Azerbaijani or Azeri language (Azərbaycan dili, pronounced [a’zərbaɪ’dʒan dɪ’lɪ]) belongs to the Turkic language family. The historical development of Azeri can be divided into two periods: early (c. 16th to 18th century) and modern (18th century to present). Early Azeri contained a much larger number of Persian and Arabic words, phrases and elements, and before 1929 was written only in the Perso-Arabic script. After that a Latin alphabet was used for North Azeri (different from the one now). From 1938 to 1991 the Cyrillic script was in use and in 1991 was introduced the current Latin alphabet. Writing system: Latin Official language in: Azerbaijan, Dagestan (Russia)