LANGUAGE METAMORPHOSES

International Mother-Tongue Day is celebrated worldwide on 21 February. Azerbaijan, as part of the international community, does not stay away from such dates and events. After all, the native language, in addition to its cultural and historical component, is also one of the fundamental attributes of the statehood and representation of the Azerbaijanis as a nation. Being such an important category in the list of intangible heritage, the Azeri language needs to be controlled by the state, and the focus of attention should be on a careful study of its present state.

Neologisms 

At the moment, we cannot flatter ourselves that the problem of "revival" of the language by its native speakers is given a proper attention. The all-out recession in the level of education and full knowledge of the language seriously undermines the country's cultural heritage in general. Now it is a rather rare opportunity when we can enjoy the beauty of our native language in its literary form. The Azerbaijani language has come a long way in the process of its development. If we count its age from the epic stories of Dada Qorqud [Dede Gorgut], as a record of the word-of-mouth tradition, we can say it is 1,300 years old.

Historically, the Azerbaijani language uses many words borrowed from the Arabic and Persian languages. However, due to globalization processes that are currently under way, the existing language base is inundated with a huge amount of confusing terms. Today, it is already clear that the language, which is spoken by about 50m people around the world, in addition to 9m people living in Azerbaijan, should be given much more attention.

Professor Nizami Cafarov, the Chairman of the Committee on Culture of Azerbaijani Milli Maclis [parliament], a philologist and a linguist, shares his opinion on this matter with R+. In his view, there are different approaches to the conservation and development of the language in a world that is being rapidly globalized. For example, along with maintaining the national traits and their attributes, as well as the language, it is also necessary that the latter be open to the outside world. At the same time, a number of problems are cropping up for the languages of the world in the process of globalization: languages undergo metamorphoses and transformations and some of them find themselves on the verge of extinction. Accordingly, the revision of the rules of spelling and the compilation of the pronouncing dictionary for to the correct pronunciation of words are regularly discussed at the meetings of the Academy of Sciences.

Samira Ahmadbayli, an editor and a translator, who works with the living language on a daily basis, believes that linguistics needs an academic approach and control. "When I translate texts, I cannot but notice a great number of borrowings from Turkish, while our language has its own words with the same meaning," she observes. The introduction of neologisms is only appropriate when there are no alternatives to these words in the native language, she continues. Of course, one can argue that the Azerbaijani language uses many words borrowed from Russian (it is not infrequent among the Azeri-speaking people to interlace their speech with everyday catchwords in Russian). But Samira is very convincing in explaining this phenomenon: "Over the 70 years of existence of the Soviet Union, the Russian language has found its way into our life, but this was only at a conversational level, in an ordinary intercourse. There is no reason to believe that the same occurred in the academic language, literature and the media." According to Samira, control over linguistics of the Azeri language was very high in Soviet times.

"For historical reasons, our language is not so rich in synonyms as, for instant, Arabic or Farsi. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani language includes many Arabic and Persian words," Samira says. "There is nothing wrong in introducing new words, it is a natural process. Recently our language has been infiltrated by many English words, which is associated with the emergence of new technologies. It is understandable. But all such processes should take place under the academic supervision of vigilant linguists and philologists."

The way we speak

The situation with the spoken language is very similar. Of course, the level of spoken Azerbaijani primarily depends on the level of education of the population, and linguistics does not seem to bear a direct relation to this. But school textbooks do not account for changes in the language.

Faxri Ugurlu, a writer, a journalist and a scholar, also notes a generally low level of the Azeri language, not only in public life, but also in those areas which seemingly should serve as examples for others - the press, modern literature, television. "Our language is in dire need of purification, and this must be done at the state level," he says. Neologisms and borrowings from other languages, mostly Russian and English, greatly contribute to cluttering-up of our language. The emergence of new words is often a spontaneous process, Ugurlu admits, but it needs to be closely monitored all the same.

"We would do well if we use the experience of small European nations. For example, in Finland, there are special organizations which, in order to preserve the native language, engage in the selection of special synonymous words in Finnish that can replace various international technical terms which infiltrated into the Finish language. We would do best if we start looking for suitable Azerbaijani equivalents too," Ugurlu says. In the age of globalization, he notes, the issue of preservation and purity of the language becomes one of the important tasks.

The Azeri language connects us with the previous generations, our history and spiritual acquisitions. And we must do all we can so that it remains the foundation of our ethnic and national identity. Our task is to protect and pass it on from generation to generation as a national treasure.