comparative forms

The first thing in a comparative sentence is what has "more" of the quality referred to.

Examples using adjectives:
O adam məndən hündürdür. / That man is taller than me.
O adam = That man
məndən = than me (from me)
hündürdür = is tall.

Bu otaq o otaqdan balacadır. / This room is smaller than that room.
Bu otaq = This room
o otaqdan = than that room (from that room)
balacadir = is small.

O məndən yaşlıdır. / He is older than me.
O məndən qısaboyludur. / He is a smaller size than me.
O məndən hündürdürboyludur. / He is a taller size than me.
O məndən alçaqboyludur. / He is a smaller size than me.

Examples using adverbs:
O məndən tez gəldi. / He came earlier than me.
O məndən gec qurtardı. / He finished later than me.
O kamançanı məndən yaxşı çalır. / She plays the kamancha better than I do.
Sən kamançanı məndən çox çalırsan. / You play the kamancha more than I do.
Mən kamançanı səndən az çalıram. / I play the kamancha less than you do.

Examples using numbers:

Verbs imperative mood, part 1

Felin əmr forması

The imperative mood, as normally understood in English, is easy in Azeri. You want to tell someone to go - verb getmək - you just use the verb root for the 2nd person singular and add a -(y)in4 ending for the 2nd person plural. It gets more complicated when you learn that verbs take suffixes for the other persons as well. This is unlike English, where we use Let me go, Let him go, etc. So we will leave that discussion for another post (part 2).

2nd person imperative singular

• verb root, no ending

2nd person imperative plural (or formal form)

• verb root +in, ın, ün, un for roots ending in a consonant
• verb root +yin, yın, yün, yun for roots ending in a consonant

Some examples:

Bağışla! Bağışlayın! - Excuse me!

Bax! Baxın! - Look!

Gəl! Gəlin! - Come!

Get! Getin! - Go! (useful if bothered by street urchins - "Get burdan!" Get outta here!)

Gör! Görün! - See!

Hazırla! Hazırlayın! - Prepare!

Ver! Verin! - Give! (Mənə verin - Give to me)

Consonant changes

Final consonants k, q, and t change if a suffix is added that places the consonant between two vowels.

For example, çimərlik is Azerbaijani for beach. If you say you are going to the beach, çimərliya, the K changes to a Y.

Changes are:

• K to Y
• Q to A
• T to D

However - it does not happen to a single syllable word such as kök (carrot), so kökə (to the carrot). As well, doesn't happen if the word is Russian. I find Russian words often sound, well, Russian (hem!) or English, so they are easy to spot. Definitely bear no resemblance to Azeri!

Genitive case - Yiyəlik hal

The genitive case deal with inanimate things that have some attribute. I find it easier to think of this as expressions with the English of, what is known as periphrastic genitive. I'm sure that makes everything much clearer! If you think in terms of English of, then the the thing with the attribute is said first, with the attribute second.

The endings are the same as for 3rd person possessive pronouns:
- in, ın, ün, un / -nin, nın, nün, nun for the first word (after consonant, after vowel)
- i, ı, ü, u / -si, sı, sü, su for the second word (after consonant, after vowel)

For example:
qapının tıqqıltısı - the knocking of (at) the door
gülün iyi - the smell of the flower
ağacın gülü - the flower of the tree (that is, blossom)
pəncərənin pərdəsi - the curtain of the window
çimərliyin qumu - the sand of the beach (final letter k in beach turns to y when suffix added). See post "consonant changes" for more information on how k, q, and t.

Useful phrase employing the genitive -
Bunun mənası nədir? What does this mean?

Accusative case - Təsirlik Hal

The suffixes for words in the accusative case are -i4 (for words ending in a consonant) and -ni4 (for words ending in a vowel). See the post on vowel harmony for an explanation of these "to the power of 4" abbreviations.

Some examples of sentences with verbs that take the accusative:

Mən o kişini tanıyıram. I know (am acquainted with) that man.
Mən kişiləri görürəm. I see the men.
but - Mən çoxlu kişi gördüm. I saw some men. If the object is indefinite, use the nominative case.

Mən kitabı oxuyuram. I am reading the book.
but - Mən kitab oxuyuram. I am reading a book. I read books.

Həmişə mən bunu məktəbə aparıram. I always take this to school.
Bunu ona ver. Give this to him.

Mən bir səs eşidirəm. I hear a noise.
Bu səsi eşidirsən? Do you hear the noise?
Mən səni eşitdim. I heard you.
Mən bu xəbəri Moskvada eşitdim. I heard this news in Moscow.

Vowel harmony - essential concept!

Yes, you won't get far without knowledge of vowel harmony. Luckily, the more you speak the language the more it seems to come naturally because, well, it just sounds better!

Here's how it works. Azeri uses suffixes to create cases and to change the meaning of words. Whenever a suffix is added to a word, the vowel in the suffix has to agree or harmonize with the last vowel in the original word - that is, the last vowel in the word must agree with the first vowel in the suffix.

If the suffix contains only two first vowels, they will be ə and a. For example -lar and -lər to make a word plural. This type of suffix is represented in Azeri grammar as ə squared. These are the vowels that harmonize:

If the suffix contains four first vowels, they will be i, ü, ı, and u. For example, -si, -sı, -sü, -su. This type of suffix is represented as i to the power of 4. These are the vowels that harmonize:

Typing with an Azeri keyboard

It's really easy to type in Azeri since most of the letters are the same as the English QWERTY keyboard layout. First, add Azeri (Latin) - Azerbaijani with the Latin script - to your computer's list of languages. So > Control panel > Regional and language settings > Azeri (Latin) language with Azeri Latin keyboard. Once installed, hitting Shift-Alt will toggle you from English to Azeri and back. If you have other languages installed, it will go through them one by one as you hit Shift-Alt.

You will need to use your little finger on your right hand more than before, but otherwise, it doesn't take long to get used to. These are the way keys change from the English layout to Azeri:

• w is now ü


• [ is now ö


• ] is now ğ


• ; is now ı


• ' is now ə


• , is now ç


• . is now ş


• / is now .


• A comma on the Azeri keyboard is Shift-/

This is an image of the layout. Using Shift plus a letter will give you a capital of that letter.