in Transition. Azerbaijan International (AZER.com), Spring 2000 (8.1)
• Chart: Four Alphabet Changes in Azerbaijan in the 20th Century. Azerbaijan International (AZER.com), Spring 2000 (8.1)
• Chart: Changes in the Four Azerbaijan Alphabet Sequence in the 20th century. Azerbaijan International (AZER.com), Spring 2000 (8.1)
• Baku’s Institute of Manuscripts: _Early Alphabets in Azerbaijan__. Azerbaijan International (AZER.com), Spring 2000 (8.1)

• Azerbaijani Language by Ethnologue
• Azerbaijani language, alphabets and pronunciation by omniglot.com
• Pre-Islamic roots
• Azerbaijani-Turkish language in Iran by Ahmad Kasravi
• Azerbaijani and Basque with Japanese translation incl. sound file

v t e Turkic languages
Proto-language	Proto-Turkic
Common Turkic	Argu Argu Khalaj Karluk Western Northern Uzbek Southern Uzbek Eastern Ili Turki Uyghur Khoton Lop Äynu Old Chagatai Karakhanid Khorezmian Kipchak Bulgar Bashkir Tatar Mishar Tatar Nagaibak Old Tatar Cuman Armeno-Kipchak Crimean Tatar Cuman Karachay-Balkar Karaim Krymchak Kumyk Mamluk-Kipchak Urum Kyrgyz Fergana Kipchak Kyrgyz Pamir Kyrgyz Siberian Tatar Baraba Tom Southern Altai Telengit Teleut Nogai Dobrujan Tatar Karakalpak Kazakh Nogai Siberian Tatar Tobol-Irtysh Oghuz Salar Eastern Khorasani Turkic Turkmen Trukhmen Southern Afshari Chaharmahali Turkic Qashqai Sonqori Western Azerbaijani North Azerbaijani South Azerbaijani Ajem-Turkic Balkan Gagauz Gagauz Karapapakh Turkish Karamanli Turkish Old Anatolian Turkish Ottoman Turkish Siberian Northern Dolgan Yakut Southern Chulym Lower Chulym Sayan Steppe Tuvan Taiga Dukhan Soyot Tofa Yenisei Fuyu Kyrgyz Khakas Northern Altai Chelkan Kumandy Tuba Shor Western Yugur Old Old Uyghur Orkhon Turkic
Oghur	Bulgar Chuvash
Disputed classification	Khazar Pecheneg
Potentially Turkic languages	Di Hunnic Jie Pannonian Avar Tuoba Wusun Xiongnu
Creoles and pidgins	Hezhou Kurbet Qoqmončaq
Italics indicate extinct languages Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.

• Turkic languages
• Azerbaijani language
• Languages of Georgia (country)
• Languages of Iran
• Languages of Russia
• Languages of Turkey
• Languages of Kazakhstan