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The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, Azari, Azeri Turkish, or Azerbaijani Turkish, is the official language of Republic of Azerbaijan. Some dialects of the language are spoken in many parts of Iran (but most notably in the northwestern areas, known as the Iranian Azarbaijan), where it is the most popular minority language and there are more speakers than any other country in the world. The language is also spoken in Russia's Republic of Dagestan, Georgia, northern Iraq, and eastern Turkey.
There are approximately between 22 and 50 million native speakers of Azerbaijani. It is a Turkic language, related to Turkish and Turkmen but more influenced by Persian language.
During the initial period of the Republic of Azerbaijan's independence, the official language of Azerbaijan was called "Turk dili" ("Turkish"), but since 1994 the older name of the language, "Azerbaycan dili" ("Azerbaijani"), has been re-established. The most important literary magazine of the language published in Iran, Varliq, uses the English term "Turkish" and the Persian term "torki" for the language. Most Iranians casually call the language turki or torki, distinguishing it from the Turkey's official language, Turkish, by calling the latter a term which can be translated as Istanbul Turkish. Some people also consider "Azerbaijani" a dialect of a greater "Turkish" language and call it "Azerbaijani-Turkish". ISO and the Unicode Consortium, call the language "Azerbaijani".
Some sources like Gholamhossein MosahabGholamhossein Mosahab ( in Persian), ( 1910- 1979) was the author of Mosahab Persian Encyclopedia, the only authoritative Persian encyclopedia published in Iran. Mosahab, Gholamhossein.'s The Persian EncyclopediaThe Persian Encyclopedia is the only comprehensive and authoritative Encyclopedia available in the Persian language. It is in two volumes and is based, in part, on the 1953, 1960, and 1968 editions of The Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia''. It was publis consider Azari/Azeri to be a different language, an older Iranian TatiTati can refer to: An alternative romanization of the Japanese word tachi. A northwestern Iranian language The French film director and actor Jacques Tati. language which was spoken in the region before the spread of Turkic languages, but now only spoken by different rural communities in Iran's Azerbaijan (such as villages in Harzanabad area, villages around Khalkhal and ArdebilThis historically eminent city in Southern Azerbaijan, famed for its silk trade tradition, is located in northwestern Iran. It is the seat of the sanctuary and tomb of Shaikh Safi ad-Din, eponym of the Safavid Dynasty., and also in Zanjan and QazvinQazvin may refer to: Qazvin (city) Qazvin province Note: Qazvin province was created in 1996; older references to "Qazvin" are invariably to the city. area). There are serious supporters and opposers of the theory (and even some who consider it offensive), which was originally published by Ahmad Kasravi , an ethnic Azerbaijani and a native of Iran. Some of the people who disagree with Kasravi's theory prefer not to call themselves or their language Azeri or Azari because of the relation to the theory. Common usage of the terms in the English language is against this distinction.