"Our language is ancient and rich — the mother tongue of over 50 million people — and needs no foreign borrowings. True, there is an international lexicon, and we all use it. But if there is an old word in the Azerbaijani language, why replace it with a word from another language?"

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev touched upon a very sensitive point while speaking at the conference dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. This point, in fact, subtly reflects the depth of our language, its historical essence, and our national identity.

Every nation lives through its language. Language is not merely a means of communication; it is the very essence of a people’s identity, their collective memory, and their soul. If a nation’s language dies, the nation itself inevitably fades from history, no matter how powerful or developed it once was. The fate of the Latins, once the creators of the mighty Roman Empire and the cradle of Western civilisation, is the most vivid reminder of this truth. Their empire’s glory still echoes, but the Latin nation no longer exists.

The Azerbaijani language, however, has withstood the test of time. It is one of the richest and oldest languages of the East, a language that once served as one of the region’s three lingua francas, alongside Persian and Arabic. Despite centuries of struggle against the dominance of these languages, Azerbaijani never disappeared. It remained alive through the pens of great poets such as Fuzuli, Nasimi, and Khagani, who raised Azerbaijani literature to the level of the finest Eastern classics. When one thinks of Eastern........

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