Bulgarian alphabet


The Bulgarian alphabet, a version of Cyrillic, is used to write the Bulgarian language.

History

In AD 886, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet, devised by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria at the beginning of the 10th century.
Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the early and middle 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: it was used until the orthographic reform of 1945, when the letters yat and yus were removed from its alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30. Yat was also known as "double e", and yus was also known as "big nasal sign", crossed yer, and "wide yer".
With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, the Cyrillic script became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts.

List

The following table gives the letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, along with the values for the sound of each letter. The listed transliteration in the Official transliteration column is official in Bulgaria and is listed in the Official orthographic dictionary. For other transliteration standards see Romanization of Bulgarian.
Bulgarian alphabetISO 9Official transliterationIPAName of letterEnglish equivalent
italic=unsetA aA a, or аa as in "apart"
italic=unsetB bB b or бъb as in "bug"
italic=unsetV vV v or въv as in "vet"
italic=unsetG gG g or гъg as in "good"
italic=unsetD dD d or дъd as in "dog"
italic=unsetE eE eеe as in "best"
italic=unsetŽ žZh zh or жъs as in "treasure"
italic=unsetZ zZ z or зъz as in "zoo"
italic=unsetI iI iиi as in "machine"
italic=unsetJ jY yи кратко y as in "yes" or "yoyo"
italic=unsetK kK k or къ
k as in "make"
italic=unsetL lL l, or лъl as in "call" or "lend"
italic=unsetM mM mмъm as in "man"
italic=unsetN nN nнъn as in "normal"
italic=unsetO oO o or оo as in "order"
italic=unsetP pP p or пъp as in "pet"
italic=unsetR rR rръr as in "ever"
italic=unsetS sS s or съs as in "sound"
italic=unsetT tT t or тъt as in "top"
italic=unsetU uU u,, or уоо as in "boot"
italic=unsetF fF f or фъf as in "food"
italic=unsetH hH hхъch as in Scottish "loch"
italic=unsetC cTs tsцъts as in "fits"
italic=unsetČ čCh chчъch as in "chip"
italic=unsetŠ šSh sh or шъsh as in "shot"
italic=unsetŠt štSht shtщъsht as in "shtick"
italic=unsetǍ ǎA a, or ер голямu as in "turn"
italic=unset' Y y or not pronouncedер малъкsoft sign: y as in "canyon"
italic=unsetJu juYu yu,, or юyu as in "youth"
italic=unsetJa jaYa ya,, or яya as in "yarn"

Most letters in the Bulgarian alphabet stand for just one specific sound. Five letters stand for sounds written in English with two or more letters. These letters are ч, ш, щ, ю, and я. Two additional sounds are written with two letters: these are дж and дз. The letter ь marks the softening of any consonant before the letter

The accented letter Ѝ is used to distinguish the conjunction 'и' from the pronoun 'Ѝ'. It is not considered a separate letter but rather a special form of И.

Writing

Bulgarian is usually described as having a phonemic orthography, meaning that words are spelt the way they are pronounced. This is largely true, but there are exceptions. Three of the most cited examples are:
Since the time of Bulgaria's liberation in the late 19th century, the Bulgarian language has taken on a large number of words from Western European languages. All of these are transcribed phonetically into Cyrillic, e.g.:
Notable is the transliteration of many English names through German, e.g.:
In the years since the end of communism and the rise of technology, the tendency for borrowing has shifted mainly to English, where much computer-related terminology has entered and been inflected accordingly – again, in a wholly phonetic way. Examples include:
The computer-related neologisms are often used interchangeably with traditional Bulgarian words, e.g. "download" and "upload" can be simply свалям and качвам.

Use of Roman script in Bulgarian

The insertion of English words directly into a Cyrillic Bulgarian sentence, while frowned upon, has been increasingly used in the media. This is done for several reasons, including –
Brand names are also often not transcribed: WikiLeaks, YouTube, Skype – as opposed to Уикилийкс, Ю-Тюб, Скайп. However, this is not always the case, as in the headline "Фейсбук vs. Гугъл". Note the inconsistency here – despite the insistence on Cyrillic, the "vs." has been retained in Roman script.
The 2012 Official Orthographic Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences permits widely known proper names to remain in their original alphabet. Example sentences are given, all containing names of American IT companies: Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, PayPal, Facebook.