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Azerbaijanis, or "Azerbaijani Turks," (also reffered to as Azeri Turks or Azeris) are natives of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the northwestern Iranian region of South Azerbaijan. It is estimated that there are 45 million Azerbaijanis worldwide.
They are descendants of various bodies of Turks (Gokturks, Huns, Khazars, Barsils, Kurtugurs, Saragurs, Kipchaks) but primaraly the Oghuz Turks who had inhabited Azerbaijan since the 6th century, and who in a series of mass-migrations from Central Asia during Seljuk rule in the 10th and 11th centuries created a majority population in the land, uniting previous Turkic inhabitants.
Language
Main article: Azerbaijani language
The Azerbaijanis speak Azerbaijani (sometimes called Azerbaijani Turkish or Azeri Turkish) which is a Turkic language. It is close to Turkish and Turkmen. The standard Azerbaijani language developed from the 10th century onwards. Prior to the 10th century, there were various Turkic dialects spoken across Azerbaijan. The Book of Dede Korkut, which is the historic epic of the Oghuz Turks, was written in Azerbaijan in the 6th and 7th centuries.
Development
The modern language and the nationhood of the Azerbaijanis developed from the 10th to the 3th centuries, after the Oghuz Turkish migrations and the decline of the Oghuz Yabgu state in Central Asia. This is the time span that is called Azerbaijan's cultural and linguistic "golden age".
Azerbaijani historians consider the nation of Azerbaijani Turks the inheritants of ancient pre-Islamic civilizations such as those of Sumer, Elam, Urartu, Mannai, Media, and Caucasian Albania
=Historical and National Figures
- Abulfaz Elchibey
- Ali Bey Huseynzadeh
- Sheykh Muhammad Khiabani
- Memed-Emin Rasulzadeh
- Rashid Behbudov
- Sattar Khan
- Jafar Pishevari
Demographics
It is estimated that more than 30 million Azerbaijanis live in Iran, more than 8 million in the Republic of Azerbaijan, 600 thousand to 2.16 million in Russia, over 1 million in the US, about 500 thousand in each of Ukraine and Germany, more that 1 million in Turkey, 286 thousand in Georgia, and 78.3 thousand to 200 thousand in Kazakhstan. The UK, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan also have some populations of Azerbaijanis living there.
More than 90% of Azerbaijanis are Shia Muslims, a small percentage are Sunni Muslims and in recent years there have been many conversions to Sunni Islam. There are also Jewish, Zoroastian and Baha'i Azerbaijanis as well.
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