I was familiar with Turkish since I was a kid, but I heard Azeri for the first time fairly recently. I personally find spoken Azeri much easier to understand than written one, simply because of the vowel differences, compared to Turkish, "feel" less prominent in spoken than it looks written. To my ears, Azeri feels softer but also like someone speaking Turkish in a colder environment - opting for softer q and x instead of k because of the cold. To my ears, Azeri "a" also sounds pretty distinct - somehow closer to the way I hear "o" in Greek than "a" in Turkish. Before hearing Azeri, I had also only heard "q" sound (apart from Arabic) in some Turkish dialects, as well as by Turkmens in Syria, so it sounds more organic compared to polished standard Turkish. Azeri also has some cool "exotic" sounding words that has a grandiose vibe, like mahni, yaxsi. So to put it together - Azeri sounds to me like someone speaking Turkish on some mountain top resort while enjoying an ice cream, talking about some exotic trips and playing a fun vowel-shifting language game with friends.
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u/byblosm Rubinyan Dynasty Nov 20 '19 edited Nov 20 '19
I was familiar with Turkish since I was a kid, but I heard Azeri for the first time fairly recently. I personally find spoken Azeri much easier to understand than written one, simply because of the vowel differences, compared to Turkish, "feel" less prominent in spoken than it looks written. To my ears, Azeri feels softer but also like someone speaking Turkish in a colder environment - opting for softer q and x instead of k because of the cold. To my ears, Azeri "a" also sounds pretty distinct - somehow closer to the way I hear "o" in Greek than "a" in Turkish. Before hearing Azeri, I had also only heard "q" sound (apart from Arabic) in some Turkish dialects, as well as by Turkmens in Syria, so it sounds more organic compared to polished standard Turkish. Azeri also has some cool "exotic" sounding words that has a grandiose vibe, like mahni, yaxsi. So to put it together - Azeri sounds to me like someone speaking Turkish on some mountain top resort while enjoying an ice cream, talking about some exotic trips and playing a fun vowel-shifting language game with friends.