Posted by Azerbaijan-Balasi on June 21, 2002, 8:47:09 --Previous Message--
: In an interview, the Azerbaijan's President,
: Heydar Aliyev says: I was behind the
: declaration of Azeri as the state language
: in 1978 during the Soviet era. I'm the one
: who created it. Azeri is listed as the
: single official State language.
: The People's Popular Front made a serious
: mistake. Around October 1992, they adopted
: a law that was passed in Parliament by
: only 26 deputies declaring that our
: language was a Turkish language. That was
: a great treachery and caused serious
: discontent in Azerbaijan.
: When they identified the Azeri language as a
: Turkish language, it caused an uproar in
: Azerbaijan.
: When I came back from Moscow, rumors
: circulated that Heydar Aliyev didn't know
: his own language. Or that Heydar Aliyev
: was not even an Azeri. But it wasn't true;
: I had not forgotten my own language.
: Ten years ago [December 25, 1991], a law was
: adopted that declared Azeri as the
: official language in Azerbaijan. That's
: the first point to understand about this
: decree. But to this day, that law has not
: really been put into effect.
: One of the reasons is that most of the
: experts here in our country are Russian
: speakers, and they're used to writing in
: Russian. So the usual correspondence
: between the Ministries and other
: businesses is carried out in Russian. They
: still haven't switched to the Latin
: alphabet, even though the law was passed
: 10 years ago. But how long can this go on?
: Isn't 10 years enough?
: When I wrote this decree, the opposition
: complained in the media that Heydar Aliyev
: wanted to abolish their newspapers, to
: make them go bankrupt. But they themselves
: are Turkish lovers. They often carry on as
: if they love Turkey more than we do. And,
: in truth, they prefer Latin to Cyrillic.
: The opposition says that we need some more
: years to learn the Latin alphabet. And now
: in our independence, I have to wait so
: many years for our people to learn Latin?
: That's why I adopted a concrete law. It
: includes the following provisions: (1) By
: August 1, all official documents in all of
: the governmental offices must be in Azeri;
: and (2) Azeri must be written only in the
: Latin alphabet. All of my decrees and
: writings issued from the President's
: office are and have been issued in the
: Latin alphabet for quite some time. But in
: other offices, they are still writing in
: Russian.
: Turkey had its own language reform, too, back
: in the late 1920s, when the nation was led
: by Ataturk [1881-1938, in office from
: 1923-1938]. But they made a mistake at
: that time. I've mentioned it to them
: before. The task of reforming the Turkish
: language was given to Akop Dilajar [a Turk
: of Armenian descent].
: Turkish people today don't know about it.
: When I talked to them several times and
: told them it was Akop who made their
: language like it is, they didn't know
: about it. But the older generation does.
: Suleyman Demirel [Turkey's former
: President, in office 1993-2000] knows.
: Changes were introduced into their language
: at that time, and that's why more
: differences are found between our
: languages. For example, when I speak,
: Suleyman Demirel understands 100 percent
: of what I say. But I can't say the same
: about when he speaks. Perhaps I understand
: about 95 percent of it, not 100 percent.
: Our languages are very close, but that
: doesn't mean that we have to call our own
: Azeri language a Turkish language. The
: younger Turkish generation seems to
: understand about 70-80 percent of Azeri.
:
:
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