Bulgarian

## Overview

**Bulgarian** is an Indo-European language, a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family.

Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), has several characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan language area), and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action.

With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Bulgarian became one of the official languages of the European Union.

## History

*Bulgarian* was the first "Slavic" language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, the oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language was as языкъ словяньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name языкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, the name языкъ блъгарьскъ was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism is the Service of St. Cyril from Skopje (Скопски миней), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in the Greek hagiography of Saint Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century).

During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in the Balkan language area (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish, which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language, mostly lexically. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian, which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот (turnover, rev), непонятен (incomprehensible), ядро (nucleus) and others. As usual in such cases, many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well.

Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria (most notably Neofit Rilski and Ivan Bogorov), there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography.

## Relationship to Macedonian

Until the period immediately following the Second World War, all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects. In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects. Some local naming conventions included *bolgarski*, *bugarski* and so forth. The codifiers of the standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise. After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Slav Macedonian consciousness. With the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists as well as some linguists from other countries still consider Macedonian dialects as Bulgarian. Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum. Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgments.

## Bulgarian excerpt from Wikipedia article "Бъ̀лгарският езѝк"

В хода на историческото развитие на българския език и контактите му със съседните неславянски езици на Балканския полуостров настъпват значителни промени в сравнение с останалите славянски езици. Счита се, че те обхващат промени в морфологията и синтаксиса, характеризиращи се с почти пълно отпадане на падежните форми (падежни остатъци има при местоименията, личните имена, съществителните и прилагателни имена от мъжки род в именителен падеж), възникване и употреба на определителен член, запазване на славянските прости глаголни времена (минало свършено време и минало несвършено време) и развитие на нови, възникване на дублирано пряко и непряко допълнение, изчезване на инфинитива и развитие на несвидетелски форми при глаголите и др. Тези промени разграничават като цяло развитието на морфологията и синтаксиса в българския език от посоката на развитие на останалите славянски езици.

Макар че неговото измерение мъчно може да се определи, руското влияние върху българския език през епохата на Възраждането и при създаването на Третата българска държава е било много силно. Част от възприетата по това време лексика от рускиезик е от старобългарски произход и бива „върната“ в новоизграждащия се български книжовен език като църковнославянска и старобългарска. Паралелно с нея обаче навлизат и голям брой думи от чисто руски произход (предимно в обществено-политическата област).

През петвековното османско владичество чрез османския турски навлизат много персийски и арабски думи, които и до днес се смятат погрешно за „турцизми“ (напр. шише, диван, хамам, турши(я), хамал, шалвар, диване и т.н.). След развитието на промишлеността и науката в българския технически език навлизат много немски думи (бинт, багер, бормашина и мн. др.), а след началото на 80-те години на XX век – английски, основно в областта на компютърните науки и информационните технологии (един от последните примери, влязъл най-напред в разговорна употреба, е „флашка“).