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Azerbaijan Language, Religion, and Culture
Although Azerbaijan's history shows the mark of substantial
religious and cultural influence from Iran, linguistically and
ethnically the country is predominantly Turkic. The republic was
part of the Soviet Union for seventy years, but Russian culture
had only incidental impact.
Language
The official language is Azerbaijani, a Turkic tongue
belonging to the southern branch of the Altaic languages. In 1994
it was estimated that some 82 percent of Azerbaijan's citizens
speak Azerbaijani as their first language. In addition, 38
percent of Azerbaijanis speak Russian fluently to accommodate
Russian domination of the economy and politics. Although official
Soviet figures showed that about 32 percent of Russians living in
Azerbaijan spoke Azerbaijani, the Russian population generally
was reluctant to learn the local language. Most Armenians living
in Nagorno-Karabakh use Russian rather than Azerbaijani as their
second language.
The Azerbaijani language is part of the Oghuz, or Western
Turkic, group of Turkic languages, together with Anatolian
Turkish (spoken in Turkey) and Turkmen (spoken in Turkmenistan).
The Oghuz tribes of Central Asia spoke this precursor language
between the seventh and eleventh centuries. The three descendent
languages share common linguistic features. Dialectical
differences between Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish have been
attributed to Mongolian and Turkic influences. Despite these
differences, Anatolian Turkish speakers and Azerbaijanis can
often understand one another if they speak carefully. Spoken
Azerbaijani includes several dialects. Since the nineteenth
century, Russian loanwords (particularly technical terms) and
grammatical and lexical structures have entered the Azerbaijani
language in Russian-controlled Azerbaijan, as have Persian words
in Iranian Azerbaijan. The resulting variants remain mutually
intelligible, however.
In the immediate pre-Soviet period, literature in Azerbaijan
was written in Arabic in several literary forms that by 1900 were
giving way to a more vernacular Azerbaijani Turkish form. In 1924
Soviet officials pressured the Azerbaijani government into
approving the gradual introduction of a modified Roman alphabet.
Scholars have speculated that this decision was aimed at
isolating the Muslim peoples from their Islamic culture, thus
reducing the threat of nationalist movements. In the late 1930s,
however, Soviet authorities reversed their policy and dictated
use of the Cyrillic alphabet, which became official in 1940.
Turkey's switch to a modified Roman alphabet in 1928 may have
prompted Stalin to reinforce Azerbaijan's isolation from
dangerous outside influences by switching to Cyrillic. This
change also made it easier for Azerbaijanis to learn Russian.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the alphabet question
arose once again. Iran reportedly advocated use of Arabic as part
of a campaign to expand the influence of
Shia (see
Glossary)
Islam in Azerbaijan. Most Azerbaijani intellectuals ultimately
rejected switching to Arabic, however, noting that Iran had not
allowed proper study of the Azerbaijani language in northern
Iran. Instead, the intellectuals preferred a modified Roman
alphabet incorporating symbols for unique Azerbaijani language
sounds. In December 1991, the legislature approved a gradual
return to a "New Roman" alphabet.
Data as of March 1994
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