Azerbaijani or Azeri is the most widely spoken and the official language of Azerbaijan, spoken by 92.5% of the country’s total population. Over half of these speakers are monolingual and can only communicate in Azerbaijani. The Azerbaijani language is closely related to the Turkish language and serves as the main language in education. It is also used in government administration, media channels, and for daily communication purposes by the people in the country.
There are also several minority languages spoken in Azerbaijan, with Russian and Armenian as the most widely spoken ones. Both Russian and Armenian are spoken as the native language for about 1.5% of the population each. The break-away Nagorno-Kharabakh region of the country is home to most of the Armenian speakers in Azerbaijan. There are also a number of other minority languages spoken in Azerbaijan, most of which are endangered due to the extremely low number of people speaking the languages. In fact, all the minority languages other than Armenian, Georgian, Avar, Lezgian, and Talysh, are endangered. Although these languages are not very commonly heard in Azerbaijan, they are spoken more widely elsewhere in the world. These include Budukh, Juhuri, Kryts, Khinalug, Cek, Rutul, Tsakhur, Tat, and Udi. Even among these languages, Avar, Lezgian, and Talysh are also classified as vulnerable by UNESCO.
Avar is a language of the Northeast Caucasian family spoken in parts of the northwestern Azerbaijan and Dagestan. Despite not being very widely represented in Azerbaijan, Avar is spoken by about 762,000 people worldwide. Lezgian is a minority language spoken by the Lezgins in the northern parts of the country and is considered to be a vulnerable language by UNESCO. Talysh is an Iranian language spoken in southern Azerbaijan. Despite it being spoken by about 500,000 to 1 million people, its popularity is on a constant decrease, which is why it has been classified as vulnerable as per UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.
There is also a considerable amount of immigrant languages found throughout Azerbaijan, such as: Assyrian, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian Persian, Belarusian, Georgian, Dargwa, Tatar, and Turkish, to name a few. These languages are spoken by immigrants to Azerbaijan and the number of their speakers varies from a few hundred to a few thousand. The usage of these languages is mainly confined to their respective communities as they are used primarily at the homes of the immigrants.
Foreign languages spoken in Azerbaijan include Russian and English as the most influential ones. Both of these languages play significant roles in the education system of the country, and they are taught as second and third languages in schools across Azerbaijan. The popularity of English is quickly increasing, especially among the younger population.