Bulgarian Language Web. A LANGUAGE PORTAL. ^NORSK

Home Bulgarian Translators Contact

BULGARIAN IS OFFICIALLY SPOKEN IN BULGARIA 1. INTRODUCTION. All languages evolve with time. Due to migrations, or for other reasons, a single language can evolve into a whole family of related languages. The branch of linguistics, responsible for the classification of the world’s languages into families, is called comparative philology. Languages within a single family can diverge into different branches of languages. Still they remain related to a single ancestor from which they developed. Alternatively, languages can become interrelated for reasons of geographical closeness. Languages within one family share common grammatical and lexical features. The most widely studied and researched family of languages is the Indo-European. Indo-European languages are spoken on both the European continent and the Indian sub-continent, as well as in Iran (Persia). Some of the world’s most important languages belong to this group: English, Spanish, French, German and Russian, Portuguese). Other important languages in this group, spoken by millions of speakers, are Portuguese, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. Branches within the Indo- European language family include the following: - The Anatolian branch (includes the now extinct Hittite and Lydian) - The Armenian or Thracian branch (includes Armenian) - The Baltic branch (includes Latvian and Lithuanian, as well as the now extinct Old Prussian) - The Celtic branch (includes Breton, Welsh, Scottish & Irish Gaelic, as well as the now extinct Cornish, Gaulish, Manx and Cumbrian) - The Germanic branch (includes the following Germanic languages: English, German, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faeroese and Yiddish) - The Greek (or Hellenic) branch (includes Modern Greek, as well as the now extinct older forms of Greek) - The Illyric branch (includes Albanian) - The Indo-Aryan or Indic branch (includes Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Singhalese, as well as the now extinct Sanskrit language) - The Italic (also called Latin or Romance) branch (includes Italian, French, Provencal, Rhaeto-Romanic, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Romanian) - The Iranian branch (includes modern Persian, also called Farsi or Iranian, Kurdish, Pashto, Baluchi and Tadjik, as well as the now extinct Old Persian) - The Slavic branch (includes Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian,

Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian or Slovene, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Sorbian, Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian). 2. BULGARIAN LANGUAGE. The Bulgarian language, official language of Bulgaria, is spoken by more than 9.2 million people around the world (7.7 million in Bulgaria itself). Language facts (1986): 7,986,000 in Bulgaria, 85% of the population (1986); 234,000 in Ukraine; 30,000 in Greece; 10,439 in Romania; 270,000 in Turkey; 361,000 in Moldova (1979 census). It is part of the Slavic branch of languages and as such, is closely related to the other Slavic languages (see above). Together with Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian, it forms the South Slavic group of the Slavic language. Like Serbian and Russian, Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Some consider Macedonian a dialect of Bulgarian, but this is a highly charged political issue hotly disputed by others. Macedonian is so close to the Bulgarian that people in those two countries can understand each other without the necessity of translation, much as Serbs and Croats do. Bulgarians regard Macedonian as a strain of their own language, while Macedonians insist it is a separate language. In Bulgaria itself it is spoken and understood by virtually the entire population. Some 15% of the country’s population (minority groups like Turks, Gypsies and Armenians) is considered to be essentially bilingual. 3. IMPORTANT FEATURES. Bulgarian belongs to the Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages and has played an important part in their historical development. Old Bulgarian, also called Old Church Slavonic, has helped propel the Slavic languages literarily. It was considered one of the three major literary languages of Europe during the Middle Ages. When the scholarly brothers Cyril and Methodius devised the first Slavic alphabet in the 9^th century, it was first adapted by Bulgarian. Bulgarian has already at an earlier stage lost its case endings. Modern-day Bulgarian has no case forms, unlike its sister languages (Serbian, Russian, Polish etc.). Another grammatical feature that makes it unique among the Slavic languages is that it has a definite article that comes after the noun (as in the Scandinavian languages). For example: universitet (university) becomes universiteta (the university), kniga (book) becomes knigata (the book). BULGARIAN LANGUAGE ONLINE Premium Language Sites GENERAL INFO Bulgarian Language InfoPlease encyclopedia article. Bulgarian Language General info on Bulgarian. Bulgarian Alphabet & Orthography Comprehensive information about the Bulgarian language and its origins. Bulgarian pronunciation guide. The Complete Guide to the Bulgarian Cyrillic Alphabet Click here for some additional info about Bulgarian. Simple Bulgarian Phrases Here you can learn some basic Bulgarian phrases. Elementary Online Bulgarian Grammar The Alphabet, basic spelling rules, phonetic rules, parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs. System of tenses. Morphological analysis of the Bulgarian sentence Enter a Bulgarian sentence. Cyrillic Fonts on the Internet Downloadable. Download Cyrillic Fonts KREDOR - Bulgarsk latinsk til kyrillisk konvertor Converte Bulgarian (Cyrillic) into Bulgarian (Latin) and vice versa. BULGARIAN ONLINE DICTIONARIES English-Bulgarian Bulgarian-English Dictionary SA Dictionary at News.bg. SA Dictionary Download Page Hot! Download SA Dictionary 2002 Professional. Ectaco English-Bulgarian Dictionary Online Free online dictionary, translates to and from English.

Rechnik: Bulgarian Dictionary This is a free community service, for fair use only. Expert English-Bulgarian & Bulgarian English Dictionary More than 200,000 definitions, tens of thousands of phrases. Downloadable file. Bulgarian-English Dictionary Plovdiv University’s Bulgarian dictionary. The Bulgarian Rechnik The Bulgarian RECHNIK contains 2,365 common words and expressions in 6 languages - Bulgarian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, & Italian. English-Bulgarian Talking Dictionary Buy Ectaco’s Bulgarian electronic dictionary. Handheld Dictionary: Language Teacher Once again, it’s Ectaco… Check it out! The Alternative Bulgarian Dictionary: Long list of 6 (six!) Bulgarian swear words, nasty slang expressions, insults, profanities and vulgarisms. ART & CULTURE Bulgarian Art Bulgarian fine arts, applied arts, photography, icons, art galleries, theatre, architecture. Art BG Gallery Online art & artifacts gallery. Vassil Karloukovski’s Bulgarian & Macedonian Page History of the Proto-Bulgarians. The Proto-Bulgarian language, vocabulary & grammar. Thracian culture. The Thracian Language & the Indo-European family of languages Thracian words, vocabulary, inscriptions Welkya International Web Magazine Web Magazine for art & culture. LIK Magazine Literature, art & culture digest. Liternet Bulgarian archive of literature & the humanities, online bookstore & library. Bulgarian Music Guide Bulgarian artists, composers, producers BULGARIAN TRANSLATORS Bulgarian Text Solutions Multiple language translators: professional translations between English, French, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Chinese, Dutch and Bulgarian. Bulgarian Translator International providers of Bulgarian translations to and from various languages. Vlaiko Boyadzhiev, Translator & Interpreter Oslo-based English-Bulgarian-Norwegian translator. Bulgarian Language Service Bulgarian translator. Quality translations English to Bulgarian to Norwegian to English. Bulgarsk interpreter Tolker bulgarsk i Oslo-regionen. Bulgarian translator Oversetter bulgarsk-norsk. Network of Bulgarian Interpreters Need a Bulgarian interpreter? Bulgarian interpretation services. LEARN TO SPEAK BULGARIAN Learn Bulgarian: Private Tuition Lessons Bulgarian taught in Oslo, Norway. Teach Yourself Bulgarian Recommended book: learn Bulgarian at home. A Short Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian By Kjetil Rå Hauge, Oslo University. Bulgarian Taught as a Subject at the University of Oslo, Norway Bulgarsk som fag ved Universitetet i Oslo. BULGARIAN PHRASE BOOKS AT TRAVLANG English-Bulgarian Phrases (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: English. Bulgarian-English Phrases (English for Travelers) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: Bulgarian. Bulgarsk-norsk parlør (Norsk til reisebruk) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: bulgarsk. Norsk-bulgarsk parlør (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: norsk. German-Bulgarian Phrases (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: Deutsch. Bulgarian-German Phrases (Deutsch für Reisende) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: German. Danish-Bulgarian Phrases (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: dansk. Swedish-Bulgarian Phrases (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: svenska. Dutch-Bulgarian Phrases (Български за пътуващи) Travlang’s quick fix phrase-finder: nederlands. BULGARIAN BOOKSTORES Bulgarian Online Bookstore Buy Bulgarian books online. Bulgarian Books & Courses Multilingual Books. Bulgarian Book Section at Amazon.com Bulgarian book mail order catalog. BULGARIAN NEWS ONLINE, NEWSPAPERS Mediapool (Bulgarian) Standart (Bulgarian, English) Dnevnik (Bulgarian) Novinar (Bulgarian) News-bg.com (Bulgarian) Capital (Bulgarian) Novoto vreme (Bulgarian, English) NetInfo (Bulgarian) Bulgaria Online (Bulgarian) Bulgarian News Agency (Bulgarian, English) Bulgarian TV (Bulgarian) BBC (Bulgarian language news service) Maritza Plovdiv (Bulgarian) Kultura (Bulgarian) Bulgaria Online (English) Bulgarian NewsScan (English) OTHER LINKS Bulgaria on the Internet A links portal. Bulgaria.com The first Bulgarian portal. The Macedonian language = Bulgarian with Serbian Letters The collapse of Yugoslavia & the future prospects of the Macedonian literary language. Updated 11.11.2004

WRITING SAMPLES OF BULGARIAN WORDS

ENGLISH ------------------------ alphabet book bye Bulgaria Bulgarian cat chair day dictionary English good evening good morning good night greetings hello literature mother Norway page pencil radio read sea services Sofia son town translation translations translators university write written

BULGARIAN -------------------------------- азбука книга чао България български котка стол ден речник английски добър вечер добро утро лека нощ поздрави здравей литература майка Норвегия страница молив радио чета море услуги София син град превод преводи преводачи университет пиша писмен

PRONUNCIATION ----------------------------------------- ´azbuka ´kniga chao Bal´garia ´balgarski ´kotka stol den ´rechnik an´gliiski ´dober ´vecher do´bro ´utro ´leka ´nosht ´pozdravi zdra´vey litera´tura ´mayka Nor´vegia ´stranitsa ´moliv ´radio che´ta mo´re us´lugi ´Sofia sin grad ´prevod ´prevodi prevo´dachi universi´tet ´pisha ´pismen

Copyright ® 1998-2005 by NSS. All rights reserved