Bulgarian

[edit] Guide Note

Bulgarian is the official language of Bulgaria. It is also spoken in small communities in the following countries: Israel, United States, Moldova, Hungary, Ukraine, Montenegro and Canada¹

[edit] Fast Facts

1. Language family: Indo-European, Eastern South Slavic¹
2. Number of speakers: 9 million²
3. Official language: Bulgaria
4. Major dialects: Pomak, Palityan¹
5. Bulgarian speaking countries: Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Greece¹
6. Number of letters in alphabet: 30 letters, 6 vowels, 24 consonants^{3 4}

• Hi: Sdrawei
• Good bye: Chao
• Good morning: Dobro utro
• Good evening: Dobar wecher
• Good night: Leka nosht
• Welcome: Dobre doshal
• How are you?: Kak si?
• Thank you: Mnogo blagodaria
• What's new?: Neshto nowo?
• Can I help you?: Moje li da vi pomogna?
• How much is this?: Kolko struva tova?
• What's your name?: Kaks se kaswate?
• My name is...: As se kasvam...
• sorry: sajaliavam
• I don't understand: Nishto ne rasbrah
• yes: da
• no: ne

In the 18th century, the Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Bulgarian language for the first time. Before then in the 9th century, Bulgarian was written in Glagolitic script. There was an influence from Russian language books to switch over to Cyrillic. Around the 1870s, an alphabet with 32 letters created by Marin Drinov was used until 1945. Due to the orthographic reform in 1945, two letters were dropped from the alphabet, leaving 30 letters.⁵