AZERBAIJANI LANGUAGE FACTS:

NATIVE: Азәрбајҹан дили (Azərbaycan dili), also (Azərbaycan Türkcəsi)

NATIVE SPEAKERS: 26 million

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE IN 2 COUNTRIES: Azerbaijan and Russia

WRITING SYSTEMS: Latin (Azerbaijani alphabet), Cyrillic alphabet, Persian alphabet

REGULATED BY: Azərbaycan Milli Elmlər Akademiyası, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

HELPFUL RESOURCES:

Dictionaries:

Musayev, O.I.: Azerbaijani-English Dictionary. Azerbaijan State Institute of Languages, Baku: 1998.
Musayev, O.I.: English- Azerbaijani Dictionary. Qismet Printing House, Baku: 2003.

Academic Research:

UCLA Language Materials Project

Language

Azerbaijani is a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people. Often called Azeri Turkish because Turkish and Azerbaijani share mutual intelligibility. Formal and informal speech needs to be taken into account when translating into Azeri. The various writing systems also need to be noted. Specify if the script is Latin (Azerbaijani alphabet), Cyrillic or Persian.

Economic Significance

We commonly translate Azerbaijani texts in government, engineering, and oil and gas contexts. Firms doing business in the Caucuses will encounter the Azeri language. We will need to know the region, dialect, script and context of the text to be translated.

History

The Azerbaijani language evolved from Western Turkic. It was heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian.

Dialects

North Azerbaijani, South Azerbaijani