Assimilation
According to the 1998 book “Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe”:
| “ | In 1993 there was an attempt officially to restore the Latin script; very few people advocated the Arabic script. Kryzi and Khinalug speakers, as well as most Tsakhurs, are bilingual and tend to assimilate with the Azeris. The same is true of the Tat speakers, and slightly less about the Talysh. At least there is no official recognition, teaching or publishing in these languages in any form. Lezghins in Azerbaijan are struggling very determinedly for their linguistic revival, but with little success. Generally there is a prevailing policy of forceful assimilation of all minorities, including the Talysh, Tat, Kurds and Lezgins. There is little or no resistance to assimilation from the Kryzi, Khinalug, Tsakhurs or Tat, and not much resistance from the Talysh. There are some desperate efforts of resistance from the Udin, stubborn resistance from the Kurds, and an extremely active struggle from the Lezgins, who want to separate Lezgin populated districts both from Dagestan and Azerbaijan in order to create an autonomous republic with Lezgin as the state language. | ” |
The Russian expert on the nationalities issue, Valery Tishkov, stated that Azerbaijan is one of the biggest assimilators of the former Soviet republics, the other two being Georgia and Uzbekistan.
According to Radio Free Europe organization's analyst Liz Fuller, several Azerbaijan's ethnic representatives (such as Magomed Guseinov from the Avar National Council) have voiced public concern about forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing in order to ensure the predominance of Azerbaijani Turks in the country over Lezghins, Avars, Talysh, Tats, Kurds and other minorities.
Read more about this topic: Ethnic Minorities In Azerbaijan