Azerice

Azerice, or Azerbaijani, is a Turkic language of the Oghuz subgroup spoken primarily in the Republic of Azerbaijan and in Iran, with communities in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey. It is the most widely spoken language in Azerbaijan and one of the major Turkic languages of the region.

It exists in two major standard varieties: North Azerbaijani, spoken in Azerbaijan, and South Azerbaijani, spoken in Iran. The two varieties are mutually intelligible to a high degree but have distinct norms, vocabulary, and usage in education and media.

Writing systems: In Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani has used a Latin-based alphabet since 1991, having switched from the Cyrillic script during the Soviet period. In Iran, Azerbaijani is typically written with a Perso-Arabic script. Historical scripts include Cyrillic used in the Soviet era and various Perso-Arabic adaptations.

Linguistic characteristics: Azerbaijani is an agglutinative language with extensive suffixation and vowel harmony, and it generally follows a subject–object–verb word order. It has borrowed extensively from Persian, Russian, and Arabic, and shows regional lexical variation between the North and South varieties.

Status and literature: It is the official language of Azerbaijan, used in education, government, and mass media. A rich literary tradition exists alongside modern journalism and fiction, with active writing and publishing in both North and South Azerbaijani communities.