About western Azerbaijani toponyms

Abstract

The study of the toponyms of Western Azerbaijan is of great importance in restoring the forgotten ancient place names by our people. In 1935-1971, there were about 150 toponyms of Turkish origin that were changed and replaced by Armenian words. Later, this change continued as many of our territories were seized by Armenian usurpers for 30 years. The change indicates the danger of erasing the ancient Azerbaijani toponyms from memories. Although the Armenians, who made territorial claims against Azerbaijan, changed the names of many places, some of them remained the same. These are "Goycha", "Derelayaz", "Gamarli" and others.

Some of the toponyms of Western Azerbaijan were created with the names of birds. These are toponyms that have the lexical meaning of birds, named after both the tribe name and the place where there are a lot of birds. Although some of these toponyms have been preserved in the names of villages, rivers, mountains, hills, and rocks, some of them have already been completely erased from the map by the Armenian aggressors. The restoration of such ancient Turkish names is very important in terms of learning the etymology, ethnography, culture, traditions and culture of our people and conveying them to future generations.