Imagine standing on the banks of a river. On the northern bank, a shopkeeper writes a grocery list using a script that looks distinctively European, dotted with umlauts and familiar Latin curves. On the southern bank, less than a stone’s throw away, a poet pens verses in the same language using the flowing, calligraphic strokes of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. They can shout across the water and understand every word the other says, but if they exchanged notebooks, they might as well be reading alien ciphers.

This is the reality of the Aras River. It is not just a geographical border separating the Republic of Azerbaijan from the Islamic Republic of Iran; it is a line of sociolinguistic demarcation that has created one of the most fascinating divides in the modern linguistic world. Here, the Azerbaijani language (Azeri) lives a double life: united by sound, but severed by script.

One Tongue, Two Worlds

To understand the orthographic split of Azerbaijani, we must look beyond grammar and syntax to the treaties and empires that drew the map. The decisive moment came in 1828 with the Treaty of Turkmenchay. Following the Russo-Persian Wars, the Russian Empire annexed the territory north of the Aras River (modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan), while the Qajar dynasty of Iran retained the territory to the south (modern-day Iranian Azerbaijan).

This geopolitical divorce sent the two populations on vastly different cultural trajectories for nearly two centuries. While the spoken dialects—Northern and Southern Azerbaijani—drifted apart only slightly in terms of accent and vocabulary, their written forms were subjected to the whims of their respective rulers.

The Northern Odyssey: An Alphabet Soup

North of the Aras, the language went through a tumultuous identity crisis driven by the Soviet Union’s shifting policies on nationality and modernization. In the span of a single century, Northern Azerbaijani speakers were forced to change their alphabet three times.

Originally, the North used the Arabic script. However, the Arabic script, which utilizes only three vowel markers, is notoriously ill-suited for Turkic languages like Azerbaijani, which relies heavily on a complex system of nine distinct vowels and vowel harmony.

• 1929 (Latinization): Under Soviet influence and the contemporaneous reforms of Atatürk in Turkey, the North adopted a Latin-based alphabet to promote literacy and secularism.
• 1939 (Cyrillization): As Stalin tightened his grip, the script was abruptly switched to Cyrillic to sever ties with Turkey and bind the Soviet Republics closer to Russian culture.
• 1991 (Re-Latinization): Upon gaining independence from the collapsing USSR, the Republic of Azerbaijan immediately reverted to the Latin alphabet to assert its national identity and reconnect with the Turkic world.

Today, the official script of the Republic of Azerbaijan is a modified Latin alphabet. It includes unique characters like the iconic ə (schwa), leading to a highly phonemic system where words are generally spelled exactly as they sound.

The Southern Anchor: Tradition and Continuity

South of the river, in the northwestern provinces of Iran, the story is one of preservation rather than revolution. There are an estimated 15 to 20 million Azerbaijani speakers in Iran—significantly more than the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan itself. Yet, the language has strictly maintained the Perso-Arabic script.

In Iran, the Persian language (Farsi) dominates education and media. Because Farsi uses the Arabic script, maintaining Azerbaijani in the same script ensures that anyone literate in the national language can, in theory, decode Azerbaijani text. However, this comes with the linguistic challenges mentioned earlier. The rich vowel inventory of Azerbaijani is often suppressed in writing, meaning a reader must already know the word to pronounce it correctly.

A Visual Comparison: Putting It on Paper

For a linguistics enthusiast, the contrast is stark. Let’s look at how the exact same words appear on either side of the river. Note the change in direction distinctions (Left-to-Right vs. Right-to-Left).

1. Greetings

Spoken: Salam
North (Latin): Salam
South (Perso-Arabic): سلام

2. The Name of the Language

Spoken: Azərbaycan dili
North (Latin): Azərbaycan dili
South (Perso-Arabic): آذربایجان دیلی

3. “I am going”

Spoken: Gedirəm
North (Latin): Gedirəm
South (Perso-Arabic): گدیرم

In the third example, the Northern script clearly indicates the specific vowel sounds. The Southern script uses the letter ye (ی) to represent the ‘i’, but the ‘e’ and ‘ə’ vowels might be omitted or implied depending on the specific orthographic convention used by the writer, making it much harder for a non-native speaker to decode.

The Vocabulary Divide: Russian vs. Persian Influence

It isn’t just the alphabet that creates barriers; it is the “loanword baggage” carried by each side. Northern Azerbaijani absorbed a significant amount of Russian technical and administrative vocabulary during the Soviet era. Conversely, Southern Azerbaijani remains heavily influenced by Persian cultural and literary terms.

For example, if a Northerner wants to catch a train, they might head to the vokzal (borrowed from Russian). A Southerner would go to the istgah (borrowed from Persian). While the grammar remains the same—both act as agglutinative Turkic languages—these lexical differences can cause momentary confusion in conversation, similar to an American speaking to someone from rural Scotland.

The Digital Bridge and the Future

How does a single language survive when it cannot read its own writing? In the pre-internet era, the literature of the North was inaccessible to the South, and vice versa. However, the digital age has begun to erode these walls.

Social media has created a fascinating phenomenon of “fingilish” or transliteration. Southern Azerbaijanis, often texting on mobile devices, frequently use Latin characters to type out their dialect because it is faster and functionally easier for Turkic vowel harmony. This has inadvertently created a bridge where Southerners are becoming more comfortable with the Latin orthography used in Baku.

Conversely, there is less movement in the other direction. Few young people in the Republic of Azerbaijan are learning the Arabic script, meaning the literary heritage of the South remains largely locked away from them unless it is transliterated and republished.

Conclusion

The Aras River divide serves as a potent reminder that language is not just a collection of sounds and meanings; it is a political and historical artifact. The case of Azerbaijani offers a unique laboratory for linguists to observe how political borders can fracture the visual identity of a language while leaving its soul—the spoken word—intact.

For language learners, this presents a “choose your own adventure” scenario. If you wish to read the modern literature of Baku and connect with the Turkic world, the Latin script is your key. If you wish to delve into classical poetry and navigate the bustling bazaars of Tabriz, the Perso-Arabic script is essential. But regardless of the alphabet chosen, the language remains a vibrant testament to resilience, flowing across the Aras just as surely as the water itself.