Azerbaijani

Where it’s spoken

Azerbaijani is the official state language of the Republic of Azerbaijan, where about 9 million people speak it. The larger Azerbaijani-speaking population — over 14 million — lives in the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, and Zanjan. Smaller communities exist in Russia (Dagestan), Georgia, and Turkey. The two main varieties are North Azerbaijani (Republic) and South Azerbaijani (Iran).

What it sounds like

Azerbaijani has nine vowels and vowel harmony along front/back and rounded/unrounded axes. It has 23 consonants including a uvular q in addition to k and g. Its phonology is very similar to Turkish but with distinctive vowel realizations. Stress is generally on the final syllable.

How it’s written

North Azerbaijani has used Arabic script (until 1929), Latin (1929–1939), Cyrillic (1939–1991), and Latin since independence in 1991. South Azerbaijani (Iran) uses Perso-Arabic. The current Latin alphabet has 32 letters.

History

Azerbaijani is part of the Oghuz Turkic family, closely related to Turkish. The 14th-century mystic poet Imadaddin Nasimi and the 16th-century Shah Ismail wrote in early Azerbaijani. Modern literature flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries with figures like Mirza Fatali Akhundov.