Bulgarian is a South Slavic language and the official language of Bulgaria, notable within the Slavic family for having lost the noun case system most other Slavic languages retain, replacing it with prepositions and fixed word order, a development that parallels English losing case rather than most of Bulgarians closer relatives. Bulgaria is traditionally credited as the place Cyrillic script was first adopted and has been in continuous use since, developed by disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius at the Preslav and Ohrid literary schools in the late ninth century.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count RegionSoutheast Europe, primarily Bulgaria; native-speaker communities in Ukraine, North Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Turkey 7 Browse and compare
Difficulty for an English Speaker Classification
Language Kind Official Status Bulgarian
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Associated With
This source names English directly: "order, a development that parallels English losing case rather than most of Bulgarians closer relatives."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
This source names Bulgarian directly: "distinct in some letterforms from Bulgarian, reflecting reforms carried out under Peter the Great and again after the 1917 revolution."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
In Family
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Written In
Cyrillic Script, Scripts Bulgaria is the country generally credited with adopting Cyrillic first and using it continuously since.
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
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Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
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Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
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Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Found In
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Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Source Wikipedia: Bulgarian LanguageLead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 2Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Bulgarian is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeast Europe, primarily in Bulgaria.
Sources
1. Glottolog: Bulgarian (Glottolog languoid bulg1262)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
2. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010Official status, Bulgarian entity page
Bulgarian is a South Slavic language and the official language of Bulgaria, notable within the Slavic family for having lost the noun case system most other Slavic languages retain, replacing it with prepositions and fixed word order, a development that parallels English losing case rather than most of Bulgarians closer relatives.
- In Family: Slavic
3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Bulgarian / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SVO
4. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Bulgarian / Tone (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Tone by Ian Maddieson Value: No tones
5. Effective Language Learning: Language Difficulty Ranking
Effective Language LearningForeign Service Institute categories listQuote, Foreign Service Institute categories list
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian Amharic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian
6. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024- ISO 639-3 Code: bg
- Speaker Count: 8,000,000
- Status: Living
View the Source 7. Wikipedia: Bulgarian Language
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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