Azeri (Azerbaijani)

Azeri

Azeri, also called Azerbaijani, is the spoken by about seven million people, mainly in Azerbaijan and also Azeri minorities in surrounding countries. In Iran Azeri is printed in the Persian script.

The first Azeri translation by Mirza Farrukh and Feliks Zareba was Matthew's Gospel published in 1842. The complete New Testament was published in 1878, and the full Bible in 1891. In 1982, the Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) released a new modern Azeri language translation of the New Testament made by Mirza Khazar, which is currently used in Azerbaijan. In the Soviet days Azeri was written in Cyrillic script, but when Azerbaijan gained independence in 1991 the language was switched to use Latin (Roman) letters in the Turkish style. Azeri speaking Christians are found in Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Protestant communities.

Bible work is done by Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) and the Azerbaijan Bible Society, which brought out a new Azeri Bible in 2009. Bibles are available in Cyrillic, Latin and Persian scripts.