More linguistic silliness from Azerbaijan over improving relations between Turkey and Armenia

Monday, April 13, 2009

Iğdır - "Şehrin büyük nüfus yapısını Azerbaycan Türkleri oluşturuyor. Günlük konuşmada genellikle Azerbaycan Türkçesi kullanılmaktadır." <-- Translation: even parts of Turkey use a language more resembling the standard in Azerbaijan so Azerbaijan is acting silly.

Look, more silliness from Azerbaijan. Part of the article translated into English:
Azerbaijan has banned Turkish songs on the radio and television in Azerbaijan as a protest against the (talks toward the) opening of the Turkish border with Armenia. Azeris are readying themselves to demonstrate in front of Turkey's embassy in Baku, and a boycot of Turkish goods is also on the agenda.

...Azerbaijan wants to increase the price of natural gas sold to Turkey through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline to 300 dollars...Turkey obtains 12% of its needed natural gas from Azerbaijan.
Considering the importance of the Nagorno-Karabakh region for Azerbaijan I can actually understand the protests and any plans that individuals want to make for a boycot of goods (since that's their right as individuals), but attempting to suddenly raise the price of natural gas for political reasons is never a good idea for a country that wants to be taken seriously as a stable energy supplier, and the similarities between the two languages make a banning of Turkish songs rather ridiculous. And what about the Turkish used in Iğdır, which resembles Azeri Turkish more than that found in Istanbul? And what of other dialects that resemble it somewhat as well, are these to be banned? No, the problems between Turkey and Azerbaijan are political, not linguistic. Attempting to bring language into the discussion when 1) language isn't even the issue and 2) the languages are similar enough that they're basically just two standards of the same language, is ridiculous.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

People of Igdir are ethnic Azeris that left Yerevan, among other places, during the Russo-Ottoman war, and live in Igdir that now happens to be part of Turkey but that used to be a part of Georgia if I remember correctly. Therefore, it is not that they speak a Turkish similar to that of Azerbaycan, but that they speak Azeri because they are Azeris. Normally, they even keep the accent of the place their families migrated from.

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