Azerbaijani (Azeri)

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Azeri, or Azerbaijani, the official language of Azerbaijan, is a Turkic language spoken by 25 to 30 million people, mainly in Azerbaijan and Iran.
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Discover the language

Azeri, or Azerbaijani, is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch, related to Turkish (with which it forms a dialectal continuum), Gagauz and Turkmen. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 25 to 30 million people, mainly in Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia (especially Dagestan), Turkey and Georgia, as well as in the diaspora (the dialects of Iraqi Turkmen are also often considered variants of Azeri).

Modern Azeri evolved from common Oghuz and passed through stages such as Old Anatolian Turkish (language of the western area of the Seljuk Empire) and Middle Azeri (Safavid court language and one of the three great medieval Turkic literary languages, alongside Ottoman Turkish and Chaghatai), under the marked influence of neighboring languages, notably Iranian.

Historically, Azeri played the role of lingua franca in much of the South Caucasus, southern Dagestan, northwestern Iran and part of eastern Anatolia, but this function declined considerably in the 20th century due to the increasing predominance of Russian, Persian and Turkish standard languages.

Today Azeri enjoys official status only in Azerbaijan and is recognized as one of the indigenous languages of Dagestan.

The modern literary standard is based on eastern dialects. In addition to its Turkic-inherited vocabulary, Azeri features a significant lexical layer of Arabic, Persian and European origin.

Since the earliest writings, Azeri has been transcribed in the Perso-Arabic alphabet, before switching to the Latin alphabet in the 1920s, then to Cyrillic in the late 1930s, returning to Latin in 1991. Perso-Arabic and Cyrillic alphabets continue to be used in certain contexts in Iran and Russia, respectively.

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Training courses

Eight Azeri language courses are offered in the LLCER bachelor's degree in Eurasian languages, spread over two levels. Accessible as an in-depth study in certain languages, they can also be taken as an opening course in L2 and/or L3 (refer to the brochures). These courses can also be chosen as part of a Passport.

Courses offered:

  • The first level comprises four courses, or two per semester: two are devoted to learning grammar, and two to text analysis.
  • For the second level, four courses are offered, or two per semester: two grammar courses and two text analysis courses.