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Bulgarian language
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Bulgarian (????????? ????, IPA: ) is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.
Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan linguistic union), the lack of a verb infinitive, and the retention and further development of the proto-Slavic verb system. Various verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action.
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Encyclopedia
Bulgarian (????????? ????, IPA: ) is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.
Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan linguistic union), the lack of a verb infinitive, and the retention and further development of the proto-Slavic verb system. Various verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action. Estimates of the number of people around the world who speak Bulgarian fluently range from about 9 million to 12 million.
History
The development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several historical periods.
- Prehistoric period - occurred between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s.
- Old Bulgarian (9th to 11th century, also referred to as Old Church Slavonic) - a literary norm of the early southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible and other liturgical literature from Greek into Slavic.
- Middle Bulgarian (12th to 15th century) - a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of rich literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire.
- Modern Bulgarian - dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar and syntax changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. The historical development of the Bulgarian language can be described as a transition from a highly synthetic language (Old Bulgarian) to a typical analytic language (Modern Bulgarian) with Middle Bulgarian as a midpoint in this transition.
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 proto-Bulgar and its non-Slavic neighbors in the Balkan linguistic union (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish, which was the official language of Ottoman empire, in the form of the Ottoman language (mix of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic), mostly lexically. As a national revival occurred towards the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged which 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 Balkanic 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 ?????? (turnover, rev), ????????? (incomprehensible), ???? (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).
Alphabet
In 886 AD, Bulgaria replaced its old runic alphabet of the proto-Bulgars with 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 alphabet, developed around the Preslav Literary School in the beginning of the 10th century. Most letters in the Cyrillic alphabet were borrowed from the Greek, Hebrew, and Glagolitic and Gothic alphabets.
Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of the 19th century during the efforts on the codification of Modern Bulgarian until an alphabet with 32 letters, proposed by Marin Drinov, gained prominence in the 1870s. The alphabet of Marin Drinov was used until the orthographic reform of 1945 when the letters yat called "double e"), and yus were removed from the alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30.
Nowadays the Bulgarian language is written in the Cyrillic script (and occasionally in the Latin, but this is only for names such as on road signs and street signs, which are almost always written in the two scripts).
With accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on January 1, 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU.
The following table gives the letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, along with the IPA values for the sound of each letter:
Most letters in the Bulgarian alphabet stand for just one specific sound. Three letters stand for the single expression of combinations of sounds, namely ? (sht), ? (yu), and ? (ya). Two sounds do not correspond to separate letters, but are expressed as the combination of two letters, namely ?? and ?? . The letter ? marks the softening (palatalization) of any consonant before .
The names of the letters are simple representations of their phonetic values, with all consonants being followed by - thus the alphabet goes: - - , etc. ? is known as "?-kratko" (short /i/), ? as "er-golyam" (large Er), and ? as "er-maluk" (small Er). (When saying the alphabet fast, people often omit to say ? and ?, and pronounce ? simply as .)
About transliteration of Bulgarian into the Latin alphabet (romanization), see romanization of Bulgarian.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|
| High | ? | | ? | | Mid | ? | ? | ? | | Low | | ? | |
Bulgarian's six vowels may be grouped in three pairs according to their backness: front, central and back. All vowels are relatively lax, as in most other Slavic languages, and unlike the tense vowels, for example, in the Germanic languages. Unstressed vowels tend to be shorter and weaker compared to their stressed counterparts, and the corresponding pairs of open and closed vowels approach each other with a tendency to merge, above all as low (open and open-mid) vowels are raised and shift towards the high (close and close-mid) ones. However, the coalescence is not always complete. The vowels are often distinguished in emphatic or deliberately distinct pronunciation, and reduction is strongest in colloquial speech. Besides that, some linguists distinguish two degrees of reduction, as they have found that a clearer distinction tends to be maintained in the syllable immediately preceding the stressed one. The complete merger of the pair - is regarded as most common, while the status of vs is less clear. A coalescence of and is not allowed in formal speech and is regarded as a provincial (East Bulgarian) dialect feature; instead, unstressed is both raised and centralized, approaching ? . The vowel itself is absent in other Slavic languages (except for allophonic realizations).
Semivowels
The Bulgarian language possesses one semivowel: , being equivalent to y in English like in yes. It is expressed graphically with the letter ?, as in ??? ("most"), ?????? ("trolleybus"), except when it precedes or , in which case the combination of two phonemes is expressed with a single letter, respectively ? or ?: (e.g. ???? "(flat) iron").
The semivowel does not occur after consonants. Thus, after a consonant, ?, ?, and ?? signify its palatalisation rather than a semivowel: ??? "white", ???? "I spit", ???? "loess".
Consonants
Bulgarian has a total of 33 consonant phonemes (see table below). Three additional phonemes can also be found ( and ), but only in foreign proper names such as ?????? ("Houston"), ?????????? ("Dzerzhinsky"), and ???? a/, the Polish name "Jadzia". They are, however, normally not considered part of the phonetic inventory of the Bulgarian language. According to the criterion of sonority, the Bulgarian consonants may be divided into 16 pairs (voiced<>voiceless). The only consonant without a counterpart is the voiceless velar fricative . The contrast 'voiced vs. voiceless' is neutralized in word-final position, where all obstruents are pronounced as voiceless (as in most Slavic languages); this neutralization is, however, not reflected in the spelling.
Hard and palatalized consonants
The Bulgarian consonants ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? , ? can denote both a normal, "hard" pronunciation, as well as a "soft", palatalized one. The hard and the palatalized consonants are considered separate phonemes in Bulgarian. The consonants ? , ? , ? and ?? do not have palatalized variants, which is probably connected with the fact that they have arisen historically through palatalization in Common Slavonic. These consonants may still be somewhat palatalized in some speakers' pronunciation, but as a rule this is not the case.
The softness of the palatalized consonants is always indicated in writing in Bulgarian. A consonant is palatalized if:
- it is followed by ? , ? , or ?? . (Note: ? occurs only before ? in Bulgarian)
(When ? and ? aren't preceded by a consonant, they signal that the vowels and are preceded by the semivowel . For /j?/, Bulgarian uses "??", as in ?? ????, "New York".)
Even though palatalized consonants are phonemes in Bulgarian, they may in some cases be positionally conditioned, hence redundant. In Eastern Bulgarian dialects, consonants are always allophonically palatalized before the vowels and . This is not the case in Standard Bulgarian, but that form of the language does have similar allophonic alternations. Thus, ? , ? and ? tend to be palatalized before and , and the realization of the phoneme ? varies along the same principles: one of its allophones, involving a raising of the back of the tongue and a lowering of its middle part (thus similar or, according to some scholars, identical to a velarized lateral), occurs in all positions, except before the vowels and , where a more "clear" version with a slight raising of the middle part of the tongue occurs. The latter pre-front realization is traditionally (and incorrectly) called "soft l", even though it is not palatalized (and thus isn’t identical to the signalled by the letters ??, ? and ?). In some Western Bulgarian dialects, this allophonic variation does not exist.
Furthermore, in the speech of many young people the more common and arguably velarized allophone of is often realized as a labiovelar approximant . The phenomenon was first registered in the 1970s and isn't connected to original dialects. Similar developments, termed L-vocalization, have occurred in many languages, including Polish, Serbo-Croatian and certain dialects of English such as Cockney and AAVE.
Palatalization
During the palatalization of most hard consonants (the bilabial, labiodental and alveolar ones), the middle part of the tongue is lifted towards the palatum, resulting in the formation of a second articulatory centre whereby the specific palatal "clang" of the soft consonants is achieved. The articulation of alveolars , and , however, usually does not follow that rule; the palatal clang is achieved by moving the place of articulation further back towards the palatum so that , and are actually alveopalatal (postalvelolar) consonants. Soft and ( and , respectively) are articulated not on the velum but on the palatum and are considered palatal consonants.
Table
Word stress
Bulgarian word stress is dynamic. Stressed syllables are louder and longer than unstressed ones. Stress, like Russian and other East Slavic languages, is also lexical rather than fixed as in French, Latin or the West Slavic ones, i.e. it may fall on any syllable of a polysyllabic word and its position may vary in inflection and derivation, for example, ??? ("man"), ????? ("the man"). Bulgarian stress is also distinctive: for example, ?'???? ("wool") and ????'? ("wave") are only differentiated by stress. Stress usually isn't signified in written text (one notable exception being the single dative female pronoun ? ("to her", to differentiate it from simple "?", meaning "and"), which should always be stressed in writing. It may, however, be indicated in cases with minimal pairs like the above, where disambiguation is needed, or in order to signify the dialectal deviation from the standard language pronunciation. In such cases, stress is signified by placing an grave accent on the vowel of the stressed syllable. Usually an accent is put in Bulgarian-language books and dictionaries and, an accent is sometimes used to distinguish words that are written the same, but stressed on a different syllable.
Grammar
The parts of speech in Bulgarian are divided in 10 different types, which are categorized in two broad classes: mutable and immutable. The difference is that mutable parts of speech vary grammatically, whereas the immutable ones do not change, regardless of their use. The five classes of mutables are: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns and verbs. Syntactically, the first four of these form the group of the noun or the nominal group. The immutables are: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections. Verbs and adverbs form the group of the verb or the verbal group.
Nominal morphology
Nouns and adjectives have the categories grammatical gender, number, case (only vocative) and definiteness in Bulgarian. Adjectives and adjectival pronouns agree with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns have gender and number and retain (as in nearly all Indo-European languages) a more significant part of the case system.
Nominal inflection
Gender
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 ("zero ending") are generally masculine (for example, ???? "city", ??? "son", ??? "man"); those ending in –?/–? (-a/-ya) (???? "woman", ?????? "daughter", ????? "street") are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –?, –? are almost always neuter (???? “child”, ????? "lake"), as are those relatively few words (usually loans) that end in –?, –?, and –? (?????? "tsunami", ???? "taboo", ???? "menu"). Perhaps the most significant exception from the above are the relatively numerous nouns that end in a consonant and yet are feminine: these comprise, firstly, a large group of nouns with zero ending expressing quality, degree or an abstraction, including all nouns ending on –???/–??? - (??????? "wisdom", ?????? "vileness", ??????? "loveliness", ?????? "sickness", ????? "love"), and secondly, a much smaller group of irregular nouns with zero ending which define tangible objects or concepts (???? "blood", ???? "bone", ????? "evening", ?o? (nosht) "night").
The plural forms of the nouns do not express their gender as clearly as the singular ones, but may also provide some clues to it: the ending –? (-i) is more likely to be used with a masculine or feminine noun (????? "facts", ??????? "sicknesses"), while one in –?/–? belongs more often to a neuter noun (????? "lakes"). Also, the plural ending –??? (-ove) occurs only in masculine nouns.
Number
Two numbers are distinguished in Bulgarian — singular and plural. A variety of plural suffixes is used, and the choice between them is partly determined by their ending in singular and partly influenced by gender; in addition, irregular declension and alternative plural forms are common. Words ending in –?/–? (which are usually feminine) generally have the plural ending –?, upon dropping of the singular ending. Of nouns ending in a consonant, the feminine ones also use –?, whereas the masculine ones usually have –? for polysyllables and –??? for monosyllables (however, exceptions are especially common in this group). Nouns ending in –?/–? (most of which are neuter) mostly use the suffixes –?, –? (both of which require the dropping of the singular endings) and –??.
With cardinal numbers and related words such as ??????? ("several"), masculine nouns use a special count form in –?/–?, which stems from the proto-Slavonic dual: ?????/????? ??????? (two/three students) versus ???? ??????? (these students); cf. feminine ???/???/???? ???? (two/three/these women) and neuter ???/???/???? ???? (two/three/these children). However, a recently developed language norm requires that count forms should only be used with masculine nouns that do not denote persons. Thus, ?????/????? ??????? is perceived as more correct than ?????/????? ???????, while the distinction is retained in cases such as ???/??? ?????? (two/three pencils) versus ???? ?????? (these pencils).
Case
Cases exist only in the personal pronouns (as they do in many other modern Indo-European languages), with nominative, accusative, dative and vocative forms. Vestiges are present in the masculine personal interrogative pronoun ??? ("who") and in a number of phraseological units and sayings. The major exception are vocative forms, which are still in use for masculine (with the endings -e, -o and -?) and feminine nouns (-[?/?]o and -e) in the singular. However, there is a tendency to avoid them in many personal names, as the use of feminine name forms in -[?/?]o and of the potential vocative forms of foreign names has come to be considered rude or rustic. Thus, "?????" means "Hey, Ivan", while the corresponding feminine forms "?????" ("Hey, Elena"), "?????????" ("Hey, Margarita") are today seen as rude or, at best, unceremonious, and declining foreign names as in *"?????" ("hey, John") or *"???????" ("hey, Simon") could only be considered humorous. Interestingly, the "ban" on constructing vocative forms for foreign names does not apply to names from Classical Antiquity, with the source languages having the vocative case as well: cf "??????" ("Oh Caesar"), "???????" ("Oh Pericles"), ????? ("Oh Zeus") and even "????????" ("Oh Aphrodite").
Case remnants
- See also: Bulgarian grammar - Case remnants
Some key words do retain their cases, which today are no longer considered nominative, accusative and dative, but rather as being subject, direct object and indirect object parts of speech:
- All personal pronouns - eg. masculine singular:
- toy (he) - nègo (him) - nèmu (to him - archaic)
- The masculine interrogative pronoun koy (who) and all of its derivatives - these, however, are not declined for all masculine nouns, but only when they refer to men:
- koy (who) - kogò (whom) - komù (to whom - very rarely used).
- the words nyakoy (someone) and nikoy (no one) follow the same pattern as koy;
- vseki (everyone) and droug (someone else) are similar (-igo; -imu), but extremely rare
- the relative clauses koyto (who/that), kogoto (whom/that) and komuto (to whom/that) - again, only declined when referring to men - i.e.
- chovekat, s kogoto govorya - the man that I'm talking to
- stolat, na koyto sedya - the chair that I'm sitting on
Definiteness (article)
In modern Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun, much like in the Scandinavian languages or Romanian (indefinite: ?????, "person"; definite: ???????, "the person") or to the first nominal constituent of definite noun phrases (indefinite: ????? ?????, "a good person"; definite: ??????? ?????, "the good person"). There are four singular definite articles. Again, the choice between them is largely determined by the noun's ending in the singular. Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –??/–??, when they are grammatical subjects, and –?/–? elsewhere (all four endings are normally pronounced [?]). Nouns that end in a consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –?/–? (most of which are feminine, too) use –??. Nouns that end in –?/–? use –??.
The plural definite article is –?? for all nouns except for those, whose plural form ends in –?/–?; these get –?a instead. When postfixed to adjectives the definite articles are –??/–? for masculine gender (again, with the longer form being reserved for grammatical subjects), –?? for feminine gender, –?? for neuter gender, and –?? for plural.
Adjective and numeral inflection
Both groups agree in gender and number with the noun they are appended to. They may also take the definite article as explained above.
Pronouns
Pronouns may vary in gender, number, definiteness and are the only parts of speech that have retained case inflexions. Three cases are exhibited by some groups of pronouns - nominative, accusative and dative. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, relative, reflexive, interrogative, negative, indefinitive, summative and possessive.
Verbal morphology and grammar
According to some accounts, the Bulgarian verb can take up to 3,000 (sic) distinct forms, as it varies in person, number, voice, aspect, mood, tense and even gender.
Finite verbal forms
Finite verbal forms are simple or compound and agree with subjects in person (first, second and third) and number (singular, plural) in Bulgarian. In addition to that, past compound forms using participles vary in gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and voice (active and passive) as well as aspect (perfective/aorist and imperfective).
Aspect
Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect: perfective verbs signify the completion of the action of the verb and form past aorist tenses; imperfective ones are neutral with regard to it and form past imperfect tenses. Most Bulgarian verbs can be grouped in perfective-imperfective pairs (imperfective<>perfective: ?????<>????? "come", ?????????<>????????? “arrive”). Perfective verbs can be usually formed from imperfective ones by suffixation or prefixation, but the resultant verb often deviates in meaning from the original. In the pair examples above, aspect is stem-specific and therefore there is no difference in meaning.
In Bulgarian, there is also grammatical aspect. Three grammatical aspects are distinguishable: neutral, perfect and pluperfect. The neutral aspect comprises the three simple tenses and the future tense. The pluperfect aspect is manifest in tenses that use double or triple auxiliary "be" participles like the past pluperfect subjunctive. Perfect tenses use a single auxiliary "be".
Mood
- See also: Bulgarian grammar
The traditional interpretation is that in addition to the four moods (??????????, naklonenia) shared by most other European languages - indicative (??????????, izyavitelno), imperative (???????????, povelitelno), subjunctive (????????????, podchinitelno) and conditional (???????, uslovno) - in Bulgarian there is one more to describe a generalistic category of unwitnessed events - the inferential (??????????, preízkazno) mood. This view has been challenged in recent years. Admirative and dubitative mood forms, temporally distinct from the inferential, and optative mood forms, temporally but not grammatically distinguishable from the subjunctive, have been identified, bringing the total to eight.
Tense
There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time — present, past and future — which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses — i. e. "past imperfect tense" would mean that the verb is in past tense, in the imperfective aspect, and in the indicative mood (since no other mood is shown). There are more than 40 different tenses across Bulgarian's two aspects and five (or eight) moods.
In the indicative mood, there are three simple tenses:
- Present tense is a temporally unmarked simple form made up of the verbal stem of and a complex suffix composed of the vowel , or and the person/number ending (?????????, pristigam, "I arrive/I am arriving"); only imperfective verbs can stand in the present indicative tense independently;
- Past imperfect tense is a simple verb form used to express an action which is contemporaneous or subordinate to other past actions; it is made up of an imperfective or a perfective verbal stem and the person/number ending (????????x, pristigah; ?????????x, pristigneh, "I was arriving");
- Past aorist tense is a simple form used to express a temporarily independent, specific past action; it is made up of a perfective or an imperfective verbal stem and the person/number ending (??????????, pristignah, "I arrived", ?????, chetoh, "I read");
In the indicative there are also the following compound tenses:
- Future tense is a compound form made of the particle ?? (shte) and present tense (?? ???, shte ucha, "I will study"); negation is expressed by the construction ???? ?? (nyama da) and present tense (???? ?? ???, nyama da ucha, or the old-fashined form "?? ?? ???", "ne shte ucha" - "I will not study");
- Past future tense is a compound form used to express an action which was to be completed in the past but was future as regards another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect tense of the verb ?? (shta) "will, want", the particle ?? (da) "to" and the present tense of the verb (??? ?? ???, shtyah da ucha, "I was going to study");
- Present perfect tense is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past but is relevant for or related to the present; it is made up of the present tense of the verb ??? (sum) "be" and the past participle (??? ????, sum uchil, "I have studied");
- Past perfect tense is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past and is relative to another past action; it is made up of the past tense of the verb ??? (sum) "be" and the past participle (??? ????, byah uchil, "I had studied");
- Future perfect tense is a compound form used to express an action which is to take place in the future before another future action; it is made up of the future tense of the verb ??? (sum) "be" and the past participle (?? ??? ????, shte sum uchil, "I will have studied");
- Past future perfect tense is a compound form used to express a past action which is future with respect to a past action which itself is prior to another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of ?? (shta) "will, want", the particle ?? (da) "to", the present tense of the verb ??? (sum) "be" (am) and the past participle of the verb (??? ?? ??? ????, shtyah da sum uchil, "I would have studied").
The four perfect tenses above can all vary in aspect depending on the aspect of the main-verb participle; they are in fact pairs of imperfective and perfective tenses. Verbs in tenses using past participles also vary in voice and gender.
There is only one simple tense in the imperative mood - the present - and there are simple forms only for the second person using the suffixes -?/-? (-i, -y/i) for singular and -???/-??? (-ete, -yte) for plural; e.g., ??? (ucha) "to study": ??? (uchi), sg., ????? (uchete), pl.; ????? (igraya) "to play": ????? (igray), ??????? (igrayte). There are compound imperative forms for all persons and numbers in the present compound imperative (?? ?????, da igrae), the present perfect compound imperative (?? ? ?????, da e igral) and the rarely used present pluperfect compound imperative (?? ? ??? ?????, da e bil igral).
The conditional mood consists of five compound tenses, most of which are not grammatically distinguishable. The present, future and past conditional use a special past form of the stem ??- (bi - "be") and the past participle (??? ????, bih uchil, "I would study"). The past future conditional and the past future perfect conditional coincide in form with the respective indicative tenses.
The subjunctive mood is rarely documented as a separate verb form in Bulgarian, (being, morphologically, a sub-instance of the quasi-infinitive construction with the particle ?? (da) "to" and a normal finite verb form), but nevertheless it is used regularly. The most common form, often mistaken for the present tense, is the present subjunctive ([?o-?????] ?? ????a, [po-dobre] da otida, "I had better go"). The difference between the present indicative and the present subjunctive tense is that the subjunctive can be formed by both perfective and imperfective verbs. It has completely replaced the infinitive and the supine from complex expressions (see below). It is also employed to express opinion about possible future events. The past perfect subjunctive ([?o-?????] ?? ??? ??????, [po-dobre] da byah otishul, "I had better gone") refers to possible events in the past, which did not take place, and the present pluperfect subjunctive (?? ??? ??? ??????, da sum bil otishul), which may be used about both past and future events arousing feelings of incontinence, suspicion, etc. and is impossible to translate in English. This last variety of the subjunctive in Bulgarian is sometimes also called the dubitative mood.
The inferential mood has five pure tenses. Two of them are simple - past aorist inferential and past imperfect inferential - and are formed by the past participles of perfective and imperfective verbs, respectively. There are also three compound tenses - past future inferential, past future perfect inferential and past perfect inferential. All these tenses' forms are gender-specific in the singular. There are also conditional and compound-imperative crossovers. The existence of inferential forms has been attributed to Turkish influences by most Bulgarian linguists. Morphologically, they are derived from the perfect tenses.
Non-finite verbal forms
Bulgarian has the following participles:
- Present active participle (??????? ???????? ?????????) is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffixes –??/–??/–?? (?????, "reading") and is used only attributively;
- Present passive participle (??????? ??????????? ?????????) is formed by the addition of the suffixes -??/???/??? (?????, "that can be read, readable");
- Past active aorist participle (?????? ???????? ???????? ?????????) is formed by the addition of the suffix –?– to perfective stems (???, "[have] read");
- Past active imperfect participle (?????? ?????????? ???????? ?????????) is formed by the addition of the suffixes –??/–??/–?? to imperfective stems (?????, "[have been] reading");
- Past passive aorist participle (?????? ???????? ??????????? ?????????) is formed from aorist/perfective stems with the addition of the suffixes -?/–? (????????, "read"; ????, "killed"); it is used predicatively and attributively;
- Past passive imperfect participle (?????? ?????????? ??????????? ?????????) is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffix –? (????????, "[been] read"); ????a?, [been] being killed); it is used predicatively and attributively;
- Adverbial participle (????????????) is usually formed from imperfective present stems with the suffix –(?)??? (???????, "while reading"), relates an action contemporaneous with and subordinate to the main verb and is originally a Western Bulgarian form. A more rarely used form is the one using the aorist stem, which implies purpose and is a more recent invention (???????, "by killing", as opposed to ????????, "while killing").
The participles are inflected by gender, number, and definiteness, and are coordinated with the subject when forming compound tenses (see tenses above). When used in attributive role the inflection attributes are coordinated with the noun that is being attributed.
Adverbs
The most productive way to form adverbs is to derive them from the neuter singular form of the corresponding adjective (????? (fast), ????? (hard), ??????? (strange), although adjectives ending in -?? use the masculine singular form, also in -??, instead: ?????? (heroically), ????? (bravely, like a man), ?????????? (skilfully). The same pattern is used to form adverbs from the (adjective-like) ordinal numerals, e.g. ????? (firstly), ????? (secondly), ????? (thirdly), and in some cases from (adjective-like) cardinal numerals, e.g. ?????? (twice as/double), ?????? (three times as), ??????? (five times as).
The remaining adverbs are formed in ways that are no longer productive in the language. A small number are original (not derived from other words), for example: ??? (here), ??? (there), ????? (inside), ??? (outside), ????? (very/much) etc. The rest are mostly fossilized declined forms, such as:
- archaic unchangeable locative forms of some adjectives, e.g. ????? (well), ??? (badly), ?????? (too, rather), and nouns ???? (up), ???? (tomorrow), ???? (in the summer);
- archaic unchangeable instrumental forms of some adjectives, e.g. ????? (quietly), ??????? (furtively), ????????? (blindly), and nouns, e.g. ????? (during the day), ????? (during the night), ????? (one next to the other), ????? (spiritually), ?????? (in figures), ?????? (with words). The same pattern has been used with verbs: ???????? (while running), ???????? (while lying), ???????? (while standing).
- archaic unchangeable accusative forms of some nouns: ???? (today),????? (tonight) ?????? (in the morning), ????? (in winter);
- archaic unchangeable genitive forms of some nouns: ???????? (tonight), ????? (last night), ????? (yesterday);
- homonymous and etymologically identical to the feminine singular form of the corresponding adjective used with the definite article: ???????? (hard), ?????????? (gropingly); the same pattern has been applied to some verbs, e.g. ????????? (while running), ????????? (while lying), ????????? (while standing).
- derived from cardinal numerals by means of a non-productive suffix: ?????? (once), ???? (twice), ???? (thrice);
All the adverbs are immutable. Verb forms, however, vary in aspect, mood, tense, person, number and sometimes gender and voice.
Lexis
Most of the word-stock of modern Bulgarian consists of derivations of some 2,000 words inherited from proto-Slavonic through the mediation of Old and Middle Bulgarian. Thus, the native lexical terms in Bulgarian account for 70% to 75% of the lexicon.
The remaining 25% to 30% are loanwords from a number of languages, as well as derivations of such words. The languages which have contributed most to Bulgarian are Latin and Greek (mostly international terminology), and to a lesser extent French. The numerous loanwords from Turkish (and, via Turkish, from Arabic and Persian) which were adopted into Bulgarian during the long period of Ottoman rule have mostly been substituted with native terms.
Syntax
Bulgarian employs clitic doubling, mostly for emphatic purposes. For example, the following constructions are common in colloquial Bulgarian:
- ?? ????? ???????? ?? ?????.
- ?? (? ??) ????? ???????? ?? ?????.
The phenomenon is practically obligatory in the spoken language in the case of inversion signalling information structure (in writing, clitic doubling may be skipped in such instances, with a somewhat bookish effect):
- ???????? ?? ????? ?? ?????.
- ?? ????? ? ????? ????????.
Sometimes, the doubling signals syntactic relations, thus:
- ????? ? ???? ?? ??????? ???????.
- Transl.: "Petar and Ivan were eaten by the wolves".
This is contrasted with:
- ????? ? ???? ??????? ???????.
- Transl.: "Petar and Ivan ate the wolves".
In this case, clitic doubling can be a colloquial alternative of the more formal or bookish passive voice, which would be constructed as follows:
- ????? ? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ???????.
Clitic doubling is also fully obligatory, both in the spoken and in the written norm, in clauses including several special expressions that use the short accusative and dative pronouns, like ????? ?? ?? (I feel like playing), ??????? ?? ? (I am cold), ???? ?? ?????? (my arm hurts):
- ?? ??? ?? ?? ???, ? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?????.
- Transl.: "I feel like sleeping, and Ivan feels like playing."
- ?? ??? ?? ? ???????, ? ?? ??? ?? ? ?????.
. This split, which occurred some time in the middle ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's:
- Western dialects (informally called ????? ?????/tvurd govor - "hard speech")
- the former yat is pronounced "e" in all positions. eg. ????? (mlekò) - milk, ???? (hleb) - bread.
- Eastern dialects (informally called ??? ?????/mek govor - "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) - eg. ????? (mlyàko), ???? (hlyab), and "ye" otherwise - eg. ?????? (mlekàr) - milkman, ?????? (hlebàr) - baker. This rule obtains in most Eastern dialects, although some have "ya", or a special "open e" sound, in all positions.
The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of yat. However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of all synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels - eg. ?????? (polyana) vs ?????? (poleni) "meadow - meadows" or even ???? (zhaba) vs ???? (zhebi) "frog - frogs", even though it co-occurs with the yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it (except a few dialects along the yat border, eg. in the Pleven region).
More examples of the yat umlaut in the literary language are:
- mlyàko (milk) [n.] ? mlekàr (milkman); mlèchen (milky), etc.
- syàdam (sit) [vb.] ? sedàlka (seat); sedàlishte (seat, eg. of government), etc.
- svyat (holy) [adj.] ? svetètz (saint); svetìlishte (sanctuary), etc.
Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter yat , which was commonly called ?????? ? (dvoyno e) at the time, to express the historical yat vowel or at least root vowels displaying the ya - e alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both mlyako and mlekar were spelt with . Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area was controlled by Serbia and Greece, but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation.
This had implications for some grammatical constructions:
- The third person plural pronoun and its derivatives. The original pronoun before 1945 was spelt ? (te) – "they", and all its derivatives took this as the root. After the orthographic change, the pronoun and all its derivatives were given an equal share of soft and hard spellings:
- "they" – ?? (te) ? "them" – ??? (tyah);
- "their(s)" – tehen (masc.); tyahna (fem.); tyahno (neut.); tehni (plur.)
- adjectives received the same treatment as ? :
- "whole" - tsyal ? "the whole...": tseliyat (masc.); tsyalata (fem.); tsyaloto (neut.); tselite (plur.)
Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelt as other words with different meanings, eg.:
- ??? / svet "holy" became ????/svyat, spelt and pronounced the same as ???? "world"
- ? (te) – "they" became ?? / te, the same as the second person direct object pronoun ?? – "you".
In spite of the literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia, will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations vidyal vs videli (he has seen; they have seen), some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat" (e.g. videl, videli). Others, attempting to adhere to the norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e" (e.g. vidyal, vidyali). The latter hypercorrection is called ?????????? ("svrah-yakane" ˜"over-softening").
Bulgarian language
- See also: Political views on the Bulgarian language
In most sources in and out of Bulgaria before the Second World War, the southern Slavonic dialect continuum covering the area of today's Republic of Macedonia were referred to as a group of Bulgarian dialects. The local variants of the name of the language are balgàrtski, bolgàrtski, bulgàrtski, bògartski, bogàrtski, bùgarski or bugàrski.
After WWII, the question about the Bulgarian character of the language in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia was put aside in the name of Bulgarian-Yugoslavian friendship under the pressure of the Soviet Union. After 1958 when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia turned back to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language.
Other features
Questions
Questions in Bulgarian which do not use a question word (such as who? what? etc) are formed with the particle ?? after the verb; a subject is not necessary, as the verbal conjugation suggests who is performing the action:
- ????? - you are coming; ????? ??? - are you coming?
While the particle ?? generally goes after the verb, it can go after a noun or adjective if a contrast is needed:
- ????? ?? ? ???? - are you coming with us?;
- ? ??? ?? ?????? - are you coming with us (or going with them)?
A verb is not always necessary, eg. when presenting a choice:
- ??? ??? - "him?"; ??????? ??? - "the yellow one?"
Rhetorical questions can be formed by adding ?? to a question word, thus forming a "double interrogative" –
- ???? - "Who?"; ??? ???! - "I wonder who(?)"
The same construction +?? ("no") is an emphasised positive –
- ??? ???? ???? - "Who was there?" — ??? ?? ??! - "Nearly everyone!" (lit. "I wonder who wasn't there!")
Significant verbs
S?m
The verb ??? (s?m) - "to be" is also used as an auxiliary for forming the perfect, the passive and the conditional:
udaril s?m - I have hitpassive - udaren s?m - I am hitpast passive - byah udaren - I was hitconditional - bih udaril - I would hit
Two alternate forms of ??? exist -
???? (b?`da) – interchangeable with ??? in most tenses and moods, but never in the present indicative - eg. iskam da b?da (I want to be), shte b?da tuk (I will be here); in the imperative, only ???? is used – b?di tuk! (be here!);????? (bìvam) – slightly archaic, repetitive form of "to be" - eg. bivashe zaplashen (he used to get threats); in contemporary usage, it is mostly used in the negative to mean "ought not", eg. ne biva da pushish (you shouldn't somke).
Shte
The impersonal verb ?e (shte) (lit. "it wants") is used to for forming the (positive) future tense:
- otivam - I am going
- shte otivam - I will be going
The negative future is formed with the invariable construction ???? ?? (nyama da - see "nyama" below) :
nyama da otivam - I will not be going
The past tense of this verb – ??? (shtyah) – is conjugated to form the past conditional ("would have" - again, with "da", since it is irrealis):
- shtyah da otida - I would have gone; shteshe da otidesh - you would have gone
Ima and Nyama
The verbs ???? (imam) (to have) and ????? (nyamam) (to not have) -
- the third person singular of these two can be used impersonally to mean "there is/there are" or "there isn't/aren't any..." , eg. -
- ima vreme (there is still time - compare Spanish "hay");
- nyama nikoy (there is no one there).
- The impersonal form ???? (nyama) is used in the negative future - see shte, above.
- nyama used on its own can mean simply "I won't" - a simple refusal to a suggestion or instruction.
Diminutives and augmentatives
Diminutive
- See also: Diminutive#Bulgarian
Usually done by adding "-che", "-tse" or "-(ch)ka". The gender of the word is thus changed, usually to the neuter:
- kolà (car) ? kolìchka (pram/baby's buggy)
- kotka/kote (cat) ? kotentze (kitten)
- Affectionate Form
Sometimes proper nouns and words referring to friends or family members can have a diminutive ending added to show affection. These constructions are all referred to as "na galeno" (lit. "caressing" form):
- maika (mother) ? maichitze; tatko (father) ? tatentze
Such words can be used both from parent to child, and vice-versa, as can -
- batko (big brother) ? batentze; priyatel (friend) ? priyatelche.
Personal names are shortened and made neuter:
- Georgi ? Gosho/Gotse, Mihail ? Misho, Angel ? Gele/Acho, Ivan ? Vanko, Vasil ? Vasko
- Anna ? Ani, Irina ? Reni
There is an interesting trend (which is comparatively modern, although it might well have deeper, dormant roots) where the feminine ending "-ka" and the definite article suffix "-ta" ("the") are added to male names – note that this is affectionate and not at all insulting (in fact, the endings are not even really considered as being "feminine"):
- Ivan ? Vànkata, Acho ? Àchkata.
The female equivalent would be to add the neuter ending "-to" to the diminutive form:
- Nadia ? Nadeto, Sonia ? Soncheto
Augmentative
This is to present words to sound larger - usually by adding "-shte":
- chovek (person) ? chovechishte (huge person) (note the root change k?ch)
Some words only exist in an augmentative form - eg.
- zrelishte "(awesome) spectacle" (from the old Slavic root "to see")
- svlachishte "landslide" - from svlicham "to drag down"
Parts of Speech
Conjunctions -
"But"
In Bulgarian, there are several conjunctions all translating into English as "but", which are all used in distinct situations. They are ?? (no), ??? (amà), ? (a), ??? (amì), and ??? (alà) (and ????? (obache) - "however", identical in use to ??).
While there is some overlapping between their uses, in many cases they are specific. For example, ami is used for a choice - ne tova, ami onova - "not this one, but that one" (comp. Spanish sino), while ama is often used to provide extra information or an opinion - kazah go, ama sgreshih - "I said it, but I was wrong". Meanwhile, a provides contrast between two situations, and in some sentences can even be translated as "although", "while" or even "and" - az rabotya, a toy blee - "I'm working, and all the while he's daydreaming".
Very often, different words can be used to alter the emphasis of a sentence - eg. while "pusha, no ne tryabva" and "pusha, a ne tryabva" both mean "I smoke, but I shouldn't", the first sounds more like a statement of fact ("...but I mustn't"), while the second feels more like a judgement ("...but I oughtn't"). Similarly, az ne iskam, ama toy iska and az ne iskam, a toy iska both mean "I don't want to, but he does", however the first emphasises the fact that he wants to, while the second emphaseses the wanting rather than the person.
Ala is interesting in that, while it feels archaic, it is often used in poetry and frequently in children's stories, since it has quite a moral/ominous feel to it.
Some common expressions use these words, and some can be used alone as interjections:
- da, ama ne (lit. "yes, but no") - means "you're wrong to think so".
- ama can be tagged onto a sentence to express surprise: ama toy spi! - "he's sleeping!"
- ???! - "you don't say!", "really!"
Pronouns -
- Pronouns of Quality
Bulgarian has several pronouns of quality inexistent in English - kakuv (what sort of); takuv (this sort of); onakuv (that sort of - colloq.); nyakakuv (some sort of); nikakuv (no sort of); vsyakakuv (every sort of); and the relative pronoun kakuvto (the sort of...that...). The adjective ednakuv ("the same") derives from the same radical.
Example phrases include:
- kakuv chovek?! - "what person?!"; kakuv chovek e toy? - what sort of person is he?
- ne poznavam takuv - "I don't know any (people like that)" (lit. "I don't know this sort of (person)")
- nyakakvi hora - lit. "some type of people", but the understood meaning is "a bunch of people I don't know"
- vsyakakvi hora - "all sorts of people"
- kakuv iskash? "which type do you want?" — nikakuv! "I don't want any!"/"none!"
An interesting phenomenon is that these can be stringed along one after another in quite long constructions, eg. -
| word | literal meaning | sentence | meaning of sentence as a whole |
|---|
| - | - | edna kola | a car | | takava | this sort of | edna takava kola... | this car (that i'm trying to describe) | | nikakva | no sort of | edna takava nikakva kola | this worthless car (that i'm trying to describe) | | nyakakva | some sort of | edna takava nyakakva nikakva kola | this sort of worthless car (that i'm trying to describe) |
An extreme (colloquial) sentence, with almost no physical meaning in it whatsoever - yet which does have perfect meaning to the Bulgarian ear - would be :
- "kakva e taya takava edna nyakva nikva?!"
- inferred translation - "what kind of no-good person is she?"
- literal translation: "what kind of — is — this one here (she) — this sort of — one — some sort of — no sort of"
— Note: the subject of the sentence is simply the pronoun "taya" (lit. "this one here"; colloq. - "she").
Similar "meaningless" expressions are extremely common in spoken Bulgarian, especially when the speaker is finding it difficult to describe something.
Particularities
Bulgarian has several unique features which set it apart (although some are present in its neighbouring languages, to different degrees).
Particles
Vocative particles
Bulgarian has several abstract particles which are used to strengthen a statement. These have no precise translation in English. The particles are strictly informal and can even be considered rude by some people and in some situations. They are mostly used at the end of questions or instructions.
- ?? (be) - the most common particle. It can be used to strengthen a statement or, sometimes, to indicate derision of an opinion, aided by the tone of voice. (Originally purely masculine, it can now be used towards both men and women.)
- kazhi mi, be - tell me (insistence); taka li, be? - is that so? (derisive).
- ?? (de) - expresses urgency, sometimes pleading.
- stavay, de! - come on, get up!
- ?? (ma) (feminine only) - originally simply the feminine counterpart of be, but today perceived as rude and derisive (compare the similar evolution of the vocative forms of feminine names).
- ??? (bre) - similar to be, but archaic. Although informal, can sometimes be heard being used by older people.
Modal Particles
These are "tagged" on to the beginning or end of a sentence to express the mood of the speaker in relation to the situation. They are mostly interrogative or slightly imperative in nature. There is no change in the grammatical mood when these are used (although they may be expressed through different grammatical moods in other languages).
- ???? (nalì) – is a universal affirmative tag, like "isn't it"/"won't you", etc (it is invariable, like the French n'est-ce pas). It can be placed almost anywhere in the sentence, and does not always require a verb:
- shte doydesh, nali? - you are coming, aren't you?; nali iskaha? - didn't they want to?; nali onzi? - that one, right?;
- it can express quite complex thoughts through simple constructions - nali nyamashe? - "I thought you weren't going to!" or "I thought there weren't any!" (depending on context - the verb nyama presents general negation/lacking, see "nyama", above).
- ???? (dalì) – expresses uncertainty (if in the middle of a clause, can be translated as "whether") - eg. dali shte doyde? - "do you think he will come?"
- ???? (nimà) – presents disbelief ~"don't tell me that..." - eg. nima iskash?! - "don't tell me you want to!". It is slightly archaic, but still in use. Can be used on its own as an interjection - nima!
- ???? (danò) – expresses hope - shte doyde - "he will come"; dano doyde - "I hope he comes" (comp. Spanish ojalá). Grammatically, dano is entirely separate from the verb nadyavam se - "to hope".
- ???? (nèka) – means "let('s)" - eg. neka doyde - "let him come"; when used in the first person, it expresses extreme politeness: neka da otidem... - "let us go" (in colloquial situations, haide, below, is used instead).
- neka, as an interjection, can also be used to express judgement or even Schadenfreude - neka mu! - "he deserves it!".
Intentional particles
These express intent or desire, perhaps even pleading. They can be seen as a sort of cohortative side to the language. (Since they can be used by themselves, they could even be considered as verbs in their own right.) They are also highly informal.
- ????? (hàide) - "come on", "let's"
- eg. haide, po-burzo - "faster!"
- ? (ya) - "let me" - exclusively when asking someone else for something. It can even be used on its own as a request or instruction (depending on the tone used), indicating that the speaker wants to partake in or try whatever the listener is doing.
- ya da vidya - let me see; ya? or ya! - "let me.../give me..."
- ????? (nedèi) (plur. nedèyte) – can be used to issue a negative instruction - eg. nedey da idvash - "don't come" (nedey + subjunctive). In some dialects, the construction nedey idva (nedey + preterite) is used instead. As an interjection – nedei! - "don't!" (See section on imperative mood).
These particles can be combined with the vocative particles for greater effect, eg. ya da vidya, be (let me see), or even exclusively in combinations with them, with no other elements, eg. haide, de! (come on!); nedey, de! (I told you not to!).
Other
- The commonly-cited phenomenon of Bulgarian people shaking their head for "yes" and nodding for "no" is true but, with the influence of Western culture, ever rarer, and almost non-existent among the younger generation. (It should be noted, however, that the shaking and nodding are not identical to the Western gestures. The "nod" for no is actually an upward movement of the head rather than a downward one, while the shaking of the head for yes is not completely horizontal, but also has a slight "wavy" aspect to it.)
- A dental click (|) (similar to the English "tsk") also means "no" (informal), as does ?-? (?-?) (basically, a double glottal stop). The two are often used consecutively, usually with the upward 'nod'.
- Bulgarian has an extensive vocabulary covering family relationships. The biggest range of words is for uncles and aunts – eg. chicho (your father's brother), vuicho (your mother's brother), svako (your aunt's husband); an even larger amount of synonyms for these three exists in the various dialects of Bulgarian, including kaleko, lelincho, tetin, etc. The words do not only refer to the closest members of the family (such as brat - brother, but batko - older brother), but extend to its furthest reaches, eg. badjanak (the relationship of the husbands of two sisters to each other).
Bulgarian words translated
Nouns
| Latin (Latina) | Bulgarian (?????????) | Macedonian (??????????) | Serbian | Russian (???????) | Polish (Polski) | English | Spanish (Español) | Greek (????????) |
|---|
| arbor | ????? | ???? | ???? | ?????? | drzewo | tree | árbol | d??t?? | | patata | ?????? | ?????? | ??????? | ????????? | ziemniak | potato | patata | pat?ta | | feles | ????? | ????? | ????? | ????? | kot | cat | gato | ??ta | | canis | ????, ??? | ????, ??? | ??? | ?????? | pies | dog | perro | s????? | | domus | ???, ???? | ???? | ???? | ??? | dom | house | casa | sp?t? | | mensa | ???? | ???? | ??? | ???? | stól | table (furniture) | mesa | t?ap??? | | lac | ????? | ????? | ????? | ?????? | mleko | milk | leche | ???a | | sessio | ???? | ???? | ??????? | ???? | krzeslo | chair | silla | ?a????a |
Verbs
| Bulgarian (?????????) | Macedonian (??????????) | Serbian | Russian (???????) | Polish (Polski) | English | Spanish (Español) | Greek (????????) |
|---|
| ???? | ???? | ???? | ???? | mam | I have | tengo | ??? | | ?????, ????? | ????? | ?????, ???? | ???? | chce | I want | quiero | ???? | | ?????,????? | ??????, ????? | ????? | ????? | zrobic | I do | hago | ???? | | ???? | ???? | ????? | ???? | chodzic | I walk | ando | pe?pat? | | ?????? | ????????, ??????? | ??????? | ?????? | rozmawiac | I talk | hablo | µ??? | | ??????? | ?????? | ??????? | ?????? | znalezc | I find | encuentro | ß??s?? | | ?? | ????? | ????? | ?? | jesc | I eat | como | t???? | | ??? | ????? | ????? | ??? | piciem | I drink | bebo | p??? |
Common expressions
- ??????? (zdravéi) — Hello
- ??????? (zdrásti) — Hi
- ????? ???? (dobró útro) — Good morning
- ????? ??? (dób?r dén) — Good day
- ????? ????? (dób?r vécher) — Good evening
- ???? ??? (léka nósht) — Good night
- ????????? (dovízhdane) — Good-bye
- ??? ?? ??? (kói si ti) [informal, masculine] — Who are you?
- ??? ?? ??? (k?iá si ti) [informal, feminine] — Who are you?
The neuter for this question - ??? ?? ??? (koé si ti) is very rarely used only in some special cases - when one is asked to identify him/herself with an inanimate object - as in a zodiac or game, or when one addresses a child, which is neuter gender in Bulgarian; however, the latter is an old use, which implies diminutive, that can be heard mostly from some senior citizens and is replaced nowadays by the masculine or feminine gender questions when addressing boys and girls respectively.
- ??? ??? ???? (kói ste víe) [formal, masculine] — Who are you? (The formal expression uses a plural verb but a singular pronoun, which allows speakers to distinguish the two grammatical forms. Moreover, the formal singular pronoun denoting "you" - ??? is always capitalized in writing to distinguish it from the plural "you" - ???.)
- ??? ?? ??????? (kak se kazvash) - What is your name?
- ??? ??? ???? (k?iá ste víe) [formal, feminine] — Who are you?
- ??? ??? ???? (k?í ste víe) [plural form] - Who are you?
- ??? ??? (kák si) [informal] — How are you?
- ??? ???? (kák sté) [formal, and also plural form] - How are you?
- ?? (dá) - Yes
- ?? (né) - No
- ???? ?? (mózhe bí) - Maybe
- ????? ??????? (kakvó právish) [informal] — What are you doing?
- ????? ???????? (kakvó právite) [formal, and also plural form] - What are you doing?
- ????? ??? (dobré s?m) — I’m fine
- ?????? [???-]?????? (vsíchko [nai-]húbavo) — All the best
- ???????? (pózdravi) — Regards
- ????????? (blagodary?´) [formal and informal] — Thank you
- ???? (mólia) — Please
- ???? (mólia) — You're welcome
- ????????! (izvinéte) [formal] — Excuse me!
- ?????????! (izviniávai) [informal] — Sorry!
- ?????? ??! (obícham te) - I love you!
- ????? ? ?????? (kólko e chas?´t) — What’s the time?
- ???????? ??…? (govórite li…) — Do you speak…?
- …????????? (anglíiski) — English
- …????????? (b?´lgarski) — Bulgarian
- …?????? (némski) — German
- …?????? (polski) — Polish
- …????? (ruski) — Russian
- …????????? (holándski) — Dutch
- …?????? (gr?´tski) — Greek
- …?????????? (makedónski) - Macedonian
- …?????????? (italiánski) — Italian
- …???????? (ispánski) — Spanish
- …??????? (frénski) — French
- …??????? (iapónski) — Japanese
- …???????? (kitáiski) — Chinese
- …???????? (koréiski) — Korean
- ?? ?? ????? ????? (shté sé vídim skóro) - We'll see each other soon
- ?? ?? ????? ???? (shté sé vídim útre) - We'll see each other tomorrow
Also, some very frequent expressions have been borrowed from other languages. Most of them are somewhat informal.
- ????? (mersí) - Thank you; from French (although this word is probably even more common than native "?????????", it is inappropriate in very official or solemn contexts)
- ??? (cháo) - Bye; from Italian (the informal counterpart of native "?????????")
- C??ep (súper) - Super; (from English, colloquial; note - "Super" remains the same regardless of quantity or gender, although an even more colloquial adjective ???????? (súperski) does decline as usual)
- A?? (álo) - Hallo on the phone; from French (unlike the above, this word is stylistically neutral).
- ?????? ?? ?! (zdràve da e - lit. "may there (at least) be health") - used when things have not gone as well as the speaker might have hoped.
See also
External links
Study Bulgarian
Linguistic reports
Dictionaries
Other:
- FREE PDF Bulgarian Language [Katina Bontcheva - by ivaylo]
- FREE PDF Booklet with Bulgarian words and phrases by Bulgaria Info-Online Magazine
- incl.sound file
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