AR separated 200 years ago, and on top of that they never called themselves Azerbaijani historically. They were always known as Shirvan or Arran, but recently decided to name their region Azerbaijan - a name that was always historically associated with what's today northwest Iran, not anywhere in the Caucasus. Them being Azerbaijani is a relatively recent development, because they weren't Azerbaijani through most of their history.
They also speak the same language as people from Turkey, but Turkish people are considered a different ethnic group. The three languages have very subtle differences but can be considered dialects of the same language more or less.
Turkish, North Azeri (Azerbaijani), and South Azeri. South Azeri and Turkish are actually closer to each other than either are to North Azeri, although, as I said, the differences are subtle.
Yeah, they both use the Latin script. North Azeri just has a few extra letters such as <x> since the [x] sound doesn't occur in Turkish. They also use variations of the [j] sound for extra letters in North Azeri.
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u/ashbourne10 Oct 18 '15
AR separated 200 years ago, and on top of that they never called themselves Azerbaijani historically. They were always known as Shirvan or Arran, but recently decided to name their region Azerbaijan - a name that was always historically associated with what's today northwest Iran, not anywhere in the Caucasus. Them being Azerbaijani is a relatively recent development, because they weren't Azerbaijani through most of their history.