Concept

Azerbaijani language

Overview

Azerbaijani or Azeri (also referred to as Azerbaijani Turkic or Azerbaijani Turkish) is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who are native to the Azerbaijan region of Iran, as well as the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Iranian Azerbaijanis speak South Azerbaijani, while the ones in the Republic speak North Azerbaijani; but it is unclear whether these two varieties form one language, as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) considers Northern and Southern Azerbaijani to be distinct languages.

Azerbaijani is the only official language in the Republic of Azerbaijan and one of the 14 official languages of 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 a 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.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

But in the majority of inferior languages, the process of “agglutination,” as it is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable stability in the compound words: there is a manifest integration. How small is the degree of this integration, however, when compared with that reached in well-developed languages is shown both by the great length of the compound words used for things and acts of constant…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what Azerbaijani language is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
In the Latin word _fero, fer_, meaning 'to bear,' is the root from which all modifications of the verb _ferre_ (to carry) are formed by means of suffixal elements. If, therefore, a language consists of sound complexes having the nature of roots, it is called a root-language. As a matter of fact, however, the languages under discussion consist purely of detached, monosyllabic _words_; the conception 'root,' which…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
States what Azerbaijani language is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
Those who inhabit the frontiers of Finland, have adopted some of the expressions of their neighbours, as happens to every people: but when two nations give to things of common use, to objects which are continually before their eyes, names absolutely different, it affords a strong presumption, that one of them is not a colony from the other. The Finlanders call a bear Karu, the Laplanders Muriet: the sun in the…
Voltaire, The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
States what Azerbaijani language is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Alphabetical order.

Explore Azerbaijani language in the interactive graph →