Talk:Azerbaijani language/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Azerbaijani language. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Comment

Proposal: Please provide proper UTF-8 letter as well. --Keichwa 17:10, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why is this page protected? What disputes need resolution ? Refdoc 21:13, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The page is protected from the major biased changes made by anonymous users so people can take the matter to the talk page and discuss them instead of just reverting each other. See the history of the page [1] for more details. Roozbeh 00:55, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Salam

What's the matter with this article? any problems over there? Hope that the dispute will be solved soon. On this moment too, if you want to know me more please look at my user:Kolomonggo. I can be found in English, Indonesian and Javanese Wikipedia.

Salam,

Hope this is not also seen as vandalism. I have put the quote from the Persian encyclopedia to the bottom of the article. It is clear, he is very improtant as an academic, but common language is use is as the introduction describes. I have actually expanded upon this. I believe that the quote is more an expression of the professors' wish to be perfectly accurate and split the hair down the middle than actual use. At least in my experience Iranian Azeri's will introduce themselves as Iranian Turks, Azeri Turks, Azeris, Turkish speaker (you know our Turkish, not Istanbul...) etc. whatever, certainly not with the fine precision of the encyclopedia. And there is a view that use defines correctness in languages rather than vice versa. I did some other clarifications + editing, too, but I think this is teh improtant one. What remains in dispute to remove that notice ? Refdoc 21:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pan Turkism, South Azerbaijan and Bribing the vandals

I would say I disagree with the last revert Roozbeh - the term might be offensive to some, to others it means a lot - at least considering the heat of the revert wars across the Azerbaijan spectrum of articles here on wikipedia. SO NPOV would be to include something like "a region which some prefer to call South Azarbaijan" or something like this. I think it is easy to loose sight for the relevant when engaging with trolls and vandals like our aphasic anonymous. But the relvant is to include all valid POVs to come to some thing like NPOV. Even if made by a troll a point may be valid. . Apart from the above, the term used in by the Iranian embassy in Ottawa Canada is "South Azarbaijan"[2]... :-) Refdoc 13:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to not write about this myself first, ...

My main reason of reverting was not offensiveness, but inaccuracy. I'm starting to get offended by seeing the term (I was not, when I thought it's a politically neutral term), but that is not the issue. The main issue is that one doesn't know what exactly is South Azerbaijan, and Wikipedia doesn't define it perfectly either (while the page is protected). When we say some, we should mention who are those some, and saying that in the header of the article is so much. And the user won't get much by following the link to South Azerbaijan. After an Internet search, she/he will probably find that the term means "the areas that some separatists wish to separate from Iran and/or make an autonomous state inside Iran and/or join to Republic of Azerbaijan" and will find that it's not exactly defined. I won't object if someone goes and includes exact geographical information about where the language is spoken in Iran, but the term Southern Azerbaijan is not that.
Let's try to see what does the term mean. The Persian version of the South Azerbaijan article [3] at the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement website mentions Karaj and Saveh to be a part of the region. Are there really many Azerbaijani speakers in Karaj? Are they more in ratio than, say, Rasht? Where is the statistics?
BTW, the term used in the Iranian embassy site refers to the southern part of Republic of Azerbaijan (or possibly to the southern part of Iran's Azarbaijan), not to the geopolitical term. It also says "South Azarbaijan".

a vs e - I would think this is making a political mountain out of a transliterational molehill. apart from this - The region (loosely corresponding to the four ostans) is the southern part of the region loosely called 'Azarbaijan/Azerbeycan' (whatever..), the north of which was lost to Russia during the 19th century, formed part of the Soviet Union and eventually became an independent state, while the southern areas remained integral part of Persian empire/Iran until today, despite a short period of 'independence' under Soviet 'protection' in 1945/46. The difficulty for this article starts with some people hijacking an initially innocent and loosely defined geographic description in order to form a South/North Korea image in people's mind, while others try to use the term in its original sense and again others develop to latter, geographic use a politically motivated aversion. Sounds to me like the recipe for NPOV disaster - which i think is still avertable by careful formulation. And wrt the {{South Azerbaijan]] article here in Wikipedia - this should be our next joint project for NPOVfying and clearing. Refdoc 14:29, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please note that some people believe that there is no single region called Az*rb***an. That is POV. There is "Republic of Azerbaijan" and "Iran's Azarbaijan", which some consider to be different regions. This other POV, says that the area north of Aras started to call itself Azerbaijan only in 1918, between the downfall of the Russian empire and the rise of Soviet Union, and with the support of the Ottoman empire, which many Iranians protested to at the time. The whole idea of a single region separated, is POV.

The debate is pretty hot these days in the Iranian media. Just yesterday, there was a column in Shargh about certain phrases the Foreign Minister of ROA had used when in Iran, who indirectly had called some Azeri residents of Iran non-Iranians. Or a few days ago, there was an article in Iran, quoting the replies to 1918 protests (by people like Mohammad Taghi Bahar and Dehkhoda, who had protested of renaming the region from Arran) in the Persian newspapers, where one of the leaders (Mohammad Emin Resulzadeh) of the newly named ROA had mentioned that "They have believed that by taking the name of Azarbaijan which is an Iranian province we are also looking forward to its namesake... The independence movement of Azarbaijan is not related to the south of Aras in any way...". The article claims later that they have proved that they have only been looking forward to the namesake, which they started to call South Azerbaijan.

Challenge: Go and find this certain usage of the term in a context with no reference to the independence movement. It's very hard!

roozbeh 16:44, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

And everyday I learn something new.... Adam Olearius, German traveller and secretary to the Holsteinian ambassador to the Persian Shah in Isfahan in the 17th century crossed the 'Arixan' river coming from 'Derbent' and the town and region of Shemakha (both today RoA) to Ardebil in 'Aterbeighdan'... Some of his writings are published in English [4]. Further, the Azerbaijanian ministry for tourism appears to be quite clear that the old name of the region is Aran [5].

So what do we make of this ? Refdoc 15:05, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Using Azarbaijani or Turki is valid

Turk people of Iran say their language "Turki" or "Turku" & Azeri isn't valid.

Consistency ?

Hi,

This is a need of consistency between Wikimedia projects. This language is called Azeri on Wiktionary. Yann 12:13, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Long section re Pahlavi/Medes/Azerbaijani

Zereshk, I generally highly respect your contributions, but i think this one is somewhat out of place in this article, given that the article is about the Turkic Azerbaijani language and not so much about the linguistic history of the people living in Republic of Azerbaijan or Iranian Azerbaijan. Refdoc 23:11, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why was my addition deleted??

Refdoc, are you saying that we shoudlnt mention anything about the history of Azerbaijan's language?
Or worse, that we should be selective in it?
That aside, according to the article I linked, the word "Azari" actually refers to the non-Turkic language prevalent in Azerbaijan until the time of Shah Tahmasp.
The article is in fact NOT about "Turkic Azerbaijani language". The title of the page doesnt say that.
Just in case someone is interested, I am Azeri.--Zereshk 02:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, I am not saying this. I also did not delete anything as far as I am aware. I will just look at the diffs again. My last edits were late in the night and i might have messed things up. Anyway, I just think, as it is, the bit about the history has several non-sequiturs and is more about the history of language succession in the area and language(s) with that name than about the histoy of what we call nowadays Azari or Azerbaijani language. Refdoc 10:26, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Right I did a few diffs e.g. [6]. It is quite clear that some people delete contributions here on the talk page. This is actually vandalism just as messing with the article itself is. I would suggets that you (whoever you are) are a bit more respectful towards other people's contributions. Refdoc 10:40, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Instead of delting the history section, I think perhaps it would be better if we further added to it. Specifically we can add material on Turkic Azeri language. (According to my writings, it is derived from Pahlavi as well after all). That would make the article both balanced, and comprehensive. Wouldnt you say?--Zereshk 17:46, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This sounds ok. Refdoc 22:12, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Refdoc's original point. English language doesn't devote multiple paragraphs to Brythonic (let alone Native American languages), nor French language to Gaulish; an in-depth account of the pre-Turkic language of Azerbaijan belongs in its own article, not here. And incidentally, one that completely neglects Udi and ancient Albanian can certainly not be considered complete. - Mustafaa 00:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Problems

The paragraph beginning "Some sources like Gholamhossein Mosahab's The Persian Encyclopedia..." belongs in Tat language. All that's needed here is the disambig.
- It's not a "theory", as far as I can see, it's a difference in terminology.
The "History and Evolution" section would belong in something like Linguistic history of Azerbaijan; it has nothing to do with the history of the Azerbaijani language, except small sections of the last paragraph.
- It's Suryani (Syriac), not Seryani.
- Al-ajam-ol-Azariyah means "the Azeri non-Arab", not "the Azeri Iranian". See Ajam.
- "the native tongue of Azerbaijan before the Turks" was certainly Iranian in many areas. However, the older Albanian language (see Albanian alphabet (Caucasian) survives even to the present day among the Udi.
- The pre-Turkic Iranian language of the area is not extinct in any case; again, see Tat language.
- The "elite and learned people", there as anywhere else, speak the language they learn at school. - Mustafaa 00:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As you see, I've addressed some of these points... I look forward to other people's input. - Mustafaa 00:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki

id:Bahasa Azeri - Muijz 00:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Azerbaijani vs. Turkish

We can watch Azerbaijani tv broadcast in Turkey. I can completely understand the speaking. I'm sure that it is same for anybody in Turkey or Azerbaycan. and with a one week quick course they will be master on the two dialect. not a different language.

I'm not so certain. My father speaks Azeri as a native. He only understands some words, less than half a sentence maybe, each time we watch a movie in "Turki Istanbuli" (as we Iranian Azaris call the language of Turkey). Not to mention that our scripts are entirely different as well. Ours is Persian (not Arabic). Russian Azerbaijan is still deciding how to latinize if at all, and Turkey is latin.--Zereshk 02:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Zereshk I think it's your problem because I am also from Turkey and I can easily understand Azerbaijani, the Azerbaijan National Television AzTv1 sometimes broadcasts movies in Istanbul dialect, if Azerbaijanis are not capable of understanding "Turkî Istanbulî" why would the Azerbaijan national TV broadcast movies in Istanbul dialect? I also have a few Azerbaijani (north) friends and be sure that we understand each very well.

Ah, so now you at least accept the difference as a "dialect". That's fair enough. However, Azari is still academically considered within the "northwest group of Iranian languages".see p238 & p242.--Zereshk 05:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

But according to this article it's a Turkic language. I'm confused. --Khoikhoi 05:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It's inaccurate. For the English reader I suggest Encyclopedia Iranica p238. For yo.u Khoi Khoi, since I know you can read Parsi, I suggest you the following list of sources all on this page.--Zereshk 06:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, I'm not Iranian but I'll read the English source. ;) But wait, if Azeri sounds similar to Turkish, how could it be an Iranian language? --Khoikhoi 06:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I looked at the Encyclopedia Iranica article. It looks like the extinct Ancient Azari language was an Iranian language, but the modern language of Azeri is Turkic. It even says so: "Azeri belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family". (on page 8) --Khoikhoi 06:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Im sure you noticed, in the references I posted you, that "Adari" is the transliteration of آذری . Modern Azeri is Turkic. Turkic is not the same as Turkish. Turkic has its roots east of Iran. E.I. does not classify modern Azeri and Turkish in the same group. And according to Henning, Azari (Adhari to be more precise) encompasses old as well as many "surviving" dialects in Azarbaijan. See the Henning article. Another source of info for Parsi speakers: [7]--Zereshk 06:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

1 week is not enough to master one of the languages, you are right azeris and turks understand each other perfectly, but in azerbaijan we have a different accent and a mixture with persian and russian language. so i think it would take more then 1 week, i think 1 month will be enough - Karabakh

These are not different languages, its so mis-leading, how is it possible to understand a different language without taking a lesson in the so-called different language in your life?

Ethnologue.com writes that they speak they can understand each other and they do both speak Oghuz Turkish.

At the very least its an accent difference, Turkish speakers of Azerbaycan, South Azerbaycan-Iran, Iraq, Caucauses, Syria, Turkey, Balkans, Cyprus can fully understand each other.

I don't understand how they're considered different languages to each other?

I mean there is more difference between the accent of a Londoner and Geordy from Newcastle in North England than between these accents.

It should be highlighted that they can understand one-another and that the Turkish of the different countries who speak Oghuz Turkish isn't a different language.

Currently its not very clear, to someone who didn't know anything about this they'd think a totally different language was spoken which is incorrect.

The article is very misleading and can really confuse people.

For example, I was so shocked to realise and witness with my own eyes Azeri Turks and Turkey Turks speaking together perfectly understanding each other.

They show Azerbaijan Tv on Turkish Tv and vica-versa the same chanels are also broadcasted into Iran.

As a result of article's like this most people don't realise this and get a shock when they realise that they are not actually a different language.

A Turk from Turkey could easily go to Tabriz and have absolutely no difficultly with language, a Turk from Baku can go to Turkey and have absolutely no problems with communication.

The article doesn't explain this, Azeri Turks can communicate with Bulgarian and other Balkan Turks, with Cypriot Turks etc do they all speak Azerbaijani?

Something has to be done about this.

For example, in the Persian Language page, Dari-Tajik etc are all included as Persian which is strange since Tajik is not mutually intellegible to Persian speakers of Iran.

Why don't the mutually intelligible Turk languages create a merge as in total there are 120 million mutually intelligible speakers but due to the layout of the articles this isn't very clear.

--Johnstevens5 02:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Simply because that's not how most sources do it and your version would be original research. —Khoikhoi 03:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

What's the problem? the article is misleading and confusing.

Azeri Turkish is perfectly understandalbe to Turkish speakers of the Caucuses, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, the Balkans and the new wave of Turkish immigrants in Europe.

Why can't this be mentioned?

The language of the Azeri TUrks is one which is mutually intelligible by rouhgly 120 million people.

In the Persian Language article they even put Tajik in as if its Persian when has major differences.

Now I'm not trying to include Ozbek or Uygur Turkish as the exact same language however the one's a mentioned above clearly are.

I think the page's should be merged or a mention made of this because its very important, to someone with no knowledge of this because of the misleading nature of this page they'd think it was a ommpletely different language only spoken and understood by 30 million.

Regards

--86.138.214.28 13:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a fact I don't understand what isn't clear about it

In those days, I first became aware that the people that we thought of as the Muslims of the Soviet Union spoke languages that were still closely related to the language of Turkey. We became very aware of this in 1990, with "Black January" in Azerbaijan, and suddenly the Turkish television stations were full of Azeris phoning in from houses in Baku, in a language that we could understand. It was astonishing. No one had been aware that that connection had lived on. One of the most interesting plane trips I took was the first-ever direct flight between Istanbul and Baku.

Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World Hugh Pope

REview

http://www.cceia.org/viewMedia.php/prmID/5163

Ethnologue.com

Azerbaijani, South = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Azerbaijani, North = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish, Turkey = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern,

Turkish in Balkans = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish in Iraq = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish in Syria = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish in Caucauses = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish in Europe = Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern,

Would you like me to show you Turkish Television listings and show the Azeri Turkish shows? the Azeri Turk interviews?

OPen your eyes to the reality, they completely understand each other.

It should be included that Azeri Turks language is spoken and understood by 120 million people!

Regards

--Johnstevens5 14:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It is true that, for the most part, the Azerbaijani and the Turkish languages are mutually intelligible (I didn't even learn any Turkish until six years ago, and never studied any Azerbaijani, and yet I can understand most of what is being said on AzTV, the Azeri channel here in Istanbul).

That said, however, mutual intelligibility is not the sole criteria: the most famous European case probably being Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. There are a whole slew of non-linguistic factors coming into play—political factors, so-called "ethnicity" factors, historical factors, et cetera ad nauseum—and the whole area is a minefield of controversy, as it were.

I offer no arguments either way, since I prefer not to traverse minefields, but rather stand on their edge and say to the sloggers-through, "Look, there's a mine over there." I just wanted to let it be known that nothing in this argument is as black-and-white as some people are making it out to be. Cheers. —Saposcat 16:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

But its completely understandable and in the language the people are referred to as simply Turks, for example, in Azeri Turkish - "Turkum, dilim Turkce/Turki" in Turkey - "Turkum, dilim Turkce"

"Im a Turk my language is Turkish"

Nobody writes or says they speak, Azerice and they refer to each other as Turks.

Ths isn't actually a different language and today Azerbaijan and Turkey have great relations there is love between them and absolutely no animousity.

Its misleading to say that the language of people of Azerbaijan is only spoken and understood by 30 million because the real figure is closer to 120 million.

This mistake is always made in Engligh language descriptions of this matter, people are always very shocked that people of Azerbaycan, Turkey, Northern Cyprus, Turks of Iran, Turks of Iraq-Syria-Balkans-Europe can all understand each other. When you initially say this they think I'm lying because of sites like this, only when I actually prove this do they realise.

--Johnstevens5 19:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your statement, "Its misleading to say that the language of people of Azerbaijan is only spoken and understood by 30 million because the real figure is closer to 120 million": the article doesn't say that anywhere, or at least, not the key "and understood" part.

Regardless, however, the whole issue of when two varieties of speech are considered "languages" and when they are considered "dialects" is fraught with doubt: no one really knows because there is no clear dividing line, and in certain cases there cannot ever really be one. Cheers. —Saposcat 20:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

John, Saposcat is correct. It's like me adding up the numbers of speakers of Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn and Ukrainian so I could say "there are 273 million speakers of Russian". It's not Wikipedia's job to say "Turkish and Azeri are the same language!" Yes they are mutually intelligible, but they are still considered different languages. —Khoikhoi 00:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I see your point but its really misleading.

For example, if we called American a language, Australlian a language and English a language and said they were all a different language it would be really confusing as they can all understand and communicate with each other, nobody could surely state that these are different languages.

The language in Azerbaycan and Turkey isn't actually a different language and in those countries in their language they refer to themselves as Turks and their language as Turki/Turkce, its common knowledge to the people of the region that their language is the same.

Another example is a commongly used phrase by the president of Azerbaijan, he refers to Azerbaijan and Turkey as "Iki Dovlet Bir Millet", "two countries one nation", as does Turkmenistan.

I'm just trying to highlight this for non-Turkish speakers, it always comes as a shock and takes such a long time to explain to people that they understand each other.

Regards

--Johnstevens5 14:29, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, but most sources say that Azerbaijani and Turkish are different languages, and Wikipedia articles are supposed to be based off of most sources. In regards to the "two countries one nation" thing that you said, we're not supposed to use Wikipedia as a political platform either. —Khoikhoi 15:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I know, I understand that I just used it as an example, its just confusing to people who have no knowledge of this when they discover that Azerbaijani and Turkish of Turkey arn't actually different languages and that they completely understand each other, it really takes such a long time to explain that its actually the same language and that this mistake is made in the West when describing the name of the language.

Because Azerbaijan is called Azerbaijan people think that the language must be Azerbaijani and that its somthing completely different to Turkish when infact it is Turkish and called as Turki/Turkce in their language among the people.

Regards

--Johnstevens5 01:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think by already saying that they're mutually intelligible, it clears things up. —Khoikhoi 01:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

--Johnstevens5

I don't really understand why people make a problem of this! I was born in Europe, my grandfather was a Turkish immigrant who came to Europe in the 1960s. I can understand Azerbaijani TV shows. I can even read texts in Azerbaijani. And I am just 19 years old!!!

So what is this all about?

I can't understand why people don't accept the fact that Azerbaijani Turkish and Anatolian Turkish are the same language, but just a different accent or lets say a dialect but fully intelligible to each other.

On the contrary everybody accepts that (the mutually UNintelligible) Sorani and Kurmanji are the same language: Kurdish. They even accept that unintelligible Zaza and Gorani are a dialect of the Kurdish language.

And the people here are bullshitting (srry) that Azerbaijani and Turkish aren't the same!!!

They are considerd as different languages simply because they aren't situated in the same country, this is political not linsuistic. Why did Elçibey referred to the language as "Türk dili"???

Are the dialects of the English language mutually intelligible? appen is nabbut bovver 'ist lad. that young man is always in trouble.
werst thew of te? where are you going?
ars garn yam I'm going home.

WPTR template

This template is strictly relavant with the article. Please see article and infoboxs for details about language and language family.

All three project templates ok;
- Azerbaijan; naturally ok.
- Iran;language spoken also in Iran, so ok.
- Turkey; in the same language family as Turkish, also spoken in Turkey, so ok.
Templates should be ordered, firstly most relevant country(Azerbaijan in this case), others in the alphabetic order.

Regards. Must ^TC 09:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Although Azeri and Turkish are mutually intelligible, they are generally considered different languages. This is why Ethnologue, and pretty much every source out there classifies the two languages as separate. If Azeri and Turkish were truly the same language, wouldn't we only need one article about them? Khoi khoi 09:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Azerbaijani literary language started to form since 11 century

There are several sources that have not been considered by this article, and one of the is from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE), which was the biggest encyclopedia in the world and the premier scholarly undertaking in the former USSR. Here's the link to the short specific article on Azerbaijani literature: [8] Also, here's the reproduction of the article, with the section presenting most interest in bold:

Азербайджанский язык, язык азери, язык азербайджанцев, живущих в Азербайджанской ССР, Грузинской ССР, Дагестанской АССР, Узбекской ССР, Туркменской ССР, Казахской ССР и УССР, а также в Иране и Ираке. На А. я. в СССР говорит около 2,94 млн. человек (1959; 3,6 млн. человек на начало 1965, оценка). А. я. относится к юго-западной ветви тюркских языков. Он восходит к языку огузских племён Центральной Азии 7-11 вв., который явился языком-предшественником для нескольких современных тюркских языков: А. я. и турецкого языка. В процессе развития эти языки изменились как в фонетической структуре, грамматическом строе, так и в словарном составе. В разговорном А. я. наблюдается значительное количество диалектов, которые объединяются в следующие группы: восточную (кубинский, дербенский, бакинский, шемахинский, муганский и ленкоранский); западную (казахский, карабахский, гянджинский и айрумский); северную (нухинский и закатало-кахский); южную (нахичеванский, ордубадский, тебризский диалекты и ереванский говор). Особые группы А. я. составляют диалекты: кашкайцев, авшарцев (Иран и Афганистан) и терекеме (Армянской ССР и Грузинской ССР). Литературный А. я. начал складываться с 11 в., современный литературный А. я. оформился в середине 19 в. на базе бакинского и шемахинского диалектов. Письменность до 1929 была на арабском алфавите, с 1929 по 1939 - на латинском и с 1939 - на основе русской графики. Лит.: Ширалиев М. А., К вопросу об изучении и классификации азербайджанских диалектов, "Изв. Азербайджанского филиала АН СССР", 1941 ,Ї 4; его же,. Изучение диалектов азербайджанского языка, "Изв. АН СССР. ОЛЯ", М., 1947, т. 6, в. 5; Дэмирчизадэ Э., Азэри эдэби дили Тарихи, Бакы, 1967; его же, Азэрбаjчан эдэби дили тарихи хуласэлэри. Бакы, 1938; Русско-азербайджанский словарь, под ред. Г., Гусейнова, т., 1 - 4, Б., 1940 - 46. Г. Г. Брянцева.

The bold text states the following in English: "Azerbaijani language ascends to the language of Oghuz tribes in Central Asia in 7-11 centuries, which was the predecessor of several modern Turkic languages: Azerbaijani language and Turkish language." Another quote: "Literary Azerbaijani language started to form since the 11th century, modern literary Azerbaijani language has formed in the middle of 19th century on the basis of Baku and Shemakha dialects". This of course differs from the current article, and we should thus update it.

There is a much lengthier article too, in the general article about Azerbaijan [9], and about Azerbaijani people [10], but that's for later. --AdilBaguirov 05:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

lingua franca

No where does the source cited say that it is the lingua franca amongst Kurds, Armenians, and Talysh so I removed it as it sounds like OR. I also shortened a sentence that had too many unnecessary words.Hajji Piruz 14:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Cemetery photograph

I uploaded a photograph showing three alphabets used on tombstones of different ages at a cemetery near Baku. I feel that it is a nice illustration; but if for some reason it is deemed inappropriate, it can be removed. The placement is a little awkward since the "Latin alphabets" image is so long. Best, Eliezg 09:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ethnologue

I contacted ethnologue a while back on their data and asked them for their source. They said they could not find their source. "Ali, Thank you for noting this. We have made a correction which will appear in the next edition. The population we now give is 11,224,000 (2001 Johnstone and Mandryk). The Ethnologue site will show an update when the next edition is published in 2009. Best regards, Ray Gordon Ethnologue, Research and " Ray, I couldn't find where the 15th edition had any mention of 35% under Azerbaijani for Iran, or any percentage, for that matter. Can you figure out what his problem is? --Con "

Another user while back name Kiumars had contacted them independently also and they gave a similar response (their numbers on Iran does not add up to the population they put for Iran). Also recently another person who recently contacted them: [11]. "Dear Mazdak, Sorry we cannot help you further with this question. This information was posted by a previous editor, and it probably came from his personal communication with someone else, and was therefore not documented. Regards, Conrad Hurd".

Their numbers also do not add up. They say Irans population is:67,503,205 (which is close enough to CIA factbook). But then you add all of their statistics (some even from 1982) and you obtain a total of: 72,423,703 people. Which is short 4,920,498 people. I have the E-mails of my inquiry and their response. I can forward it to any user or admin if they so wish to look at it. Domari (1,338,271) is another big mistake by the site. There is not that many gypsy speakers in Iran. It could be at most 50,000. --alidoostzadeh 14:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Azeri vs. Turkish

VartanM, the claim of Azeri being once considered to be the same as Turkish is controversial. Here is an early 19th century record from Aleksandr Bestuzhev:

"Ср. примечание А. А. Бестужева-Марлинского в рассказе «Красное покрывало»: «Татарский язык закавказского края отличается от турецкого, и с ним, как с французским в Европе, можно пройти из конца в конец всю Азию». Об этом подробнее см.: Михайлов М. С. К вопросу о занятиях Лермонтова «татарским» языком // Тюркологический сборник. Т. 1. М.; Л.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1951. С. 127—135" [12] Parishan (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Parishan, you do realize that this article is nonsense right? You're posting a fairy tale as a source, while I referred to a scholarly work. There is no such thing as an independent branch called Azerbaijani language. There is as much difference between dialects spoken in central or Eastern Turkey and a so-called Azerbaijani dialect then there is between two said Turkish dialects. My friend originally from Kars understand better Turkish of the claimed Azerbaijani's in Armenia and even Baku then the Turkish in Istanbul. ...Azeri language is virtually identical with that of Turkey (Fodor's Soviet Union, Eugene Fodor, Robert C. Fisher, (1981) p. 66). See here Turkish, the author doesn't even classify it as Turkic, it can not be a mistake by ignoring the differences between Turkic and Turkish, since he then later uses the Turkic term. Here is another source of the purge of the accurate term Azeri Turk [13]

Leaving out the fact that modern Azerbaijani's speak some form of Turkish is Stalins work, during the Great purge [14]. I don't see how by taking the name of the Iranian Azari (origins NOT Turkish) and mixing it with Turkmen works, one can come up claiming 13th century Azerbaijani literature. I don't know if there are Turkmen editors who edited those articles, but I doubt they'd be happy to read that their literature is being bragged as Azerbaijani. VartanM (talk) 01:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, VartanM, I happen to be aware of your POV about the "so-called Azerbaijan", the "non-existing Azeris", and the "artificially introduced Azeri language." Now, if we could actually get to some serious discussion here, I would very much appreciate it. Remember, that this is not a forum. The whole point is to prove one's claims with credible sources, and not to waste each other's time pouring out loads of original research from God knows whatever discussion board.

None of your sources indicate that what you claim about the linguistic status of Azeri is true. It is a known fact that Azeri used to be officially called Turkic (once again, "тюркский", not "турецкий") and it is reflected in the article. However this is by no means a proof that "There is no such thing as an independent branch called Azerbaijani language", which not only is OR, OR, and more OR, but a mere lie. The fact is, if it were true, hundreds of thousands of sources wouldn't classify it as an independent language, and this article wouldn't be around. What you claim is explained by linguistics (and I can't stress the latter enough, because it seems to me, our discussion is turning into primitive summaries of the chauvinist anti-Azerbaijani agenda of some notable Armenian publicists) as mutual intelligibility. For example, it is hard to draw lines between certain dialects of Danish and Norwegian, but it does not mean these languages "are considered dialects of each other." Just because there's little to no difference between how Azeris and Turks translate and pronounce the word disestablishmentarianism in their languages, doesn't mean one of them does not really exist. The history of the name of the language has nothing to do with the fact that the language actually existed in both verbal and written forms. Parishan (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Continue with such incivilities and you may just as well be included in the Arbcom restriction. This whole answer didn't even answer my points, it was rather a ranting and blunt accusations. I said so-called Azerbaijani dialect, not so-called Azerbaijan, and I never said non-existing Azeris. If you want serious discussion then don't put words in my mouth or don't be incivil the way you are above.

There is no such thing as an independent branch called Azerbaijani, Azerbaijani is a Turkish, not even Turkic language, in north it is a Turkmen dialect, in west, it is plain and simply Turkish dialect, and your comparaison with Danish and Norwegian actually dismiss this article, and before throwing accusations such as lying, read the entries about Dano-Norwegian, they cover the history pretty accurately, which includes language evolution and what they were considered and it is not dumping the whole thing with a modern becoming of one of the forms, like you do in this article when you claim Turkmen literature as Azerbaijani.

The fact is that before the 30s, it was considered Turkish and you can take any work on world languages of the period and you will find the language being spoken there as being some Turkish dialect, even at present some works classify it as Azeribaijani Turkish, and I have provided an example. This whole article has suppressed the previous classification which is still existing in some works. Not to say it considers Turkic literature as Azerbaijani, when the same Turkic language was same form of common language shared by the Seljuks, the Turkmen etc.

It is like claiming the Armenian Grabar as equally similar and throw it in the same bag as modern Armenian, which is, simply speaking ridiculous.

Consider warned that next time I will not be taking accusations of lying VartanM (talk) 03:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It generally was not and is not considered a dialect of Turkish. Your sources do not state that, and neither does the majority of serious linguists. Yes, the language does go under Azerbaijani Turkish as well, but only because the words Turkish and Turkic in Azeri do not differ in spelling and pronunciation. Most scholars agree Azerbaijani is a language, regardless of how this fact might make some people feel. The mutual intelligibility and language continuum aspects are natural linguistic occurrences and are in no way proofs of two or more languages constituting one. I suggest you research those concepts before you start discussing linguistics. It is especially odd to hear such baseless claims from somebody who does not seem conversant in either of those languages. Consider this discussion over, if you do not have anything except OR and your-friend-from-Kars argument to operate with. Parishan (talk) 06:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

More OR, none of which address the sources I provided. Oh, and read up on WP:OWN. If you consider this discussion to be over then WP:AGF and revert the removal of a sourced material. VartanM (talk) 08:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an independent branch called Azerbaijani language. Are we seriously discussing this? If Vartan spoke either Turkish or Azerbaijani, he would be making such statements. Grandmaster (talk) 07:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that I don't speak either of the languages? If not WP:AGF WP:NPA. VartanM (talk) 08:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Vartan also says that Parishan claims "Turkmen literature as Azerbaijani". This is from the article in encyclopedia Iranica, called Azeri Turkish:

The early Azeri texts are a part of the Old Osmanli literature (the difference between Azeri and Turkish was then extremely small). The oldest poet of the Azeri literature known so far (and indubitably of Azeri, not of East Anatolian of Khorasani, origin) is Emad-al-din Nasimi (about 1369-1404, q.v.). Other important Azeri authors were Shah Esma'il Safawi Khata'i (1487-1524), and Fozuli (about 1494-1556, q.v.), an outstanding Azeri poet. During the 17th-20th centuries a rich Azeri literature continued to flourish but classical Persian exercised a great influence on the language and its literary expression. On the other hand, many Azeri words (about 1,200) entered Persian (still more in Kurdish), since Iran was governed mostly by Azeri speaking rulers and soldiers since the 16th century (Doerfer, 1963-75); these loanwords refer mainly to administration, titles, and conduct of war. This longlasting Iranian-Azeri symbiosis must be borne in mind if one is to understand the modern history of Iran and its language correctly.

G. Doerfer, "Azeri Turkish", Encyclopaedia Iranica, viii, p. 246, Online Edition, (LINK)

Grandmaster (talk) 08:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe we discussed encyclopedias and especially the Iranica. I don't really feel like repeating myself, knowing that couple of days from now I'm gonna have to repeat again. VartanM (talk) 08:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What exactly did you say about Iranica and Doerfer in particular? Grandmaster (talk) 08:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Also from Iranica, the article about Azerbaijani literature:

The language spoken today in Azerbaijan is one of the branches of Oghuz Turkic. It was introduced into Iran by Turks entering the area in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries and underwent a gradual development before assuming its present form. For two centuries after their appearance in Iran, the Oghuz Turks seem to have had only an oral literature. The origins of the stories attributed to Dada Qorqut, which are about the heroic age of the Oghuz Turks, probably lie back in this period. The accepted text, however, was compiled only in the 9th/15th century. A written, classical Azeri literature began after the Mongol invasion, and developed strongly in the 10th/16th century after the Safavid dynasty established its dominance in Iran. From the beginning it was under the strong impact of Persian letters. Many poets produced works in both Persian and Azeri and, due to bilingualism among the educated Turkic-speaking people of the area, the use of Azeri prose was widespread until the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1304-20 Sh/1925-41), when publishing in Azeri was banned.

Grandmaster (talk) 09:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

alternate map

Parishan (talk · contribs) created Image:Azerilanguage.png, which appears to have been revised by a freshly minded user Sehend (talk · contribs) as Image:Azeri.Language.png.

When that new user added it to the article, it was reverted by Parishan, but it has come back again with a inflammatory edit summary. I am guessing that these different maps present different points of view; is there data/sources that supports each map? John Vandenberg (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, here's an ethnic map of Iran that shows the territory populated by ethnic Azeris, particularly with regards to the part that is open to question. Here's another one (bottom left corner) and two more: here and here. Parishan (talk) 09:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The map is misleading. VartanM (talk) 01:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

How so? Parishan (talk) 04:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately Parishan several times tired to push her personal Kurdish dream about Kurdistan in his map about Iranian Azerbaijan. As a geographical/historian/researcher we should have neutal point of views. If you want to see where was/is historical Azerbaijan of Iran, you can read article of History of the name Azerbaijan. You will see several historical map of Atropatane (Iranian Azerbaijan). Especially look at maps , Near_East-1835 and , Johnson_Map_of_Turkey_Persia and zoom on borders between historical Azerbaijan and historical Kurdish inhabited area. John Vandenberg is right. Texas university created some contrary maps. Maps , iran_peoples, ethnocaucasus, Kurdish lands-1, Kurdish lands-2 seeing all cities of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran are inhabited by Azerbajanis except south west part of it. Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province agree with that. But, unfortunately Texas university in maps 1 and [15] had a mistake and considered all cities of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran as Kurdish inhabited areas which is wrong if we look at historical maps showing Azerbaijani-inhabited areas. If we average maps of Kurdish-inhabited area and compare it with ethnolinguistic map of Iran and Wikipedia article of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran , we will find that , iran_peoples map at the moment is most commonly used map. Unfortunately people which have sympathy about Kurdistan always refer to maps created by Kurdish nationalist. Iranian Azeris doesn’t have high feeling to separate from Iran as their economical situation is better than other ethnics in Iran. So, they didn’t care about above mentioned claim of Kurdish people for West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. To understand where azeris in Iran live look at maps ,1 , 2 , 3 and 4. These maps are similar to the map of texas university , iran_peoples map except high lands near Turkish-Iran border which there is no any cities on that area. South West of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran is Kurdish inhabited area of historical Iranian Azerbaijan (Atropatane) as you can see in historical map , Near_East-1835 and always belong to Iranian Azerbijan. In Map Iran_Azeri_people you can see Iranian Azerbaijanis are inhabited in 9 provinces of Iran. It is based on Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran and maps , iran_peoples, [16] , [17] , [18] and [19]. I hope I could answer user John Vandenberg

User Irani74: Irani74, 5:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Azarbaijan, the same as Caucasus is name of a geographic region populated by various ethnic groups; The same as the large areas located to the north of Araxes is called Caucasus and is populated by Armenians, Ossetians, Georgians, Azeris (Turks), Kurds etc.. The large areas located south of Araxes inside Persia/Iran is called Azarbaijan and is populated by various ethnic groups: Talyshi, Armenian, Kurd, Azeri (Turks), etc..

Azarbaijan -south of Araxes, not be confused with the republic of Azarbaijan- is not the same as Turkish inhabited areas of Iran, (let's call it here Azaristan or Turkistan or Azeriland to avoid confusion.) At the same time Kurdistan is an ethnographic region, because the name Kurdistan is directly related to an ethnic group: the Kurds. But as you know and can read it in the articlehistory of the name Azarbaijan the name Azarbaijan was used for nortwestern part of Persia/iran even long before people today known as Azarbaijani Turks were around. Indeed it is Azarbaijani Turks who got their name from Azarbaijan not otherwise!! There were and are Turks in much of Asia and to distinguish Turks of Azarbaijan from other Turks of the world they were refered to as Azarbaijani Turks or since last decades simply as Azarbaijani.

To conclude it is quite common and ordinary to see Kurdistan overlap Azarbaijan the same as Armenia overlaps Caucasus. And for your information there are numerous sources from before 20th century which consider major cities of what is today known as west Azarbaijan province such as Urmia as being located in Iranian Kurdistan. But for now just to draw your attention see Encyclopedia Americana stating: Lake Van is in Turkish Kurdistan and Lake Urmia (Rez'iyeh) in Iranian Kurdistan. The Encyclopedia Americana, page 602, ISBN 0717201333, published 2000. Sharishirin (talk) 14:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

My answers to  Ali doostzadeh and  Sharishirin

Ali doostzadeh claim that Iranica has no such maps, I think it is not good to attribute false materials to Encyclopedias. Although his reason to help Parishan to push a non-realistic map which is based on their dream about Kurdistan (Kurdish inhabited territories of five countries). First of all, we expect you, Ali doostzadeh, Sharishirin and Parishan, to be honest and accurate. NO BODY CLAIM IRANICA HAS SUCH A MAP. I SAID IRANICA SAYS, The Encyclopedia Iranica states that the geographic extent of Azeri-speaking people goes "well beyond the boundaries of West Azarbaijan", demography part of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. If you are looking for historical borders between Iranian Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, you will find it in maps , Near_East-1835 and , Johnson_Map_of_Turkey_Persia and zoom on borders between historical Azerbaijan and historical Kurdish inhabited area. you can read article of History of the name Azerbaijan. You will see several historical maps of Atropatane (Iranian Azerbaijan). Referring to these historical maps, easily will come up that Ali doostzadeh , Sharishirinand Parishan reasons have no historical bases. [User: Ali doostzadeh| Ali doostzadeh]] you are right it is not good to attribute false materials to Encyclopedias, so judge yourself which map is false your map or , Near_East-1835 map. The Encyclopedia Iranica (above mentioned) statement about Azeri-speaking people of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran and demography part of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. You know that your map should not be contradicted of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran and The Encyclopedia Iranica (above mentioned) statement about Azeri-speaking people of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. By your map what you want to say, nobody is Azeri in cities of Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh). Any Iranian/Azeris/kurd knows they are cities with majority Azeris and minority Kurdish people. If you look at Wikipedia article about Kurdistan you will see that above mentioned cities are not in Kurdistan maps. See also texas university maps Kurdish lands-1 and Kurdish lands-2. You will find that all cities of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran are inhabited by Azerbaijanis except south west part of it. John Vandenberg is right. Texas University created some contrary maps. 1 and [20] had a mistake and considered all cities of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran as Kurdish inhabited areas which is wrong if we look at historical maps showing Azerbaijani-inhabited areas. Parishan and Ali doostzadeh favorite map is based on these misleading maps and have contrary with historical maps of Iranian Azerbaijan (, Near_East-1835 and , Johnson_Map_of_Turkey_Persia), which show clearly historical borders between Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran and The Encyclopedia Iranica (above mentioned) statement about Azeri-speaking people of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. Sharishirin you are right Iranian Azeribaijan include majority known as Azeri, kurds, Talyshi, kurds , Armenian and Assyrian minorities. See Wikipedia article about Azerbaijan (Iran). You can call Azeris as turks, median, central Asian, Albanians, Caucasians, Mannians, Aryans, Mongolian, etc. but, They are mixed of these ethnics. Any name you want to call them, they are living in a land called Azerbaijan of Iran. Nobody hide that in cities of Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh), azeris are majority and kurds are minority. See demography part of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. Why You misleading people? You mentioned that The Encyclopedia Americana, page 602, mentioned that Kurdish inhabited area starts from Lake Van is in Turkey and ends south west of Lake Urmia (Rez'iyeh) in Iran. Urmia city and Lake Urmia are different. These maps (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). I have to be disagree with you that all above mentioned maps clearly show that it is not common and ordinary to see Kurdistan overlap Azarbaijan. Armenia case is different. Azerbaijan and Armenia claim about Nagorno Karabakh has historical reason. Sometimes it was a part of Albanians and sometimes Armenian kings. But, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh), always was/be a part of Azerbaijan. I listed you and other users several historical and modern maps showing that they never be part of a Kurdistan or Kurdish inhabited areas. You will see that even Kurdish inhabited areas of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran in the area of south west of Lake Urmia are always inside Iranian Azerbaijan, but majorities in that area are kurds. So, if we want to show ethnographic, not map based on history, kingdoms and administrative divisions of Iran, you should consider south west of Lake Urmia as a part of such a map. It should be mentioned that highlands in border of Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkey there is no city except too small villages with sparse population. Nowadays, Because of PKK operation near Turkish-Iranian border, this highland area is going to have more sparse area. Indeed Iranian regime converted it to an Army zoom to operate against PKK. See Map Iran_Azeri_people

Parishan and Ali doostzadeh and Sharishirin please next time provide historical/geographical evidences to convince other users such as me , VartanM, John Vandenberg , Alex Bakharev and other users. Don’t dictate your map or misleading maps of texas university such as (1) to convince us to ignore historical map , Near_East-1835, The Encyclopedia Iranica (above mentioned) statement about Azeri-speaking people of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran and demography part of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. I wish peaceful live for all ethnics around the world. Our history helps us to understand our position and not attack other ethnics physically or in the virtual environment (Internet).

User Iran_74: Iran_74, 9:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't care about the content but you can not make a map outside of Wikipedia and then claim it is based on Joshua, Iranica, Britannica or etc. Maybe you don't agree with the Utexas map which is fine. Personally I think all maps that have demographic information on west Azerbaijan to be removed from Wikipedia since it is just a source of endless problem. But when you attribute your own map to an Encyclopedia it is not the right thing to do. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

And here is a historic map of northwestern Persia from 1724 which inlcudes Urmia in center of west azerbaijan province and Khoi in north into Iranian Kurdistan and Salmas and the rest into the Ottoman Kurdistan. http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Image:Northwestern_Persia.jpg. and FYI this is one of the dozens of historic maps which include much of the area of west Azerbaijan province into Kurdistan. Sharishirin (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

My answers to  Ali doostzadeh and  Sharishirin:

Dear Ali doostzadeh when you are telling you don’t care. It is not good statement for a postdoc and researcher like you. Don’t think people in Europe and America accepts ideas based on caring or not caring. If you show them evidences, they accept. You know that Ancient Iranian Azerbaijan is where based on historical maps. Suppose you don’t accept Encyclopedia Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, The Encyclopedia Americana, Wikipedia articles about Azerbaijan (Iran), West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh), please let Wikipedia users know you accept which references. If you accept Wikipedia which you are acting as an editor for that, look your favorite map and see why it is wrong and misleading. If you agree that it is misleading, don’t restore it to the Azerbaijani Language article. You told me that I attribute my own map to an Encyclopedia it is not the right thing to do. It means that you can add misleading map, but it cannot reflect facts mentioned in historical maps and Wikipedia articles, Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, The Encyclopedia Americana into a revised mp.

Dear Sharishirin: Again unfortunately, you did act accurate. A historic map of northwestern Persia from 1724 and another map Ancient_Kurdistan clearly shows that there was no any Kurdish kingdom at that time, if you zoom on that map you will see that Kurdish inhabited area on that time was from south-east turkey (Ottomanian empire) till south west of persia. I am reading you areas near Lake Urmia (you will see it wrote Turkoman). Turkoman who speak Azeri, one of Turkic troop who ruled Qara Qoyunlu kingdom Kara Koyunlu. See zoon you called it Iranian Kurdistan is south of ancient Azerbaijan (Iran) and your mentioned map didn’t highlighted any border for it. The same as for Assyrians. It means neither Kurds nor Assyrians had a kingdom on that time. They scattered between three kingdoms on that time. I fully investigated your mentioned map and map Ancient_Kurdistan by zooming in and these two maps reject your hypothesis about )]], West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh). You and other people can judge. Wishing peace to you and other Kurdish brothers, living in the peace and not claiming other ethnic lands as ours.

You're committing drastic falsifications and misenterpreting of encyclopedias. On the period which the map is showing there were Kurdish principalities in Iranian Kurdistan. The area to the west of lake Urmia was under rule of Mukri Kurds. The immigration of some turkman tribes to the area such as Qarapapaq or Afshar are all well documented and will add info on this matter soon. For now just educate yourself about history of presence of Kurds in western and eastern side of lake Urmia. Sharishirin (talk) 12:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

first of all you don't have right to delet my answers. you should provide historical or current facts. Again speaking without adding any referrence is terrible. you also need how to read a map. never kurds had a kingdom on that era. when you are telling about Mukri it shows you don't enough about kurdish ethnic groups. Mukri are only in south-wets of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran in cities like Mahabad. they don't have any thing to do with cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh). educate yourself and learn how to read maps. Next time reffere to correct maps. you know people like you can not mislead neutral users. All nationalist kurds repeat your hypothesis withour providing historical facts to convince people. Encyclopedia Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, The Encyclopedia Americana, Wikipedia articles about Azerbaijan (Iran), West Azarbaijan Province of Iran states cities Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh) have majority azeris. historical maps such as Near_East-1835 shows clearly historical borders of Azerbaijan and kurdistan.

Iranli74, 4:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

My answer to Alex Bakharev

Why you always appear in articles exactly after visited by Ali doostzadeh. Are you friends. Are you the same persons? how it is possible to be such a close users and track activities of each other every micro second!! You restored totally wrong and misleading map i am sure because Ali doostzadeh asked you. You are administrator but unfortunately a dictator. How many times I should show you historical evidence based on facts mentioned in historical maps and Wikipedia articles, Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, The Encyclopedia Americana that your restored map is wrong. Show me an acceptable fact that your restored map is correct. Referring to contrary maps of Texas university is misleading. Show historical evidence. I am sure you will never find any map includes West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh) in Kurdistan. Why you restored the wrong map and locked article Azerbaijani language? Do you have any reason for that? Any evidence? Any academic or historical reason? Or you are in love with Kurdistan and want to dictate wrong maps. Be neutral as you are an administrator. Don’t be a dictator. I am sure other users will ask the same question. Be ready for that and find answer for that. If you think that Azeri people and me will allow Kurdish lovers like you, Ali doostzadeh and [[User:Sharishirin| Sharishirin], We should inform you that never. I myself will continue debating with you and your close friend Ali doostzadeh to overcome your resistance to not provide acceptable historical evidences which agree with Wikipedia articles, , Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, The Encyclopedia Americana, etc. why you force wrong map which includes West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh) in Kurdistan. I provided lots of historical and current facts that your map is wrong. I and other Azeris wait to see your evidence to reject our facts.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 9:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

You are really not worth discussing :) Americana says even lake Urmia is inside Iranian Kurdistan and now you claim it as backing your nationalist claims. You say Kurds in Urmia are economically marginalized while it is clear for all that Kurds in Urmia possess the best cars, best houses etc and are much richer than Turks. You say Kurds live in border areas of west Azarbaijan province while the province by itself is a border province!! You say Kurdsl ive in highland areas, whille much of the province is mountainous. You say Pjak is forcing Kurdish populations from Kurdish highlands to cities of Salmas and Khoi i.e. indirectly confessing existence of Kurds in those cities too (contradicting yourself).

Anyhow I'm not talking about demographics because NEVER in history there was a census in the province based on ethnicities, but from a geographical point of view the same as you have indirectly confessed the majority of the landscape of the area has been and is inhabited by Kurds. and that is what the CURRENT map is trying to say. A map for geographical extent not demographical figures. End of story. Sharishirin (talk) 14:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Sharishirin: Again I have to help you how you can contribute in writing/editing an article.

>>I don't need help from a banned user with a history of racist personal attacks. 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

When you are stating a point, you should be able to defend your statement by providing an acceptable reference and document. I listed readers bunch of reference and people can go an read them if they are interested.

>>which sources? self-made maps? or maps made by nationalist groups? Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Again you are missing point when I am telling highland of west Azerbaijan is a sparse/army area. It doesn’t mean people from Kurdish villages go to Salmas, Khoy, etc. They can go anywere in Azerbaijan, Sanandaj, Iraq, etc.

>>where are your sources? Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

If you read Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, you will see that most cities have majority of Azeris and minority Kurds.

>>No when I checked I did not see that.I saw that southern cities are predominantly Kurdish and northwen cities ave a mixed population. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody ignore them. Some cities such as Mahabad have majority kurds. But it is inside historical Azerbaijan from the past till now.

>>Then what about the historic map (even older than yours) which even considers eastern part of lake Urmia inside Kurdistan?!!

>You may be not happy about that, but it is the fact. One more point don’t mislead us most part of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran is not highland and it have lots of cities. If you read for instance Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, take population of cities and find which ethnic is majority by doing little mathematics you will conclude Azeris are majority.

>>I did it and the result was 75% Kurdish and the rest turkoman and others. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran includes statistics of each city and information about majority ethnic of each city.

>>But it does not say how percenteage of for instance salmas is Kurdish. You may read it 49% Kurdish I may read it as 99% Kurdish. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Americana doesn’t say Lake urmia is inside what you call Kurdistan.

>>It does. page 602. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I am very careful what I am stating to avoid any contradiction. Come back and read my answer again. One friendly advice, don’t state something without any documented reference and provide your references for reader by giving hyperlink.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 12:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

>>This advise is usefull for yourself. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately almost all kurd nationalist like you are not enough educated. You always need citation to your statements. Your racist ideas masked your brain. I try to answer following questions to concern of neutral readers, not you who will never learn to act truly because I asked you to add references after your statement. We need citation with internet hyperlink.

>>don't need help from a banned user with a history of racist personal attacks. 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

you are not responding to me. You should answer and responsible for all users. You did crime one time and deleted my answer from discussion article. Your fellow brother, a Kurdish editor, Ali doostzadeh should be banned you because of your aggressive behavior, not me. Any way you both are Kurdish. In debates, you should not be aggressive, you should be responsible to your statements, doesn’t matter it is your friend or enemy.

>When you are stating a point, you should be able to defend your statement by providing an acceptable reference and document. I listed readers bunch of reference and people can go an read them if they are interested.

>>which sources? self-made maps? or maps made by nationalist groups? Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You don’t need to use nationalist group maps (neither azeris nor kurds). You should use neutral resources such as Iranica, Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, etc. if something has contrary concepts between these kinds of resources, users should avoid to use them or mention both sides.

>Again you are missing point when I am telling highland of west Azerbaijan is a sparse/army area. It doesn’t mean people from Kurdish villages go to Salmas, Khoy, etc. They can go anywere in Azerbaijan, Sanandaj, Iraq, etc.

>>where are your sources? Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

To understand where azeris in Iran live look at maps , iran_peoples .in high lands near Turkish-Iran border there is no any cities on that area. South West of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran is Kurdish inhabited area of historical Iranian Azerbaijan (Atropatane) as you can see in historical map , Near_East-1835 and always belong to [Iranian Azerbian|Azerbaijan (Iran)].

In another maps ethnocaucasus, Kurdish lands-1, Kurdish lands-2 you can see all cities of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran are inhabited by Azerbaijanis except south west part of it. Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province agree with that. I can provide more resources if any user need more to be convinced.

>If you read Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, you will see that most cities have majority of Azeris and minority Kurds.

>>No when I checked I did not see that.I saw that southern cities are predominantly Kurdish and northwen cities ave a mixed population. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

if you can not read that The Encyclopedia Iranica states that the geographic extent of Azeri-speaking people goes "well beyond the boundaries of West Azarbaijan" and that Kurdish people "are found in the border regions of the West Azerbaijan province", see demography part of Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran. From this statement it is clear that the Azeris as a major population of the province as well, see map of the province and consider that there is no any city in highland who kurds live, you will easily conclude that Azeris are majority in the province. I will do statistical analysis in next part to prove it mathematically.

>Nobody ignore them. Some cities such as Mahabad have majority kurds. But it is inside historical Azerbaijan from the past till now.

>>Then what about the historic map (even older than yours) which even considers eastern part of lake Urmia inside Kurdistan?!!

which maps you mean following maps?

A historic map of northwestern Persia from 1724 and another map Ancient_Kurdistan clearly shows that there was no any Kurdish kingdom at that time, if you zoom on that map you will see that Kurdish inhabited area on that time was from south-east turkey (Ottomanian empire) till south west of persia. I am reading you areas near Lake Urmia (you will see it wrote Turkoman). Turkoman who speak Azeri, one of Turkic troop who ruled Qara Qoyunlu kingdom Kara Koyunlu. See zoon you called it Iranian Kurdistan is south of ancient Azerbaijan (Iran) and your mentioned map didn’t highlighted any border for it. The same as for Assyrians. It means neither Kurds nor Assyrians had a kingdom on that time. They scattered between three kingdoms on that time. I fully investigated your mentioned map and map Ancient_Kurdistan by zooming in and these two maps reject your hypothesis about )]], West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, cities with majority azeris, Urmia, khoy, Naghadeh, Salmas and Chaldoran ((Siahcheshmeh). You and other people can judge.

>You may be not happy about that, but it is the fact. One more point don’t mislead us most part of West Azarbaijan Province of Iran is not highland and it have lots of cities. If you read for instance Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, take population of cities and find which ethnic is majority by doing little mathematics you will conclude Azeris are majority.

>>I did it and the result was 75% Kurdish and the rest turkoman and others. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

above mentioned statements, Encyclopedia Iranica, , Britannica, Joshua, Ethologue.com, etc. reject your hypothesis and state that the Azeris as a major population of the province.

>Wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran includes statistics of each city and information about majority ethnic of each city.

>>But it does not say how percenteage of for instance salmas is Kurdish. You may read it 49% Kurdish I may read it as 99% Kurdish. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

it shows that you don’t know mathematics. When wikipeida article says for instance Urmia has population 644,091 and comprise of Azeris and kurds, it means that in this city Azeris are majority in the city . If our aim is to find which one is majority in whole province, we should use average statistics for that city. As Majority gives us ratio between [60%-90%], you can consider in worse case 60% (386,485), in high case 90% (579682) and in average 75% (483,069). With similar calculation for other cities azeris: Naghadeh (57078), Salmas(21352), Khoy(137240), Miandoab (143,522), Shahindej (11,152), Qareh Zia' od Din (26190), chaldoran (Siahcheshmeh) (10,500) and Maku (32,748). So, Total population of Azeris in average is 922,851 out of 1388854 (population of whole province except south-west part of the province which dominated by kurds). So, Azeris are 67% (kurds, 33%) in average in the West Azarbaijan Province of Iran , except south-west (near Iraq border and south-west Lake Urmia after city Naghadeh) , which azeris don’t live there. This pure Kurdish inhabited area (south-west) has population 476665 (24.5% of total population of the province) and includes cities Mahabad, Sardasht, Oshnaviyeh, Piranshahr and Bukan. I did this statistic calculation for neutral users, not kurdish user Sharishirin.

Historically south-west of the province was/is populated by kurds but it was always inside historical Azerbaijan (Atropatane).Nowadays, there was a request from central government to exclude south-west of the province and historical Atropatane (Azerbaijan) to create a new province so-called Mukrian with Center Mahabad. But it was rejected by Tehran because Azeris are majority in Teharan and well-integrated in the Iranian government (always Azeris occupied several ministers and supriom leader of Iran is Azeri; before revolution Reza khan was half-Azeri, Khatamei former president is half-Azeri, current president is claimed to be Azeri and can speak Azeri fluently).They just accept to indicate Mahabad as a special zoon and established local Kurdish/Persian TV in the city which can be watched in south-west Azerbaijan province. It should be mentioned that province itself has a TV called West-Azerbaijan local Azeri/Persian/Kurdish TV broadcasting from Urmia and whole province and some parts of East Azerbaijan province can watch it. In general, if one ethnic lives as a majority in a historical city or area such as south-west part of West Azerbaijan, it doesn’t help them to start claim being independent. Kurds for hundreds of years .

>Americana doesn’t say Lake urmia is inside what you call Kurdistan.

>>It does. page 602. Sharishirin (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody can believe such a claim. As I read it means south-west of Lake Urmia is dominated by kurds and other cities around Lake are mixed cities with majority Azeri and minority kurds. By the way you can scan that page and add as an image to the Wikipedia. Then people can compare it with statements of other encyclopedias to extract common sense statement.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 9:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear interested users: :User Ali doostzadeh suggested following statment:

if there is a demographic map, lets just show it as dashed. I am not going to get involved more in this discussion, but :ultimately if this sort of thing ends in edit wars, r.v.'s and etc., it will not go anywhere except higher powers in :Wikipedia will say show it as dashed. So before it goes there, I think showing it as dashed is the best solution. Also we :are not allowed to make maps in Wikipedia. one can make a map showing the region as dashed and this will hopefully solve :the problem. Other than that I have no further comments.--alidoostzadeh (talk) 00:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks user Ali doostzadeh for his suggestion. i agree with him that demographic map always should not have any contrary with wikipedia articles. For instance map Azerilanguage, critically contradicts with wikipedia article about West Azarbaijan Province of Iran which shows all cities are linguistically mixed of Azeris, kurds, Assyrians, except Miandoab (only Azeris) and south-west of the province (only kurds). I will edit map Iran_Azeri_people and will post as an image to the Wikipedia and can be referred to articles Azeri language, Azeris, Iranian Azerbaijan, etc. I wish living peaceful for all Iranian and doesn’t matter they are Persian, Azeri, Gilaki and Mazandarani , Kurd, Arab, Lur, Baloch, Turkmen, Assyrian, Armeniran, etc. They all are Iranian and live in great Iran with long history of living its people in peace.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 10:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear interested users and Ali doostzadeh:

As I promised, I edited map Iran_Azeri_people to map Iran_Azeripeoples_2008 and is ready to located at Azeri-related articles such as articles Azeri language, Azeris, Iranian Azerbaijan, etc. I hope that it will convince most people and will not be reverted by other users. Any not-biased and neutral comment is welcome.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 12:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I totally disagree, this Iranchi still is unable to distinguish between the majority of the area and the majority of the inhabitants. The majority of the inhabtitans has a demographical concept and means population (جمعیت) of province ad since there has been never a cenus basd on ethnicities in this province it will be never proven who is majority there. The majority of the area has a geographical concept (مناطق) and this is what has been tried to be shown on the maps. east of the cities of salmas and Khoi and Urmia is turkoman plus north of Miandoab Sayinqala and Takab and northeast of Naqada. this is what has been showed on all neutral and academic non-Kurdish non-turkoman maps, examples listed bellow. and the turkoman areas (not to be confuded with turkoman population of the province) forms a small portion of the geography of the province. this is what user iranchi (and all his banned socks) is trying to smartly pretend that is unable to understand. like generally uneducated turkoman nationalists who cannot understand that Babak is not the same as Baybak! :) http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Image:Iran-Ethnicity-2004.PNG Image:Kurdish-inhabited area by CIA (1992).jpg http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/06/iran_maps/html/default.stm http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Image:Iran_peoples.jpg http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Image:Kurdish-inhabited_area_by_CIA_%281992%29.jpg also Iranica says the geographic extent of Azeri-speaking people goes well beyond the boundaries of West Azarbaijan province that is true as showed above, wherever west azerbaijan has borders with east azarbaijan the area is turkoman-speaking, but as explained above unfortunately it does not form a significant portion of the landscape of the province. I'd like also to add following academic sources to see how they say most of west azerbaijan province is Kurdish and not turkoman. [21] [22] Conclusion: the current map Image:Azerilanguage.png does not exclude turkman areas of west azarbaijan province of Iran. If not the west azarbaijan province is wider than the narrow area showed as non-Oghuz speaking; there is No need to dash Kurdish areas of northern regions markd as olive on the carrent map. Sharishirin (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Based on the same analogue and logic of the self-made map proposed by user Iranchi, I'd like to rpopose this map: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Image:Iran_Azaripeoples_2008.PNG @Iranchi, I don't remember I've deleted your comments anywhere, (show diffs please). Also you should be ashamed of this extremely racist personal attacks you commited with your previous account here. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Azerbaijani_language&diff=178635109&oldid=178596463 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Azerbaijani_language&diff=178746679&oldid=178682198 Sharishirin (talk) 11:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all I see you couldn’t teach yourself statistics. You referred to map of BCC which everybody knows they are not an academic/ encyclopedia/research center and nobody accept them as a reference in Wikipedia, you can ask editors/administrators. Another point, you listed three misleading maps. Your first map is handmade, not published by CIA. CIA never published any map. CIA just reported this fact for Iran. Your third map is what I used in my new map and contradicts with your other maps but agree with Kurdistan map. You are not Iranian because you don’t know that nowadays there is Turkoman in Iran and only you can find them in Northern Iraq. See Wikipedia Article about Iraq, Demographics part. Iranian Azerbaijani call themselves Tork (turk) or Azeri. Educate yourself about Iran and its ethnic groups. You add two new sources. But in its article about Kurds, it doesn’t say Cities Urmia, Khoy, etc. are Kurdish-inhabited or Azeri-inhabited. But it clearly say in its another article about Azerbaijanis. Look at article Azerbaijanis. In the fourth line it says Lake Urmia is inside Azerbaijani-inhabited area in Iran. In the line 7, says ‘Major Azarbaijani cities include Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan, Khoy, and Maragheh’. So, this reference completely rejects your hypothesis. Your second reference is a book of a Kurdish writers with biased ideas about Iran. I can list several books that says west Azerbaijan and urmia are populated by only azeri s. See: • H. Anzali, Urumiyah dar guzar-i zaman ("Urmia in the course of time"). ISBN 964-6614-07-8 p49, (2000) • A. Kaviyanpur, Tarikh-i iyah ("The History of Urmia"), ISBN 964-91860-6-9 p421, (1999) Your accuracy almost is too low. You need to practice and attend course scientific writing in your university if you are still student. Your idea to accept or reject my new map is not important and nobody care about that. Your created map is much worse and wrong than what Parishan created and added and nobody will accept that. I have one suggestion for you, try to add your map in Kurdish-related articles which mostly spam by kurds. More people can support you,but be sure even kurds will note vote your map, because Iranian knows that in East Azarbaijan province of Iran, there is no any kurd. You don’t know enough about iran administrative divisions. You added a part of Lake Urmia as mixed populated area. Your geography and map reading is zero. That’s way even kurds will not support your fake map. As user Ali doostzadeh said ‘uncivil language will get you banned. So if there is a demographic map, lets just show it as dashed. I am not going to get involved more in this discussion, but ultimately if this sort of thing ends in edit wars, r.v.'s and etc., it will not go anywhere except higher powers in Wikipedia will say show it as dashed. So before it goes there, I think showing it as dashed is the best solution’. So, if you want to continue acting as an extremely biased user with not enough information about Iran, and try to force such a worse maps you will face problem because higher powers in Wikipedia will say show whole West Azarbaijan as dashed and administrators will stop you from spamming wrong maps. I don’t need to discuss any more with you which is useless and prefer to discuss with other users about azeri-related articles when articles are unlocked.

User Iranli74: Iranli74, 20:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You can say 500 million Turkomans or uyghurs live in urmia but that does not change the fact that majority of the lands inside west arzarbaijan province is Kurdish and not altaic since urmia only covers a small area and on such maps can only be marked as a dot (yek noqtaye koochak). secondly I use the word turkoman because you yourself confessed that the turkic speaking people of Azarbaijan are nothing but recent immigrants to Azarbaijan by claiming turkomans as your ancestors.

And sure I am Iranian and unlike turks of iran who are descendants of hordes of Changiz and Hulagu, who massacred and destroyed and burnt Iran I'm a grandchild of those Aryans who built Iran millenna before Turkic people even knew where is Azarbaijan.

And finally the map made by me was a sarcastc reaction to show how self-made maps are unrealistic and to avoid OR (something Ali doostzadeh always used to reject untill recently) let's to stick with academic published maps instead; . Sharishirin (talk) 19:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

To those who consider western academic maps and sources as a conspiracy:

I would ask them are they sinking to the theories of Nasser Pourpirar who says all western sources about Iran have a conspiracy behind them? Then If so, what would you say if one claims the conspiracy is from central regimes of Iran which all hate non-Shiite Kurds and try to belittle their existence by lablelling them as Altaics (read shia's)?! Who got a better stand to claim as being victim of conpiracy here? Also one can claim that central regime of Iran intends to creat Kurdo-Altaic disunity snce central regime fears their union? Who got a better stand to claim as being victim of conpiracy here? let's wake up and stick with neutral academic sources. Sharishirin (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Tag

Looking for update and addition of some references. There does not seem to be much information on Shirvani dialect of Azerbaijani, so perhaps, someone could provide those sources. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Grammar of language sorely needed

K, I know this was raised by another person here, but this article sorely needs a grammar section, like most other language pages in Wiki. Here are some basic questions to get it started:

What is the word order? It is fusional, agglunitative, analytical, or something else?
How do verbs operate? What would the conjugation of Azeri verbs look like? What are the tenses, moods, and aspects in Azeri? (Just remember to be careful with this - there is a huge controversy over whether the conditional should be a tense, a mood, or an aspect.)
What are the pronouns in Azeri?
How are adjectives formed? Do they agree with nouns in case, person, number, etc.?

That should provide something basic for a grammar section, n'est-ce pas? --64.223.41.156 (talk) 18:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There are two main varieties of Azerbaijani: North Azerbaijani language and South Azerbaijani language. They differ not only in the writing system involved but lexically and, to a lesser extent, phonologically and grammatically. The Standard variety of Azerbaijani described in most grammars is North Azerbaijani. So a detailed description of grammar should be placed there. A broad discussion of grammar may be placed here, but unless examples are transcribed phonemically, it is not appropriate to put the Cyrillic- or Roman-based orthographies in this article. (Taivo (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC))

A broad overview of grammar could work, transcribed in IPA (if possible). Then, we can get the grammars for North and South Azerbaijani. --64.223.51.187 (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

bad reference

The reference in the intro section to "anthropologist Patricia Higgins" cites only a page range with no reference to the source:

Generally, Azeris in Iran have been, "a well integrated linguistic minority", according to academics such as anthropologist Patricia Higgins.<ref name="ISBN6">pp.188-191</ref>

Thnidu (talk) 19:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The text at that point also appears in the article Demographics of Iran complete with the same poorly done footnote. I appears that the footnote was taken in toto from another work. I was unable to find what work that might have been, but I was able to find an article where Patricia J. Higgins says exactly that, on page 59 of Higgins, Patricia J. (1984) "Minority-State Relations in Contemporary Iran" Iranian Studies 17(1): pp. 37-71. I doubt whether her name belongs in the main text though. I do wish that editors had a simple web-based training course for citation production, so that others of us wouldn't have to spend as much time trying to retrace their steps. --Bejnar (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I backtracked the edit from this article to the Demographics of Iran article, back to a merger from Iranians (citizens of Iran) at 01:27, 27 March 2008 by User:69.116.249.153; back to a copy edit from I believe Azeris in Iran (now Iranian Azeris) which was created on 02:40, 21 August 2006 edit from text from the Azerbaijani people article. The original was added in this edit at 20:11, 10 June 2006 by Tombseye. Tombseye provided the following footnote, but no page numbers: The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner, Part II: Iran. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, N.Y. (1988), ISBN 0-8156-2248-4 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum (retrieved 9 June 2006). I suspect that whatever text was in Banuazizi and Weiner was quoting the Higgins article above, but I won't know until I find a copy. The Ibids are equally spurious being attached to I believe Shaffer. --Bejnar (talk) 23:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

In looking at the table of contents of Banuazizi and Weiner in WorldCat, I found that it reprinted Prof. Higgins' 1984 article "Minority-State Relations in Contemporary Iran". By the way, it was published in 1986, not 1988. --Bejnar (talk) 23:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Non-consensus move

Article was moved without a consensus. Grandmaster (talk) 08:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Grandmaster that moves which are already or might become controversial should be discussed on the talk page first and noticed at Wikipedia:Requested moves. I see that Grandmaster corrected the complained of move at 08:28, 19 October 2008. That being said, I think that Azeri language is a better title because it more accurately reflects overall usage. --Bejnar (talk) 17:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Both ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue, as well as nearly every other linguistic source, calls this language Azerbaijani, not Azeri. Azeri may be the proper label for the people, but the linguistic literature nearly universally calls the language Azerbaijani. (Taivo (talk) 20:21, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

Well, non-linguists call the language Azeri, as well as calling the people Azeri. Are we going for technical name or common name here? --Bejnar (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Should we call chemicals by their technical name or their common name? Should we have an article labelled "ibuprofen" (the technical name) or "Advil" (the common name that everyone seems to use, at least in the U.S.)? Perhaps the analogy isn't perfect, but it points up the basic problem. Linguists are the experts when it comes to the language articles--their technical terms should carry more weight. (Taivo (talk) 07:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC))

Your Advil example is possibly inapposite. While "Advil" is a brand name, in my neck-of-the-woods people usually say "ibruprofen" (not "Ibuprofen"), it may be regional (I also hear "motrin"). However, they do say "tylinol" (not Tylenol) instead of "acetaminophen" or "paracetamol", and "sudafed" or "pseudofed" for "pseudoephedrine". But the result is that there are two Wikipedia articles for each of those, one under the (as you say more common) brand name and the other under the technical name. The chemical example is exactly on point. The article is Lead not Plumbum (see also the German Wikipedia where it is Blei not Plumbum. There are articles on both "salt" and "sodium chloride". To quote Wikipedia:Naming conventions, "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." The first General convention is: "Use common names of persons and things". --Bejnar (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The key word above is "English" speakers. While "Azeri" may be more common internationally among non-English speakers, the majority of English speakers are going to use and recognize "Azerbaijani". (Taivo (talk) 08:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC))

Where are you getting your data from? I have found that Azeri is used in English quite a lot. A quick Nexis search of major English language news sources retrieved 64 documents from the last 2 years that referred to the language as Azeri. A typical example was the obituary for Paul Bergne in The Guardian (17 April 2007, p.36), which said "A posting in Iran gave him the opportunity to perfect his Persian, but he also took the chance to learn some Azeri, the language of Azerbaijan, which gave him the key to other Turkic languages." Or this from The Sunday Times ("Tongues tied" 27 July 2008, p.17) "Only after the USSR dissolved in 1991 did the government permit the BBC to start broadcasts in Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Ukrainian and Uzbek, the languages of former republics." Anne Applebaum in an article about Radio Free Europe in The Washington Post ("Radio To Stay Tuned To" 22 April 2008, p.A-19) said: "Nevertheless, the query bothered me, because Radio Free Europe -- the Cold War news service that was, for decades, the only source of independent information in Eastern Europe -- does exist. In fact, it's as important as it ever was, at least in the 21 countries and 28 languages in which it is still often the only source of independent information: Farsi for Iran, Arabic for Iraq, Dari and Pashto for Afghanistan, plus Turkmen, Azeri, Belarusan, Georgian, Chechen, Tajik, Albanian, Serbian and Russian, among others." --Bejnar (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

English language linguistic and encyclopedic sources uniformly use "Azerbaijani" as well as the international standards mentioned before (ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue). Your comment about "Plumbum" is also not relevant since the element is never referred in English to as anything other than "Lead", just as "Tungsten" is never referred to as "Wolfram", nor is "Potassium" referred to as "Kalium". And "Pound" is the technical measurement and not whatever "lb" stands for. Wikipedia should not be getting its terminology from newspapers, but from the people who are the specialists in the field. Journalists are not linguists, and often not even well-versed in the cultural/political/anthropological milieu in which they work. You should also read the entire Talk page here. Look above this at the subsection labelled Azerbaijani/Azerbaijanian. There you will see the results of a Google search where English language pages that use Azerbaijani far and away outnumber English language pages that use Azeri. So your Nexus search may show a few instances of Azeri, but a Google search yields hundreds of thousands more uses of Azerbaijani. Now if you want to refer to the results for "X language" specifically in the above section, then "Azerbaijani(an) language" still exceeds "Azeri language" in number of Google hits. But even counting only "Azerbaijani language" and "Azeri language" the number of hits for each in a Google search are virtually identical, therefore technical usage should prevail. There is just no preponderence of the evidence showing that English speakers prefer "Azeri" over "Azerbaijani". (Taivo (talk) 10:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC))

I did not say that "English speakers prefer "Azeri" over "Azerbaijani"", I said that non-linguists tend to use the term. I would suppose that most English speakers who are interested in the language are linguists. Taivo said above: "Wikipedia should not be getting its terminology from newspapers, but from the people who are the specialists in the field." By all means Wikipedia should strive to understand and explain the terminology of specialists in the field. It does not follow that Wikipedia articles should use that terminology, especially in titles. In fact, according to the Manual of Style, Wikipedia articles should avoid technical terminology in titles. Lastly, I prefer newspapers over web accumulation (a Google search) because I believe they are more reliable. Web accumulations are filled with self-serving blogs and webpages and replicated misinformation. For hard fact I prefer technical publications, but I don't believe that the Wikipedia is intended to be a technical publication. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook or textbook. --Bejnar (talk) 18:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Using the logic of ignoring technical usage, then the article on Apatosaurus should be Brontosaurus since that is what most Americans know that creature as. Paleontologists be damned, it's a Brontosaurus, not an Apatosaurus! :p And since most Americans say "the Ukraine" rather than the technically correct "Ukraine", then that should be the title of that article as well. The truth is that common usage is often misguided, overgeneralized, underspecified, and sometimes downright wrong. Wikipedia has a nice Redirect feature for cross-referencing common terms to technical terms. (Taivo (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC))

Wikipedia has a nice Redirect feature for cross-referencing technical terms to common terms. --Bejnar (talk) 20:04, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Lead redo

I find that the current state of the lead is disorganized and fails to provide a summary of the article, as suggested by the Manual of Style. I propose moving everything after the first sentence out of the lead and into either (1) the Distribution of speakers section or (2) the Dialects section, as appropriate, with the exception of the sentence "Generally, Azeris in Iran were regarded as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to Iran's Islamic Revolution." which I believe does not belong in this article at all, and is already present in the Demographics of Iran, Iranian Azeris, and Azerbaijani people articles. Since a number of those to-be-moved sentences refer to varieties and not dialects, the Dialects section might be renamed "Varieties and dialects". If variety is just a poor choice of word, then could those sentences be reworded so that they provided an introduction at the beginning of the Dialects section? What do other editors think? After the lead is cleared out, then a couple of summarizing sentences could be added, such as "Like Turkish and Georgian it is an agglutinative language." Comments? --Bejnar (talk) 08:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

On the dialect/variety issue, both ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue divide "Azerbaijani" into two "languages". However, there is a certain amount of mutual intelligibility between the two. The "dialect" division is problematic since it flies in the face of the international standards in calling these separate languages. Therefore about a year ago a conscious decision was made to use the word "variety" to describe North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani just as Arabic is divided into varieties without comment on mutual intelligibility or international recognition as separate. The two varieties of Azerbaijani should still be listed as two varieties and not subsumed under either the "language" or "dialect" labels. "Variety" is an appropriate term based on its use in other situations where ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue have listed subordinate forms as separate "languages", not "dialects". (Taivo (talk) 08:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC))

I redid the lead in accordance with the 20 November 2008 proposal above. I added one sentence under /*Varieties and dialects*/ about Khalaj, Qashqa'i, and Salchuq, since they were not mentioned. I hope that these changes are seen as an improvement. It did get rid of some duplication. --Bejnar (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)