Talk:Azerbaijani language

Swiss German - Azerbaijani Turkish

it's weird to see swiss people speak "Swiss German" although it is hard for germans to understand it, whereas azerbaijani language ist easily understood by every turkish people (in turkey, azerbaijan and iran). you can easily see that wikipedia is not following same standards.

please change the topic of this site to "Azerbaijani Turkish". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.240.58.159 (talk) 23:08, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. In Iran we call this language simply "Turkish" (تورکی - تورکجه) and not even "Azerbaijani Turkish". موسا (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The language vs. dialect problem is a notorious issue in linguistics and has no objective solution. We are dealing with entrenched tradition and the influence of politics and history here. No doubt, what are called German dialects covers a wide variety of West Germanic dialects with very limited intelligibility on average (i. e., when you pick two traditional rural dialects at random, they will likely differ substantially and inter-intelligibility will be poor, especially when topics concerning rural life are discussed, rather than modern subjects, where many Standard German loanwords will be used). Dialects from the geographical extremes will differ so radically that they will be effectively like different languages, except perhaps in the Central German belt (Moselle Franconian – which effectively includes Luxembourgish – and East Lusatian around Görlitz may not be that mutually unintelligible). (Don't forget, however, that divergent lexicon has a far greater effect than divergent grammar or phonology: even two dialects that differ only in lexicon and are otherwise completely identical can be mutually unintelligible.) All this is true even when Low German is excluded. The divergence of Central and Upper German dialects probably started already in Late Antiquity, easily before 500 AD, and Low German may well have diverged even slightly earlier. On the other hand, one would expect that Azerbaijani and Turkish only started to diverge from each other well after the Battle of Manzikert, perhaps in the Late Middle Ages, in the early Ottoman period. By this time, Swiss German was already well distinct from East Central German, the basis of Standard German. It does make more sense to think of "German" as consisting of a number of independent languages within the West Germanic family, although they did form a coherent dialect continuum as late as the 19th century and in parts even today. It is pure historical accident that we do not have six Continental West Germanic written languages – Austro-Bavarian, Swiss German, Central German, Ripuarian, Low German and Dutch – rather than only two, Standard German and Dutch, as all the named dialect areas historically possess separate written traditions. (There are even more, such as Cimbrian, Pennsylvania German and Vilamovian, although these are all fairly minor.) Even Swiss German consists of more than a single potential language considering the very divergent Walser dialects. Meanwhile, there is an additional emerging standard, Luxembourgish. So even Western and Eastern Central German could be separate. And finally, there's also Yiddish, linguistically also part of Continental West Germanic. That all those regional written languages were eventually suppressed by the 18th century is purely due to political developments. It is easy to imagine an alternative history where Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish are united under the umbrella of an overarching written standard. Only politics have prevented this, and if the Azerbaijani should ever decide that they wish to adopt the Anatolian Turkish standard, this can happen even here. I wouldn't be surprised if many Azerbaijani consider a separate Azerbaijani standard language rather superfluous. Such developments have happened before: Dialectisation and separation are both not rare developments. The language–dialect classification is far more ephemeral and subject to change than people realise. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:01, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

My recent contribution to the article

I removed the phrase "North Azerbaijani" from the infobox since the language is officially known as, simply, "Azerbaijani" by the government of Azerbaijan. Secondly, Azerbaijani is officially written only in the Latin script. While some forms of Azerbaijani might be written in other scripts in other countries, those forms are not officially recognized or sanctioned. I also fixed a minor grammatical error in the opening paragraph and added that the language is also spoken, natively, in Eastern Europe. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What does "officially written" means? In Iran we have many magazines, books and newspapers which publish in Arabic script. Right now you can find hundreds of websites in Arabic script (for example see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (in Afghanistan), 6 (in Afghanistan), 7, 8, ). This Arabic script has far more age than Latin script for Azerbaijani (A millennium against at most a century) and it has far more users (15-20 million only in Iran). So why shouldn't it be listed?! موسا (talk) 11:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What I meant was that the Azerbaijani language, in the Arabic script, is not officially regulated by any national body/institution. The only variety of Azerbaijani that is officially regulated by a national body/institution is the Latin-based Azerbaijani language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. For example, there are many people who use the Roman alphabet for Arabic, but the inclusion of this information in the infobox of the Arabic language article wont make sense, since Latin-based Arabic is not officially sanctioned. Do you see what I mean? --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 12:03, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes I understand, but I think not having a regulation institution does not mean not recognizing the script. The Latin script for Azerbaijan did not have a regulation institution until one or two years ago, too. And the Arabic script, although does not have an official regulation organization, but there was community attempts and their results are widely accepted. For example two orthography sessions was held by linguists to regulate the script and the result (which is available here) is now widely in use by almost everyone. موسا (talk) 12:48, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of recognition, is Iranian Azerbaijani officially recognized by the government of Iran? I ask this because I don't think it is but I'm not so sure. In my opinion, therein lies the main difference between Latin-based Azeri and Arabic-based Azeri; the former happens to be officially recognized and sanctioned by a national body/institution whereas the latter is really neither recognized by any country nor sanctioned by any national body/institution. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 13:46, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

No despite being used by more than 15 million people, it has no official status or recognition in Iran. Actually Iran only recognizes the official language of Persian, while having more than 75 native languages, and this has only political and security reasons (as they think) and is not related to languages' use, power, extent or anything. So not being recognized by Iran, means nothing to language itself. The fact is Arabic alongside Latin is a very widely used script and this fact should not be removed from this article. You can see this in other languages too. For example look at Kazakh language, it lists Perso-Arabic script too, although it is just being used by only thousands of people in China. Or see the same in Uzbek language which has the same status and its Arabic script is only being used in China and Afghanistan with far less people than the users of Arabic script of Azerbaijani in Iran. موسا (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. You made some valid points. I've re-added Cyrillic and Arabic to the infobox. Have a nice day. :-) --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 15:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you ;-) موسا (talk) 16:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Pardon for interruption . Although the matter of debate seems to be ended in previous dialogue , but I can add the fact the recognition of Perso-Arabic script Azeri depends on definition . Article 15 of Iranian constitution states that using the local languages is free , and it can be considered a form of recognition . --Alborz Fallah (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The dubious tags

I see that several dubious tags were thrown around the article. I'll have them removed from this article within the next couple of days unless they are discussed. I'll start. First and foremost, it's not dubious that Azerbaijani is spoke in Eastern Europe. I added this information to the article after I found that the article only mentioned Azerbaijani was spoken in Western Asia. It's a fact that Azerbaijani is not only spoken in Western Asia but in Eastern Europe too. Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country that is partially situated in Eastern Europe, not to mention the fact that Azerbaijani is also spoken in Dagestan, which is completely situated in Eastern Europe. Therefore, unless this can be proven wrong -- which it couldn't -- then I'll have this tag removed from the article either tomorrow or the day after. But just to cut all the doubt, I'll provide a source, which I'll not add in the lede paragraph since that's not required according to Wikipedia bylaws. Instead, I'll add the source in the next section of the article.
Now regarding Ethnologue, I'd like to question why a dubious tag has been added to it. It is, by far, the most reliable source on language statistics in English, second to none. Unless someone can provide us with a better source in the English language, I'll have this tag removed as well. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 20:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I found two sources for the first dubious tag regarding Azerbaijani's presence in Eastern Europe. I'll have them added tomorrow morning. Good night everyone! :-) --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 21:50, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Abuse of tags in the article

I have removed a couple of tags from the article as they are no longer needed. One of the editors had an issue with the article mentioning that Azerbaijani is spoken in parts of Eastern Europe and has added a dubious tag next to the term, but this was removed after sources were provided to verify that Azerbaijani is, indeed, spoken in parts of Eastern Europe, which includes Dagestan and Azerbaijan. Therefore, the dubious tag is no longer needed in this case. Another tag, related to the wording of the last part of the opening sentence, has been removed as the wording has been changed. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 23:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Please just be specific and encyclopedic and say that it's spoken in the Caucasus and Northern Iran and wherever. Applying broad vague terms like "Eastern Europe" and "Western Asia" is not going to help reader in the least. Caspian region is not exactly anyone's first association on the term "Eastern Europe", to say the least. Our own article Eastern Europe in the second sentence says that The term has widely disparate and varying geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile. Parhaps it is sourced, but it's unhelpful at least. No such user (talk) 07:13, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

What do you think of these wordings:
1. Azerbaijani or Azeri (Azərbaycan dili) is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken primarily in parts of Eastern Europe (the Caucasus) and Western Asia (northern Iran) by the Azerbaijani people...
2. Azerbaijani or Azeri (Azərbaycan dili) is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken primarily in the Caucasus region, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, by the Azerbaijani people...
? --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with the wording 2. No such user (talk) 07:56, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Great! I'll have it changed right away. Thanks for contributing, I've longed for some contribution in the talk page. :-) --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 08:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Lead Restoring

Hallo
I restored the article's lead and template to the last stable version before the edit war started by User Kutsuit. Please feel free to discuss the content of the lead here, and change it after consensus has been reached. Alex2006 (talk) 04:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Stop your disruptive editing. A consensus has already been reached and your understanding of an original text is invalid. Furthermore, do not attempt canvassing as that is against Wikipedia policies and will get you in a lot of trouble. Lastly, address the content, not the person. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 08:19, 24 July 2014 (UTC)