Languages of Azerbaijan

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Languages of Azerbaijan
Street sign about the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan 02.jpg
Sign about the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijani
Official Azerbaijani
Minority Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, Russian, Tat, Tsakhur, Khinalug, Turkish
Foreign English, Russian
Signed Azerbaijani Sign Language
Keyboard layout

Azerbaijani is the sole official language of Azerbaijan and is spoken by the majority of its population. However, several minority languages also exist in the country, including Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, Russian, and Tat. Additionally, languages such as Tsakhur and Khinalug are spoken by a small percentage of the population.

Contents

General

Ethnicities of Azerbaijan (2024, after the collapse of the breakaway Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in 2023). Azerbaijan ethnic map 2024.png
Ethnicities of Azerbaijan (2024, after the collapse of the breakaway Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in 2023).
Ethnicities of Azerbaijan (1994-2020, after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War). Azerbaijan ethnic map 1994-2020.png
Ethnicities of Azerbaijan (1994-2020, after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War).

The primary and official language of Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani, [1] [2] a Turkic language closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Modern Turkish. [3] Together with Turkish, Turkmen and Gagauz, Azerbaijani is a member of Oghuz branch of southwestern group Turkic language family. [4]

Present

According to the 2009 census of the country, Azerbaijani is spoken as a native language by 92.5% of the population, [5] whereas Russian and English play significant roles as languages of education and communication. More than half of Azerbaijani speakers are monolingual. [4] Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, Georgian, Budukh, [6] Juhuri, [6] Khinalug, [6] Kryts, [6] Jek, [7] Rutul, [6] Tsakhur, [6] Tat, [6] and Udi [6] are all spoken by minorities. All these [8] (with the exception of Armenian, Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, and Georgian, which have a much larger number of speakers outside Azerbaijan, but nevertheless are steadily declining within Azerbaijan) above-mentioned languages are endangered languages which are threatened with extinction, as they are spoken by few (less than 10,000) or very few (less than 1,000) people and their usage is steadily declining with emigration and modernization.

According to 2019 research, English language proficiency in Azerbaijan was the lowest among surveyed European countries. [9]

An entire issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, edited by Jala Garibova, was devoted to the matter of languages and language choices in Azerbaijan, vol. 198 in 2009. [10]

Azerbaijan has not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages to which it became a signatory in 1992, under the Popular Front. In 2001, the then President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev issued a statement whereby "the Republic of Azerbaijan is not in the power to guarantee the implementation of the Charter regulations until its territory occupied by the Republic of Armenia is liberated". [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Articles related to the Azerbaijan Republic include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lezgins</span> Ethnic group in Dagestan (Russia) and Azerbaijan

Lezgins are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group native predominantly to southern Dagestan, a republic of Russia, and northeastern Azerbaijan, and speak the Lezgin language. Their social structure is firmly based on equality and deference to individuality. Lezgin society is structured around djamaat and has traditionally been egalitarian and organised around many autonomous local clans, called syhils (сихилар).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of the Caucasus</span> Diverse languages between the Black and Caspian seas

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirvan</span> Historical Iranian region in Azerbaijan

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talysh people</span> Iranian ethnic group

The Talysh people or Talyshis, Talyshes, Talyshs, Talishis, Talishes, Talishs, Talesh are an Iranian ethnic group, with the majority residing in Azerbaijan and a minority in Iran. They are the indigenous people of the Talish, a region on the western shore of the Caspian Sea shared between Azerbaijan and Iran. The main city of the Talysh people and their homeland is Lankaran, the majority of the population of which is ethnically Talysh. They speak the Talysh language, one of the Northwestern Iranian languages. The majority of Talyshis are Shiite Muslims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tat language (Caucasus)</span> Southwestern Iranian language of Azerbaijan and Russia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judeo-Tat</span> Persian-derived Jewish language of the eastern Caucasus

Judeo-Tat or Juhuri is a Judeo-Persian dialect and the traditional language spoken by the Mountain Jews in the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan, parts of Russia and today in Israel. It belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages, albeit with heavy influence from Hebrew. The words Juvuri and Juvuro translate as "Jewish" and "Jews".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in the Caucasus</span> Diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsakhur people</span> Lezgin sub-ethnic group

The Tsakhur or Saxur people are a Lezgin sub-ethnic group of northern Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan (Russia). The group numbers around 30,000 people and are called yiqy, but are generally known by the name Tsakhur, which derives from the name of a Dagestani village, where they make up the majority.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsakhur language</span> Samur language of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, North Caucasus

Tsakhur is a Lezgic language spoken by the Tsakhurs in northern Azerbaijan and southwestern Dagestan (Russia). It is spoken by about 11,700 people in Azerbaijan and by about 10,600 people in Russia. The word Tsakhur derives from the name of a Dagestani village where speakers of this language make up the majority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khinalug language</span> Northeast Caucasian language

Khinalug (also spelled Khinalig, Khinalugi, Xinalug(h), Xinaliq or Khinalugh) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 3,000 people in the villages of Khinalug and Gülüstan, Quba in the mountains of Quba Rayon, northern Azerbaijan. It forms its own independent branch within the Northeast Caucasian language family.

The majority of the population of Iran consists of Iranic peoples. The largest groups in this category include Persians and Kurds, with smaller communities including Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Lurs, Tats, Talysh, and Baloch.

The Intercontinental Dictionary Series is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig. Mary Ritchie Key of the University of California, Irvine is the founding editor. The database has an especially large selection of indigenous South American languages and Northeast Caucasian languages.

Azerbaijan has had a deliberate policy of forced assimilation of ethnic minorities since Soviet times and up to the present. Non-Turkic peoples, such as Talyshis, Lezgins, Tats and others have been subjected to forced Azerbaijanization (Turkification).

References

  1. "Azerbaijan". www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
  2. "Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan" (PDF). President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Official Website of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  3. Sinor, Denis (1969). Inner Asia. History-Civilization-Languages. A syllabus. Bloomington. pp. 71–96. ISBN   0-87750-081-9.
  4. 1 2 Keith, Brown; Ogilvie, Sarah (2008). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World 1st Edition. Elsevier Science. p. 110. ISBN   9780080877754.
  5. "UNdata | record view | Population by language, sex and urban/rural residence". Data.un.org. 2015-12-24. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Published in: Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. Edited by Christopher Moseley. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. 211–280".
  7. "Н. МАРР : "Яфетические языки", Большая сов. энциклопедия, 1-е изд., т. 65, Москва : Сов. Энц., 1931, стр. 841". Archived from the original on October 28, 2012.
  8. "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger". UNESCO.
  9. "EF EPI 2019 – Europe". www.ef.com. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
  10. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Volume 2009, Issue 198 (Jul 2009), http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ijsl.2009.2009.issue-198/issue-files/ijsl.2009.2009.issue-198.xml
  11. Azərbaycan Respublikasının Regional dillər və ya azlıqların dilləri haqqında Avropa Xartiyasına dair bəyanatı. 20 December 2001. Retrieved 17 February 2017.

Further reading