Three different scripts are used to write Azerbaijani today: Latin, Arabic and Cyrillic.
North Azerbaijani is written in the Latin script in the Republic of Azerbaijan. After the fall of the Soviet Union and independence, the country switched from Cyrillic to Latin in 1991.
South Azerbaijani has been written in Arabic script Iranian Azerbaijan since the Safavid Empire.
In the Dagestan Republic of Russia, North Azerbaijani is still written in Cyrillic.
Latin alphabet
The Azerbaijani Latin alphabet consists of 32 letters. +Azerbaijani Latin alphabet Uppercase A B C Ç D E Ə F G Ğ H X I İ J K Q L M N O Ö P R S Ş T U Ü V Y Z Lowercase a b c ç d e ə f g ğ h x ı i j k q l m n o ö p r s ş t u ü v y z Names a be ce çe de e ə fe ge ğe he xe ı i je ke qe el em en o ö pe er se şe te u ü ve ye ze
History From the nineteenth century, intellectuals like Mirza Fatali Akhundov and Mammad agha Shahtakhtinski attempted to replace Arabic script with a Latin alphabet for Azerbaijani.
Akhundov argued that the Arabic alphabet's structure made literacy difficult for the general population and kept education under a small elite.
Akhundov's views on alphabet reform developed over about twenty years. Initially, he proposed keeping the Arabic alphabet’s basic structure, removing dots, and adding marks for unwritten vowels. Next, he suggested letters be written separately, each with a distinct form. Finally, he recommended a Latin-based alphabet, written left to right, clearly representing all vowels.
Akhundzade promoted his “New Alphabet Project” in political and intellectual centers. In 1863, he presented it in Istanbul to Fuad Pasha and Ali Pasha, and it was discussed at the Cemiyyet-i İlmiyye-i Osmaniyye. Although the Arabic alphabet's defects were acknowledged, Akhundzade's project received no official support due to technical printing difficulties and political conditions. From 1857, he also submitted proposals to Iranian authorities, but they were not officially accepted.
In 1922, a Latin alphabet was created by the USSR-sponsored Yeni türk əlifba komitəsi (New Turkic Alphabet Committee; ) in Baku. This committee hoped that the new alphabet would divide the Azerbaijanis in the USSR from those living in Iran. The Soviet Union also hoped that a Latin alphabet would help secularize Azerbaijan's Muslim culture. Alphabet reforms had previously been rejected by the Azerbaijani religious establishment, on the grounds that the Arabic script, the language of the Qur’an, was "holy and should not be tampered with."Mirza Fatali Akhundov: Alphabet Reformer Before His Time by Dr. Farid Alakbarov, AZER.com at Azerbaijan International, Vol. 8:1 (Spring 2000), pp. 50-53.
There was some historical basis for the reform, which received overwhelming support at the First Turkology Congress in Baku during 1926,Garibova, Jala and Betty Blair. Arabic or Latin? Reform for the Price of a Battleship Debates at the First Turkology Congress hosted by Baku in 1926. AZER.com at Azerbaijan International, Vol. 8:1 (Spring 2000), pp. 58-61. where the reform was voted by 101 to 7.
The Azerbaijani poet Samad Vurgun declared, "Azerbaijani people are proud of being the first among Oriental nations that buried the Arabic alphabet and adopted the Latin alphabet. This event is written in golden letters of our history".
From 1922 to 1929, both Arabic and Latin scripts were used in Soviet texts printed in Azerbaijan; in 1929, the Latin script officially replaced the Arabic script.
In 1933, the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet was reformed to match the alphabets of other Soviet Turkic languages (see Yañalif, Uniform Turkic Alphabet).Г. Г. Исмаилова (G. G. Ismailova). К истории азербайджанского алфавита // Вопросы совершенствования алфавитов тюркских языков СССР / Н. А. Баскаков. — Moscow: Наука (Nauka) Publishers, 1972. — P. 28—40 (in Russian). The reform changed certain glyphs and certain letters' phonetic values. In 1939 Joseph Stalin ordered the discontinuation of the Azerbaijani Latin script, and ordered that Azerbaijani be written in Cyrillic script,Anar Rezayev: Personal Reflections on the History of Alphabet Reform [Cyrillic] AZER.com at Azerbaijan International, Vol. 8:1 (Spring 2000), p. 54. to sever the Soviet Azerbaijani Turks' ties with the Turkish people in the Republic of Turkey.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Azerbaijan gained its independence, one of the first laws passed in the new Parliament was the adoption of a new Latin-script alphabet. From 1991 to 2001, there was a transitional period, when both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were accepted. Since 2001, the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet has been the official alphabet of the Azerbaijani language in the Republic of Azerbaijan.Bayatly, Tamam. Alphabet Transitions: Chronology of the New Latin Script. AZER.com in Azerbaijan International, Vol 5:2 (Summer 1997), pp. 22-24.
Historical Variations
From 1922 until 1933: Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ƣƣ, Hh, Ii, , Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ꞑꞑ, Oo, Ɵɵ, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Xx, Yy, Zz, Ƶƶ, Ɜɜ, ' (apostrophe) From 1933 until 1939: Aa, Bʙ, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ƣƣ, Hh, Ii, Ьь, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ꞑꞑ, Oo, Ɵɵ, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Vv, Xx, Уy, Zz, Ƶƶ, ' (apostrophe) From 1939 until 1958: Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Ғғ, Дд, Ее, Әә, Жж, Зз, Ии, Йй, Кк, Ҝҝ, Лл, Мм, Нн, Оо, Өө, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Үү, Фф, Хх, Һһ, Цц, Чч, Ҹҹ, Шш, Ыы, Ээ, Юю, Яя, ' (apostrophe) From 1958 until 1991: Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Ғғ, Дд, Ее, Әә, Жж, Зз, Ии, Ыы, Јј, Кк, Ҝҝ, Лл, Мм, Нн, Оо, Өө, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Үү, Фф, Хх, Һһ, Чч, Ҹҹ, Шш, ' (apostrophe) From 1991 until 1992: Aa, Ää, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz Since 1992 (current version): Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz +Azerbaijani alphabets, 1922–present1922–1933AaBʙCcÇçDdEeƏəFfƢƣGgHhXxIiƵƶQqKkLlMmNnꞐꞑOoƟɵPpRrSsꞫɜTtYyUuVvJjZz1933–1939ÇçCcGgƢƣЬьKkQqŞşUuУy1939–1958АаБбҸҹЧчДдЭэӘәФфҜҝҒғҺһХхЫыИиЖжКкГгЛлМмНнОоӨөПпРрСсШшТтУуҮүВвЙйЗз1958–1991ЕеЈј1991–1992AaBbCcÇçDdEeÄäFfGgĞğHhXxIıİiJjKkQqLlMmNnOoÖöPpRrSsŞşTtUuÜüVvYyZz1992–presentƏəIPA, Current alphabet The Azerbaijani alphabet is the same as the Turkish alphabet, except for Әə, Xx, and Qq, which do not exist as separate phonemes in Turkish.
There are several important changes between the modern Latin Azerbaijani alphabet and its predecessors. Ğğ has replaced the historic Ƣƣ. The dotless Iı has replaced the historic I with bowl Ьь. The lowercase form of the letter B was changed from small capital ʙ to the usual b, while the uppercase form of the letter y was also changed from a Cyrillic-looking У to the usual Y. The dotted İi has replaced the historic soft-dotted Ii, with the addition of the tittle on its uppercase counterpart. Additionally, I is now the uppercase counterpart of ı, while i is the lowercase counterpart of İ. Jj has replaced the historic Ƶƶ. Öö has replaced the historic Ɵɵ. Üü has replaced the historic Yy Yy has replaced the historic Jј. Әə was replaced by Ää, which was placed between Aa and Bb, but was then changed back to Әə, placed between Ee and Ff in the alphabet. Consequently, Jj, Yy, and some other several letters (Cc, Çç) have also changed their phonetic values in comparison with the historical alphabet.
The sounds and in loanwords were rendered respectively as q and ƣ in the Latin alphabet of 1933, but as к and г in Cyrillic and are rendered as k and q in the current Latin alphabet: (1933 Latin) — (Cyrillic) — (current Latin).
In translingual contexts (e.g. mathematics), the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet are named in Azerbaijani in the following way:Q.Ü.Ağayev, D.V.Bağırlı. Fiziki kəmiyyət vahidlərinin istifadə qaydaları. Bakı, 2017, p. 71. a, be, ce (se),S. İsmayılova, A. Hüseynova. Riyaziyyat 6. Bakı, 2021, p. 102.Kimya 7-ci sinif de, e, ef, qe, aş (haş), i, yot, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, ku, er, es, te, u, ve, dubl-ve, iks, iqrek, zet.
Schwa (Ə)
When the new Latin script was introduced on 25 December 1991, A-diaeresis (Ä ä) was selected to represent the sound /æ/. However, on 16 May 1992, it was replaced by the previously-used grapheme schwa (Ə ə).
Although use of Ä ä (also used in Tatar, Turkmen, and Gagauz) seems to be a simpler alternative, as the schwa is absent in most character sets, it was reintroduced for historical reasons. The schwa had historically represented Azerbaijani's most common vowel in both post-Arabic alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic) of Azerbaijan.
However, the "upside-down 'e'" on computers caused considerable problems during the early 1990sThe New Azerbaijani Alphabet: The Upside-Down 'e' (An Editor's Nightmare) by Betty Blair, AZER.com at Azerbaijan International, Vol. 1:3 (September 1993), p. 40 and then back to p. 36., as its placement on standard Azerbaijani keyboards and its assignment in computer encodingsStandardizing Azerbaijani Fonts by Ed Lake and Betty Blair, AZER.com at Azerbaijan International, Vol. 8:1 (Spring 2000), pp. 14, 16. had not yet become standardized.
Arabic alphabet
The development of a standardized orthography for Azerbaijani using the Arabic script in Iran began in late 20th century. Historically, the Persian alphabet has been used for Azerbaijani; however, linguists associated with the standardization movement, such as those contributing to the journal Varlıq (est. 1979), argue that the unmodified Persian system presents phonetic redundancies. For example, the Persian script contains multiple letters for the same consonant sounds—such as the letters and for the voiceless alveolar plosive [t], and lacks dedicated characters or diacritics for several vowel phonemes specific to Turkic languages.
Efforts to formalize these conventions culminated in a series of linguistic seminars held in Tehran in 2001. Chaired by Javad Heyat, the founder of Varlıq, these sessions produced a document outlining a standardized orthography for the public. This system was subsequently integrated into the (Azerbaijani Turkic Dictionary).
While the Arabic-based script remains the most widespread medium for the language in Iran, its usage patterns have shifted in the 21st century. Although Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution provides for the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as the teaching of their literature in schools, a formal state-wide curriculum for Azerbaijani has not been fully implemented. In recent decades, the adoption of the Latin alphabet has increased among younger speakers. This trend is often attributed to the influence of the Latin-based script used in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the technical convenience of Latin-based keyboard layouts on digital platforms and mobile devices.
Vowels
In the Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet, nine vowels are defined. Six of those vowels are present in Persian, whereas three are missing. Diacritics (including hamza) in combination with the letters alef (), vav () or ye () are used to mark each of these vowels.
Important to note that similar to Persian alphabet, vowels in the initial position require an alef () all the time—and if needed, followed by either vav () or ye (). This excludes Arabic loanwords that may start with ʿayn ().
Below are the six vowel sounds in common with Persian, their representation in Latin and Arabic alphabets:
(); ; A front vowel; only marked with fatha () diacritic, or with a he at middle or final positions in a word. Examples include: , , (); ; A front vowel; marked with a hamza on top a ye (). Examples include: , (); ; A rounded back vowel; Shown with vav (), either unmarked, or marked with sukun (zero-vowel) (). Examples include: , , . (); ; A back vowel; shown with alef () in middle and final positions, and alef-maddeh () in initial position. Examples include: ,