Fazeri

Fazeri (Azeri: blending of Farsi and Azeri) is a quasi-lingustic term coined by Fakhteh Zamani, an Iranian-born Canadian human rights activist and director of the Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners, to describe the version of the Azerbaijani language used in the Iranian mass-media as a measure taken by the government towards recognising the cultural rights of .

According to the CIA World Factbook, ethnic Azeris comprise up to 24% (approximately 16 mln. people) of Iran's population.

Fazeri represents a fuse of Persian and , where vocabulary from the former is being largely adapted to the grammar of the latter, replacing the Turkic-origin vocabulary of Azerbaijani. Azeri language did in fact undergo a heavy lexical influence from Persian in the course of its development, however Zamani characterises Fazeri as a modern and intentional over-infusion of Azeri with Farsi vocabulary. According to Zamani, the popularisation of such Persianised variety via media is a government-initiated method of passive cultural assimilation of Iranian Azeris by gradually turning the Azeri language into a dialect of Persian.

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