Azerbaijani language
The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, Azeri Turkish, Azerbaijani Turkish, or (in Iran) often simply (our) Turkish, is the official language of Azerbaijan and the most common minority language in Iran (notably in the provinces of Ardabil, East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan, and Zanjan). The language is also spoken in Russia, Georgia, Iraq, and Turkey. There are approximately between 22 and 45 million native speakers of Azerbaijani. Azerbaijani is a Turkic language, closely related to Turkish and Turkmen.
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2 Literature 3 Phonology 4 Alphabets 5 See also 6 External links |
Nomenclature
During the initial period of the Republic of Azerbaijan's independence, the official language of Azerbaijan was called "Turk dili" or "Turkish", but since 1994 the older name of the language has been re-established. The most important literary magazine of the language published in Iran, Varliq, currently uses the English term "Turkish" for the language. ISO and the Unicode Consortium, call the language "Azerbaijani".
Some sources like Gholamhossein Mosahab's The Persian Encyclopedia consider the languages Azeri and Azerbaijani to be different languages, the former being an older language now only spoken by a few rural communities in Iran's Azerbaijan, and the latter the modern language. This theory, which originated from Saeed Nafisi, an ethnic Azerbaijani himself, is not generally accepted. Common usage of the terms is also against this theory.
Literature
Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in 11th century based on Tabrizi and Shervani dialects (these dialects were used by classical Azerbaijani writers Nasimi, Fizuli, and Khatai). Modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is based on the Shervani dialect only, while being based on the Tabriz. The first newspaper in Azerbaijani, Akinchi was published in 1875. During the Soviet Union period, Azerbaijani was often used as a lingua-franca between the Turkic people of the Union.
In mid-19th century it was taught in schools of Baku, Ganja, Sheki, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Since 1845, it has also been taught in the University of St. Petersburg in Russia.
Famous literacy works in Azerbaijani are The book of Dede Gorgud (which became a UNESCO book of the year in 2000), Koroğlu;, Leyli and Mejnun, and Heydar Babaya Salam. Important Azerbaijani poets and writers include Imadedin Nesimi, Muhammad Suleymanoglu Fuzuli (the first writer to write extensively in Azerbaijani), Hesenoglu Izedin, Ismail I (the Persian king), Bakhtiar Vahabzada, Khurshudbanu Natavan (female poet), Mirza Fatali Akhundov, Mirza Sabir (satirist), and Mohammad Hossein Shahriar (who also has poems in Persian).
Phonology
Based on information at [1], Azeri phonology appears to be:
| bilabial | dental | alveolar | velar | uvular | glottal | ||
| stops | voiceless | p | t | k | q | ||
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||
| affricates | voiceless | tS | |||||
| voiced | dZ | ||||||
| fricatives | voiceless | f | s | S | x | h | |
| voiced | v | z | Z | G | |||
| nasals | m | n | |||||
| lateral | l | ||||||
| rhotic | r | ||||||
| front | central | back | ||||
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| high | i | y | M | u | ||
| mid | e | 9 | o | |||
| low | { | a | ||||
(The above uses the SAMPA coding scheme.)
Alphabets
Officially, Azerbaijani now uses Latin alphabet, but the "Soviet" Cyrillic alphabet is still in wide use. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets for Azerbaijani (although the Cyrillic alphabet has a different order):
(Aa Аа), (Əə Әә), (Bb Бб), (Cc Ҹҹ), (Çç Чч), (Dd Дд), (Ee Ее), (Ff Фф), (Gg Ҝҝ), (Ğğ Ғғ), (Hh Һһ), (Xx Хх), (Iı Ыы), (İi Ии), (Jj Жж), (Kk Кк), (Qq Гг), (Ll Лл), (Mm Мм), (Nn Нн), (Oo Оо), (Öö Өө), (Pp Пп), (Rr Рр), (Ss Сс), (Şş Шш), (Tt Тт), (Uu Уу), (Üü Үү), (Vv Вв), (Yy Јј), (Zz Зз).
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 alphabet. For example, "Bush" becomes "Buş", and "Schröder" becomes "Şröder".