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The Azerbaijani alphabet (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan əlifbası, آذربایجان اَلیفباسؽ, Азəрбајҹан әлифбасы) has three versions which includes the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets.

North Azerbaijani, the official language of Republic of Azerbaijan, is written in a modified Latin alphabet. This superseded previous versions based on Cyrillic and Arabic scripts after the fall of Soviet Union.

In Iran, a modified Persian script has always been used and continues to be used for the South Azerbaijani language.^[1]

Azerbaijanis of Dagestan and other parts of Russia still use the Cyrillic script.^{[2][better source needed]}

Azerbaijani Latin alphabet

The Azerbaijani Latin alphabet consists of 32 letters.

History

From the nineteenth century there were efforts by some intellectuals like Mirza Fatali Akhundov and Mammad agha Shahtakhtinski to replace the Arabic script and create a Latin alphabet for Azeri. In 1922, a Latin alphabet was created by Soviet Union sponsored Yeni türk əlifba komitəsi (New Turkic Alphabet Committee; Јени түрк əлифба комитəси) in Baku which hoped that the new alphabet would divide the Azerbaijanis in the USSR from those living in Iran.^[4] An additional reason for the Soviet regime's encouragement of a non-Arabic script was that they hoped the transition would work towards secularizing Azerbaijan's Muslim culture and since language script reform, proposed as early as the 19th century by Azeri intellectuals (e.g. Mirza Fatali Akhundov), had previously been rejected by the Azeri religious establishment on the grounds that Arabic script, the language of the Koran, was "holy and should not be tampered with. ^[5] there was some historical basis for the reform which received overwhelming support at the First Turkology Congress in Baku during 1926 where the reform was voted for 101 to 7. The Azeri poet Samad Vurgun declared "Azerbaijani people are proud of being the first among Oriental nations that buried the Arabic alphabet and adopted the Latin alphabet. This event is written in golden letters of our history"^[6] As a result, in the Soviet Union in 1926 the Uniform Turkic Alphabet was introduced to replace the varieties of the Arabic script in use at the time.^[7] From 1922 to 1929, both Arabic and Latin scripts were used in Soviet Azerbaijani editions; in 1929, the Latin script was finally chosen. In 1933, the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet was reformed to match alphabets of other Soviet Turkic languages.^[8] The reform changed glyphs for some letters and phonetic values for some other letters. In 1939 Joseph Stalin ordered that the Azeri Latin script used in the USSR again be changed, this time to the Cyrillic script in order to sever the Soviet Azerbaijani Turks' ties with the Turkish people in the Republic of Turkey.^[4].

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Azerbaijan gained its independence, one of the first laws passed in the new Parliament was the adoption of a new Latin-script alphabet. The period from 1991 to 2001 was declared the transitional period, when both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet were accepted. Since 2001, the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet is the official alphabet of the Azerbaijani language in the Republic of Azerbaijan.^[9][10]

• From 1922 until 1933 (old alphabet defined using the Latin script):

  Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ƣƣ, Hh, Ii, , Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ꞑꞑ, Oo, Ɵɵ, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Xx, Yy, Zz, Ƶƶ, , ʼ (apostrophe)

• From 1933 until 1939:

  Aa, Bʙ, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ƣƣ, Hh, Ii, Ьь, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ꞑꞑ, Oo, Ɵɵ, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Vv, Xx, Уy, Zz, Ƶƶ, ʼ (apostrophe)

• From 1939 until 1958 (first version of the alphabet defined using the Cyrillic script):

  Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Ғғ, Дд, Ее, Әә, Жж, Зз, Ии, Йй, Кк, Ҝҝ, Лл, Мм, Нн, Оо, Өө, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Үү, Фф, Хх, Һһ, Цц, Чч, Ҹҹ, Шш, Ыы, Ээ, Юю, Яя, ʼ (apostrophe)

• From 1958 until 1991 (simplified version of the alphabet defined using the Cyrillic script and the letter Јј borrowed from Latin):

  Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Ғғ, Дд, Ее, Әә, Жж, Зз, Ии, Ыы, Јј, Кк, Ҝҝ, Лл, Мм, Нн, Оо, Өө, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Үү, Фф, Хх, Һһ, Чч, Ҹҹ, Шш, ʼ (apostrophe)

• From 1991 until 1992 (first version of the modern alphabet defined using the Latin script):

  Aa, Ää, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz

• Since 1992 (current version of the modern alphabet defined using the Latin script, replacing Ää with the historic Əə for better sorting):

  Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz

Azerbaijani alphabets, 1922–present

1922–1933	Aa	Bʙ	Cc	Çç	Dd	Ee	Əə	Ff	Ƣƣ	Gg	Hh	Xx		Ii	Ƶƶ	Qq	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Ꞑꞑ	Oo	Ɵɵ	Pp	Rr	Ss		Tt	Yy	Uu	Vv	Jj	Zz
1933–1939			Çç	Cc					Gg	Ƣƣ			Ьь			Kk	Qq										Şş		Uu	Уy
1939–1958	Аа	Бб	Ҹҹ	Чч	Дд	Ээ	Әә	Фф	Ҝҝ	Ғғ	Һһ	Хх	Ыы	Ии	Жж	Кк	Гг	Лл	Мм	Нн		Оо	Өө	Пп	Рр	Сс	Шш	Тт	Уу	Үү	Вв	Йй	Зз
1958–1991						Ее																										Јј
1991–1992	Aa	Bb	Cc	Çç	Dd	Ee	Ää	Ff	Gg	Ğğ	Hh	Xx	Iı	İi	Jj	Kk	Qq	Ll	Mm	Nn		Oo	Öö	Pp	Rr	Ss	Şş	Tt	Uu	Üü	Vv	Yy	Zz
1992–present							Əə
IPA	/ɑ/	/b/	/d͡ʒ/	/t͡ʃ/	/d/	/e/	/æ/	/f/	/ɟ/	/ɣ/	/h/	/x/	/ɯ/	/i/	/ʒ/	/c/, /k/	/ɡ/	/l/	/m/	/n/	[ŋ]	/ɔ/	/œ/	/p/	/r/	/s/	/ʃ/	/t/	/u/	/y/	/v/	/j/	/z/

The Azerbaijani alphabet is the same as the Turkish alphabet, except for Әə, Xx, and Qq, the letters for sounds which do not exist as separate phonemes in Turkish. When compared to the historic Latin alphabet of 1933, as well as the 1991 version: Ğğ has replaced the historic Ƣƣ; the dotless Iı has replaced the historic I with bowl Ьь (also, the lowercase form of the letter B was changed from small capital ʙ to the usual b, while the uppercase form of the letter y was also changed from a Cyrillic-looking У to the usual Y); the dotted İi has replaced the historic soft-dotted Ii, with the addition of the tittle on its uppercase counterpart, additionally I is now the uppercase counterpart of ı, while i is the lowercase counterpart of İ; Jj has replaced the historic Ƶƶ; Öö has replaced the historic Ɵɵ; Üü has replaced the historic Yy; and Yy has replaced the historic Jј. Әə was replaced by Ää, which was placed between Aa and Bb, but was then changed back to Әə, placed between Ee and Ff in the alphabet. Consequently, Jj, Yy, and some other several letters (Cc, Çç) have also changed their phonetic values in comparison with the historical alphabet.

The sounds [k] and [ɡ] in loanwords were rendered as respectively as q and ƣ in the Latin alphabet of 1933, but as к and г in Cyrillic and are rendered as k and q in the current Latin alphabet: ƣrafiqa (1933 Latin) — графика (Cyrillic) — qrafika (current Latin).

In translingual contexts (e.g. mathematics), the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet are named in Azerbaijani in the following way:^[11] a, be, ce (se),^[12][13] de, e, ef, qe, aş (haş),^[13] i, yot, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, ku, er, es, te, u, ve, dubl-ve, iks, iqrek, zet.

Schwa (Ə)

When the new Latin script was introduced on December 25, 1991, A-diæresis (Ä ä) was selected to represent the sound /æ/. However, on May 16, 1992, it was replaced by the grapheme schwa (Ə ə), used previously. Although use of Ä ä (also used in Tatar, Turkmen, and Gagauz) seems to be a simpler alternative as the schwa is absent in most character sets, particularly Turkish encoding, it was reintroduced; the schwa had existed continuously from 1929 to 1991 to represent Azeri's most common vowel, in both post-Arabic alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic) of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet

The development of a modern standardized Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet has been an ongoing project in Iran in the past several decades. Persian alphabet, without modification or standardization is not suitable for Azerbaijani as:

1. It contains multiple letters for the same consonant sounds, for example there are two letters for the sound (ت، ط)
2. Persian alphabet does not have letters and diacritics for many of the vowels used in Azerbaijani and other Turkic languages.

The first steps in the process of standardization started with the publication of Azerbaijani magazines and newspapers such as Varlıq from 1979. Azerbaijani-speaking scholars and literarians showed great interest in involvement in such ventures and in working towards the development of a standard writing system. These effort culminated in language seminars being held in Tehran, chaired by the founder of Varlıq, Javad Heyat in 2001 where a document outlining the standard orthography and writing conventions were published for the public.^[1] This standard of writing is today canonized by the official Persian–Azeri Turkish dictionary in Iran titled "lugat name-ye Turki-ye Azarbayjani".^[14]

The use of Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet, is widespread. However, due to a failure by the Iranian government to implement the constitutionally-required formal education of Azerbaijani language in the Iranian education system, and due to the spread of use of computers and smartphones, and the ease of using Latin alphabet on these platforms, the Latin alternative from Iran's northern neighbor has been gaining popularity in the last two decades.

Vowels

In Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet, nine vowels are defined. Six of those vowels are present in Persian, whereas three are missing. Diacritics (including hamza) in combination with the letters alef (ا), vav (و) or ye (ی) are used in order to mark each of these vowels.

Important to note that similar to Persian alphabet, vowels in the initial position require an alef (ا) all the time—and if needed, followed by either vav (و) or ye (ی). This excludes Arabic loanwords that may start with ʿayn (ع).

Below are the six vowel sounds in common with Persian, their representation in Latin and Arabic alphabets.

• Ə-ə (اَ / ـَ / ـه‌ / ه); /æ/; A front vowel; only marked with fatha (ـَ) diacritic, or with a he at middle or final positions in a word. Examples include: əl اَل 'hand', ət اَت 'meat', əzmək اَزمَک 'to crush'
• E-e (ائ / ئ); /ɛ/; A front vowel; marked with a hamza on top a ye (ئ). Examples include: el ائل 'people', en ائن 'wide'
• O-o (اوْ / وْ); /o/; A rounded back vowel; Shown with vav (و), either unmarked, or marked with sukun (zero-vowel) (ـْ). Examples include: od اوْد 'fire', ot اوْت 'grass', on اوْن 'ten'.
• A-a (آ / ‍ـا); /ɑ/; A back vowel; shown with alef (ا) in middle and final positions, and alef-maddeh (آ) in initial position. Examples include: ad آد 'name', at آت 'horse'
• İ-i (ای / ی) /i/; A front vowel; shown with a ye (ی) and no diacritic. Examples include: il ایل 'year', ip ایپ 'rope'
• U-u (اۇ / ۇ) /u/; A back vowel; shown with a vav and a Ḍammah (ـُ). Examples include: uzun اۇزۇن 'long', ucuz اۇجۇز 'cheap'

Below are the three vowels that don't exist in Persian, and are marked with diacritics.

• Ö-ö (اؤ / ؤ) /œ/; A front vowel; shown with a hamza on top a vav (ؤ). Examples include: öyüd اؤگۆد 'advice', göz گؤز 'eye'
• Ü-ü (اۆ / ۆ) /y/; A front vowel; shown with a "v" diacritic on top a vav (ۆ). Examples include üst اۆست 'up', üzüm اۆزۆم 'grapes', güzgü گۆزگۆ 'mirror'
• I-ı (ایٛ / یٛ) /ɯ/; A back vowel; shown with an inverted "v" diacritic on top of a ye (یٛ). Examples include: qızıl قیٛزیٛل 'gold', açıq آچیٛق 'open, turned on', sırğa سیٛرغا 'earring', sarı ساریٛ 'yellow'

Vowel harmony

Like other Turkic languages, Azerbaijani has a system of vowel harmony. Azerbaijani's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system. This means that all vowels in a word must be ones that are pronounced either at the front or at the back of the mouth.^[15] In Azerbaijani there are two suffixes that make a plural. It is either -ـلَر -lər or -ـلار -lar, front and back vowels respectively. The same variety of options for suffixes exists across the board in Azerbaijani. Here is how vowel harmony works, in an example of a word in which the vowels are all frontal:

• The word for 'dog' is ایت it. The word for 'dogs' is ایتلَر itlər. (ایتلار itlar is incorrect.)

And below are examples for back vowels:

• The word for 'mountain' is داغ dağ, thus the word for 'mountains' is داغلار dağlar.

A secondary vowel harmony system exists in Azerbaijani language, which is a rounded/unrounded system. This applies to some (but not all) of the suffixes. For example, there are four variations for the common suffix لی- -lı/-li and -لو -lu/-lü.

• The word for 'salt' is دوُز duz. The word for 'salty' will be دوُزلو duzlu.
• In Azerbaijani, the city of Tabriz is تبریز Təbriz. The word for someone from Tabriz is تبریزلی Təbrizli.

Conventions on writing of vowels

In Persian or Arabic alphabets, Diacritics are usually not written out unless it's in beginner-language lesson books or in order to avoid confusion with a similarly written word.

In Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet, there are conventions with regards to writing of diacritics.^[1]

For A-a (آ / ‍ـا), the vowel is always written and shown with alef.

For Ə-ə (اَ / ـَ / ـه‌ / ه), the initial vowel is written with an alef. Vowels in the middle of the word are written in two ways. They are either shown, i.e. written with a diacritic, which usually needs not be written; or they are written with a final he (ـه‌ / ه). The former is used in closed syllables (CVC), or in the first open syllable of the word. The latter is used in open syllables (CV) with the exception of the first syllable of the word. Note that the vowel he (ـه‌ / ه) is not attached to the following letter, but is separated from it with a Zero-width non-joiner. For example, the word gələcəyim (gə-lə-cəy-im) 'my future' is written as گله‌جگیم. Note that the first syllable of the word is open, but it's not marked. The second syllable is open, and thus the vowel is marked with he (ـه‌ / ه), not attached to the following letter. Also note the breakdown of the word into syllables – this is because the word is made up of gələcək plus possessive pronoun -im.

For E-e (ائ / ئ), the sound is shown with a hamzeh on top of a ye in almost all cases. The exceptions are loanwords of Persian, Arabic, or European origin. For example, enerji 'energy' is written as انرژی. Writing it as ائنئرژی is incorrect. Other examples include تلویزیون televiziyon 'TV'), علم elm 'science', and قانع qane 'satisfied'. In words, for both Azerbaijani and loanwords, if ⟨E⟩ and ⟨Y⟩ come side by side, both letters are written; e.g., قئید qeyd, شئیدا şeyda, ویئتنام Vyetnam, غئیرت ğeyrət. Loanwords from Persian or Arabic which contain the sound , but are adopted in Azerbaijani with an sound, are shown with ⟨ئ⟩. Examples include تسبئح təsbeh, بئساواد besavad, پئشکش peşkəş.

For İ-i (ای / ی), the sound is always shown with ye (ی).

For I-ı (ایٛ / یٛ), the sound is shown with ye (ی) all the time. The writing of the diacritic is optional and not necessary, and is only ever actually done in beginner language lesson books or in order to avoid confusion with a similarly written word. Native speakers can usually read words without the use of diacritic, as they are aware of vowel harmony rules (meaning that they can interpolate the correct pronunciation of ⟨ی⟩ by the presence of other vowels in the word). In words like qızıl قیزیل 'gold', familiarity with the vocabulary helps native speakers.^{[citation needed]}

For round vowels, O-o (اوْ / وْ), U-u (اوُ / وُ), Ö-ö (اؤ / ؤ), and Ü-ü (اۆ / ۆ), it is recommended that the first syllable containing such vowel be marked with diacritic, while the rest can remain unmarked and solely written with a vav (و). This reduces the effort of marking vowels, while also providing readers with a clue with respect to vowel harmony, namely as to whether the vowels of the word are to be front or back. Examples include گؤرونوش görünüş, اوْغوز oğuz, دۆیون düyün.

However, it is recommended^{[by whom?]} new learners write diacritics on all round vowels, e.g., گؤرۆنۆش görünüş, اوْغوُز oğuz, دۆیۆن düyün.

In daily practice, it is rare to see vowels other than Ö-ö (اؤ / ؤ) marked. This may be due to the fact that hamza is the only one of such symbols that's frequently written in Persian as well, and due to the fact that the inverted "v" diacritic for Ü-ü (اۆ / ۆ) does not exist on typical Persian keyboards.

Consonants

While Azerbaijani Latin alphabet has nine vowels and twenty-three consonants, Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet has thirty consonants, as there are sounds that are represented by more than one consonant. Highlighted columns indicate letters from Persian or Arabic that are exclusively used in loanwords, and not in native Azerbaijani words.^[1]