The Azerbaijani alphabet has three versions, which include the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets.
North Azerbaijani, the main variety spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan, is written in the Latin script. After the fall of the Soviet Union, this superseded previous versions based on the Cyrillic and Arabic scripts.
South Azerbaijani, the language spoken in Iran's Azerbaijan region, is written in a modified Arabic script since the Safavid Empire.
Azerbaijanis of Dagestan still use the Cyrillic script.
The Azerbaijani Latin alphabet consists of 32 letters.
From the nineteenth century, there were efforts by some intellectuals like Mirza Fatali Akhundov and Mammad agha Shahtakhtinski to replace the Arabic script and create a Latin alphabet for Azerbaijani.
Akhundov argued that the Arabic alphabetâÂÂs structure made literacy difficult for the general population and kept education under a small elite. His views on alphabet reform developed over about twenty years:
Akhundzade promoted his âÂÂNew Alphabet Projectâ 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 ðlmiyye-i Osmaniyye. Although the alphabetâÂÂs defects were acknowledged, the 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 Soviet Union sponsored Yeni türk ÃÂlifba komitÃÂsi (New Turkic Alphabet Committee; ) in Baku, which hoped that the new alphabet would divide the Azerbaijanis in the USSR from those living in Iran.
An additional reason for the Soviet regime's encouragement of a non-Arabic script was that they hoped the transition would help secularize Azerbaijan's Muslim culture, and since language script reform- proposed as early as the 19th century by Azerbaijani intellectuals (e.g., Mirza Fatali Akhundov), had previously been rejected by the Azerbaijani religious establishment on the grounds the Arabic script, the language of the QurâÂÂan, was "holy and should not be tampered with."
There was some historical basis for the reform which received overwhelming support at the First Turkology Congress in Baku during 1926, 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"
As a result, in the Soviet Union in 1926 the Uniform Turkic Alphabet was introduced to replace the varieties of the Arabic script in use at the time. From 1922 to 1929, both Arabic and Latin scripts were used in Soviet Azerbaijani editions; in 1929, the Latin script was finally chosen. In 1933, the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet was reformed to match the alphabets of other Soviet Turkic languages. The reform changed glyphs for some letters and phonetic values for some other letters. In 1939 Joseph Stalin ordered that the Azerbaijani Latin script used in the USSR again be changed, this time to the Cyrillic script in order 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. The period from 1991 to 2001 was declared the 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.
The Azerbaijani alphabet is the same as the Turkish alphabet, except for ÃÂÃÂ, Xx, and Qq, the letters for sounds which do not exist as separate phonemes in Turkish. When compared to the historic Latin alphabet of 1933, as well as the 1991 version: ÃÂàhas replaced the historic âã; the dotless Iñ has replaced the historic I with bowl ìà(also, the lowercase form of the letter B was changed from small capital àto the usual b, while the uppercase form of the letter y was also changed from a Cyrillic-looking ã to the usual Y); the dotted ði 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 ñ, while i is the lowercase counterpart of ð; Jj has replaced the historic õö; ÃÂö has replaced the historic ÃÂõ; ÃÂü has replaced the historic Yy; and Yy has replaced the historic JÃÂ. ÃÂàwas replaced by ÃÂä, which was placed between Aa and Bb, but was then changed back to ÃÂÃÂ, placed between Ee and Ff in the alphabet. Consequently, Jj, Yy, and some other several letters (Cc, ÃÂç) have also changed their phonetic values in comparison with the historical alphabet.
The sounds and in loanwords were rendered as respectively as q and ã in the Latin alphabet of 1933, but as ú and ó in Cyrillic and are rendered as k and q in the current Latin alphabet: (1933 Latin) â (Cyrillic) â (current Latin).
In translingual contexts (e.g. mathematics), the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet are named in Azerbaijani in the following way: a, be, ce (se), de, e, ef, qe, aà  (haà Â), i, yot, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, ku, er, es, te, u, ve, dubl-ve, iks, iqrek, zet.
When the new Latin script was introduced on 25 December 1991, A-diaeresis (àä) was selected to represent the sound /æ/. However, on 16 May 1992, it was replaced by the grapheme schwa (àÃÂ), used previously. Although use of àä (also used in Tatar, Turkmen, and Gagauz) seems to be a simpler alternative as the schwa is absent in most character sets, particularly Turkish encoding, it was reintroduced; the schwa had existed continuously from 1929 to 1991 to represent 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 1990s as its placement on standard Azerbaijani keyboards and its assignment in computer encodings had not yet become standardized.
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 Varlñq (est. 1979), argue that the unmodified Persian system presents phonetic redundancies. For example, the Persian script contains multiple letters for the same consonant soundsâÂÂsuch 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 Varlñq, 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.
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 in order to mark each of these vowels.
Important to note that similar to Persian alphabet, vowels in the initial position require an alef () all the timeâÂÂand if needed, followed by either vav () or ye (). This excludes Arabic loanwords that may start with ÿayn ().
Below are the six vowel sounds in common with Persian, their representation in Latin and Arabic alphabets.
Below are the three vowels that don't exist in Persian, and are marked with diacritics.
Like other Turkic languages, Azerbaijani has a system of vowel harmony. Azerbaijani's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system. This means that all vowels in a word must be ones that are pronounced either at the front or at the back of the mouth. In Azerbaijani there are two suffixes that make a plural. It is either or , front and back vowels respectively. The same variety of options for suffixes exists across the board in Azerbaijani. Here is how vowel harmony works, in an example of a word in which the vowels are all frontal:
And below are examples for back vowels:
A secondary vowel harmony system exists in Azerbaijani language, which is a rounded/unrounded system. This applies to some (but not all) of the suffixes. For example, there are four variations for the common suffix and .
In the Perso-Arabic script, or in Arabic scripts in general, diacritics are usually not written out, except in texts for beginners or in order to avoid confusion with a similarly written word.
In the Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet, there are conventions with regards to writing of diacritics.
For (), the vowel is always written and shown with alef.
For (), the initial vowel is written with an alef. Vowels in the middle of the word are written in two ways. They are either shown, i.e. written with a diacritic, which usually needs not be written; or they are written with a final he (). The former is used in closed syllables (CVC), or in the first open syllable of the word. The latter is used in open syllables (CV) with the exception of the first syllable of the word. Note that the vowel he () is not attached to the following letter, but is separated from it with a Zero-width non-joiner. For example, the word (gÃÂ-lÃÂ-cÃÂy-im) is written as . Note that the first syllable of the word is open, but it is not marked. The second syllable is open, and thus the vowel is marked with he (), not attached to the following letter. Also note the breakdown of the word into syllables â this is because the word is made up of plus possessive pronoun .
For E-e (çæ / æ), the sound is shown with a hamzeh on top of a ye in almost all cases. The exceptions are loanwords of Persian, Arabic, or European origin. For example, is written as . Writing it as is incorrect. Other examples include ), , and . In words, for both Azerbaijani and loanwords, if and come side by side, both letters are written; e.g., , , , . Loanwords from Persian or Arabic which contain the sound , but are adopted in Azerbaijani with an sound, are shown with . Examples include , , .
For (), the sound is always shown with ye ().
For (), the sound is shown with ye () all the time. The writing of the diacritic is optional and not necessary, and is only ever actually done in beginner language lesson books or in order to avoid confusion with a similarly written word. Native speakers can usually read words without the use of diacritic, as they are aware of vowel harmony rules (meaning that they can interpolate the correct pronunciation of by the presence of other vowels in the word). In words like , familiarity with the vocabulary helps native speakers.
For round vowels, (), (), (), and (), it is recommended that the first syllable containing such vowel be marked with diacritic, while the rest can remain unmarked and solely written with a vav (). This reduces the effort of marking vowels, while also providing readers with a clue with respect to vowel harmony, namely as to whether the vowels of the word are to be front or back. Examples include , , .
However, it is recommended new learners write diacritics on all round vowels, e.g., , , .
In daily practice, it is rare to see vowels other than () marked. This may be due to the fact that hamza is the only one of such symbols that is frequently written in Persian as well, and due to the fact that the inverted "v" diacritic for () does not exist on typical Persian keyboards.
While Azerbaijani Latin alphabet has nine vowels and twenty-three consonants, the Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet has thirty consonants, as there are sounds that are represented by more than one consonant. Highlighted columns indicate letters from Persian or Arabic that are exclusively used in loanwords, and not in native Azerbaijani words.
Notes
This section contains the national anthem of Azerbaijan, in the current Latin, Cyrillic, Jaà Âalif, and Arabic alphabets.
The Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets each have a different sequence of letters. The table below is ordered according to the latest Latin alphabet:
The Azerbaijani Arabic alphabet originally contained the letter ô. Originally ô stood for the sound [à Â], which then merged with [n]. Initial versions of the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet contained the letter êÂÂêÂÂ, which was dropped in 1938. This letter no longer exists in the Azerbaijani Arabic orthographic conventions anymore either.
The letter æÃÂ, intended for the sound [ts] in loanwords, was used in Azerbaijani Cyrillic until 1951. In Azerbaijani, like in most Turkic languages, the sound [ts] generally becomes [s].
The apostrophe was used until 2004 in loanwords from Persian for representing the glottal stop or vowel length. Since 2004, the apostrophe is not used in Azerbaijani except in foreign proper names.