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The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, is the official language of Azerbaijan and a minority language in Iran (notably in West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan provinces). The language is also spoken in Georgia, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan. There are approximately 50 million native speakers of Azerbaijani (Azeris, Afshars, Qashqais, Qarapapakhs, Turkomans, Qyzylbashis, etc.). The language is related to Turkish.
It may be worth noting that some sources like Mosahab Persian Dictionary consider the languages Azeri and Azerbaijani to be different languages, the former being an older language only spoken by few rural communities in Iran's Azerbaijan, and the later the modern language.
Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in 11th century based on Tabrizi and Shirvani dialects (these dialects were used by classical Azeri writers Nasimi, Fuzuli, and Khatai). Modern literature is based on Shirvani dialect only. First newspaper "Aekinchi" was issued in 1875. Up until early 20th century Azerbaijani was an international language to all peoples of South Caucasus, Daghestan, Turkish Armenia, Kurdistan, and North-West Iran. In mid-19th century it was taught as a compulsory subject in all of the schools of Baku, Ganja, Shaeki, Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia), Erivan (present-day Yerevan, Armenia), etc. Since 1845 it was also taught in the University of St. Petersburg (Russia).
Phonology
Based on information at , 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 Cyrillic alphabet has 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 written with 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 "Soviet" Cyrillic alphabet was used, and in 1991 the current Latin alphabet was introduced, although the transition to it has been very slow.
However, the Azerbaijani speakers in Iran have always continued to use the Arabic alphabet.
Azeris transliterate all foreign words and transliterate their own words to foreign. Example: Bush → Buş, Schröder → Şröder.