The Past and Present Languages of the People of Azerbaijan
Galichian, Rouben · 2025
Galichian addresses the claim, promoted by state-aligned historians in the Republic of Azerbaijan, that shared language proves the population of the republic and that of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan are one people with one origin. He argues that language cannot serve as the sole basis for reconstructing the descent of a society, offering the counter-examples of Spanish-speaking Latin America and of African states speaking the languages of former colonizers. The article reviews the comparatively recent Turkic-language layer in the region, arriving with the Seljuks, and sets it against the earlier Iranian and Caucasian Albanian linguistic history of the territory.
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Galichian, Rouben 2025. The Past and Present Languages of the People of Azerbaijan. Բանբեր հայագիտության / Banber Hayagitutyan (International Review of Armenian Studies), 2025, No. 2(38), pp. 5–11; DOI 10.54503/1829-4073-2025.2.5-11. https://doi.org/10.54503/1829-4073-2025.2.5-11
What this offers a reader
A short, clear rebuttal to a claim you will meet in every argument about the region.
Source-critical rebuttal of state historiography by a leading cartologist and Hon. Doctor of NAS RA.
The 'ancient Azerbaijani people' argument, taken apart on its own terms.
What languages were actually spoken in the territory of today's Azerbaijan, and when.
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