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 The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria at the beginning of the 10th century.Several Cyrillic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 alphabet | ISO 9 | Official transliteration | IPA | Name of letter | English equivalent |
italic=unset | A a | A a | , or | а | a as in "apart" |
italic=unset | B b | B b | or | бъ | b as in "bug" |
italic=unset | V v | V v | or | въ | v as in "vet" |
italic=unset | G g | G g | or | гъ | g as in "good" |
italic=unset | D d | D d | or | дъ | d as in "dog" |
italic=unset | E e | E e | е | e as in "best" | |
italic=unset | Ž ž | Zh zh | or | жъ | s as in "treasure" |
italic=unset | Z z | Z z | or | зъ | z as in "zoo" |
italic=unset | I i | I i | и | i as in "machine" | |
italic=unset | J j | Y y | и кратко | y as in "yes" or "yoyo" | |
italic=unset | K k | K k | or | къ | k as in "make" |
italic=unset | L l | L l | , or | лъ | l as in "call" or "lend" |
italic=unset | M m | M m | мъ | m as in "man" | |
italic=unset | N n | N n | нъ | n as in "normal" | |
italic=unset | O o | O o | or | о | o as in "order" |
italic=unset | P p | P p | or | пъ | p as in "pet" |
italic=unset | R r | R r | ръ | r as in "ever" | |
italic=unset | S s | S s | or | съ | s as in "sound" |
italic=unset | T t | T t | or | тъ | t as in "top" |
italic=unset | U u | U u | ,, or | у | оо as in "boot" |
italic=unset | F f | F f | or | фъ | f as in "food" |
italic=unset | H h | H h | хъ | ch as in Scottish "loch" | |
italic=unset | C c | Ts ts | цъ | ts as in "fits" | |
italic=unset | Č č | Ch ch | чъ | ch as in "chip" | |
italic=unset | Š š | Sh sh | or | шъ | sh as in "shot" |
italic=unset | Št št | Sht sht | щъ | sht as in "shtick" | |
italic=unset | Ǎ ǎ | A a | , or | ер голям | u as in "turn" |
italic=unset | ' | Y y | or not pronounced | ер малък | soft sign: y as in "canyon" |
italic=unset | Ju ju | Yu yu | ,, or | ю | yu as in "youth" |
italic=unset | Ja ja | Ya ya | ,, or | я | ya 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 letterThe 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:- The sounds and, which appear only in unstressed syllables, are written with two different letters each – "а" or "ъ", and "о" or "у" respectively.
- The vowel in stressed verb endings -а, -ат, -я and -ят and the stressed short definite articles -a and -я is pronounced. Thus чета is pronounced, and мъжа is pronounced.
- Voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced when at the end of a word or when preceding an unvoiced consonant – e.g. втори is pronounced, and град is pronounced. Similarly, unvoiced consonants are pronounced voiced when preceding a voiced consonant – e.g. сграда is.
Modern developments
- French – e.g. тротоар, тирбушон, партер
- German – e.g. бинт, багер, бормашина
- Washington → Вашингтон, Scotland → Шотландия
- кликвам на файла – I click on the file
- даунлоудваш го на десктопа – you download it onto the desktop
- чатим в нета – we chat on the net
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 –- To shorten what would otherwise be a longer word or phrase –
- To avoid the need to transcribe to Cyrillic or translate to Bulgarian well known abbreviations:
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.