Linguistic developments in Azerbaijan in the historiography of Mohammad Javad Mashkour

Mohammad Javad Mashkour (1297-1374 AD) is one of the contemporary academic and university historians who studied various issues and topics in the history of Iran from ancient to contemporary during his four periods of scientific and academic activities. Considering his wide research scope, in the present study, Mashkour's historiography and historical view in relation to the cultural issues and issues related to the history and language of Azerbaijan were studied. During the second Pahlavi period, which was the era of the dominance of the nationalist approach in the official and academic historiography of Iran, one of the most important issues was how to deal with the issue of Turkish language and identity in Azerbaijan. One of the most important efforts in this field was to prove the cultural and linguistic identity of Azeri, as a branch of the ancient Pahlavi languages for Azerbaijan, an approach that resulted in the denial of the Turkish language and identity to Azerbaijan. Mohammad Javad Mashkour, in line with the conditions of the time, devoted an important part of his research to the history of the Azeri dialect in Azerbaijan and its relation to the Turkish language. Regarding the evolution of the language of the Azerbaijani people in the context of history, he believes in several historical periods. First era is a pre-Aryan history in which the common language in Azerbaijan was Manna and Urartian. The second period is related to the migration of Aryan tribes and the ancient history of Iran, during which the "Median -Pahlavi" language became the common language of Azerbaijan. With the transition of the Iranian society from the ancient period to the Islamic period, a branch of the Median - Pahlavi language continued in Azerbaijan, which Mashkour called it "Azeri Fahlavi". According to him, from the Seljuk period, with the establishment of the Oghuz Turks in Azerbaijan, the Turkish language gradually spread in Azerbaijan and during the Safavid period as a dominant language, replaced the "Azeri Fahlavi". Mashkour called the common Turkish language in the present day of Azerbaijan "Azeri Turkish" and considered it as the result of merging "Oghuz Turkish" with the "Azeri Fahlavi" dialect.