Bulgarian

Български език

Number of native speakers

about 7 million in Bulgaria, 10 to 12 million speakers worldwide

Official language in

Bulgaria, Mount Athos (Greece), EU

Minority language in

Romania (Banat variant), Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary

Language of diaspora

Australia, Albania, Canada, US, France, Greece, Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, UK, Moldova, among emigrant communities worldwide

Alphabet
Cyrillic, 30 letters

Grammatical cases
0

Language code
bg, bul

Linguistic typology
inflectional , pro-drop , SVO

Language family
Indo-European; Balto-Slavic; Slavic; South Slavic

Number of dialects
about 70 dialects, divided into 2 major groups (Eastern and Western)

Longest word

Непротивоконституционствувателствувайте

Do not act against the constitution! (plural)

39 letters (the word is not included in official dictionaries)

Curious word or sentence

За миг бях в чужд, скърцащ плюшен фотьойл.

For a moment I was in a strange, squeaky plush armchair.

33-letter pangram - a sentence using every letter of the alphabet at least once

Нина рита тиранин.

Nina is kicking a tyrant.

15-letter palindrome – a phrase that reads the same forward or reversed

History

Old Bulgarian language was instrumental in spreading literacy among all other Slavic languages - the first written version of the language was created by Constantinus-Cirilus and Methodius in 9th century and was subsequently used as a literary language throughout the Slavic speaking world.

< 860

Prehistoric: between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia
9 - 11th century

Old Bulgarian
12 - 15th century

Middle Bulgarian
from 16th century

Modern Bulgarian

Writing system and pronunciation

In 886 AD, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s.

The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed in the beginning of the 10th century. Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of the 19th century until an alphabet with 32 letters gained prominence in the 1870s. This alphabet was used until the orthographic reform of 1945 when the letters Ѣ, ѣ and Ѫ, ѫ were removed from the alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on January 1, 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU.

Bulgarian word stress is dynamic and distinctive:

въ̀лна
wool
вълна̀
wave
пáри
steam
парѝ
money

Grammar

There are two numbers in Bulgarian – singular and plural. Besides cardinal numbers and related words such as няколко (several), masculine nouns use a special count form in –а/–я, which stems from the Proto-Slavonic dual: два/три стола (two/three chairs) versus тези столове (these chairs).

There are three grammatical genders in Bulgarian: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender of the noun can largely be inferred from its ending: nouns ending in a consonant are generally masculine; those ending in –а/–я are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –е, –о are almost always neuter.

Cases exist only in personal pronouns, with nominative, accusative, and dative forms. Vestiges are present in the masculine personal interrogative pronoun кой ("who" as in formal English, "whom") and in a number of phraseological units and sayings. Vocative forms are still in use, however, there is a tendency to avoid them in many personal names.

Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun. In adjective-noun phrases, only the adjective takes a definite article ending. There are four singular definite articles. Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят if they are grammatical subjects, and –а/–я elsewhere. Nouns that end in a consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –а/–я (most of which are feminine, too) use –та. Nouns that end in –е/–о use –то.

The plural definite article is –те for all nouns except for those, whose plural form ends in –а/–я; these get –тa instead.

Bulgarian verbs are the most complicated part of Bulgarian grammar, especially when compared to other Slavic languages. They are inflected for person, number and sometimes gender. They also have lexical aspect (perfective and imperfective), voice, nine tenses, three moods, four evidentials and six non-finite verbal forms. Because the subject of the verb can be inferred from the verb ending, it is often omitted. As there is no infinitive in the contemporary Bulgarian language the basic form of a verb is its present simple tense first person singular form.

Dialects

There are about 70 dialects (40 in Bulgaria and about 30 in other countries), divided into 2 major groups (Eastern and Western) with different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ).

In Western dialects ("hard speech") the former yat is pronounced "e" in all positions, e.g. млеко (mlekò) – milk, хлеб (hleb) – bread.

In Eastern dialects ("soft speech") the former yat alternates between "ya" and "e": it is pronounced "ya" if it is under stress and the next syllable does not contain a front vowel (e or i) – e.g. мляко (mlyàko), хляб (hlyab), and "e" otherwise – e.g. млекар (mlekàr) – milkman, хлебар (hlebàr) – baker.

Thematic words

Funny or odd traditional proverbs and idioms

Tongue twisters

Петър плет плете, през три пръта преплита. Подпри, Петре, плета! Падна, Петре, плетът. Peter makes a hedge, he makes it with three wands and uses them every third time. Peter, shore the hedge up! Peter, the hedge has fallen!