|9th century – present|
|ISO 15924||Cyrl, , Cyrillic|
|subset of Cyrillic (U+0400...U+04F0)|
The Bulgarian alphabet is used to write the Bulgarian language.
In the 9th century, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet, devised by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria at the end of the 9th century.
Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the early and middle 19th century during the efforts[clarification needed] 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 (uppercase Ѣ, lowercase ѣ) and yus (uppercase Ѫ, lowercase ѫ) were removed from its alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30. Yat was also known as "double e" (двойно е/е-двойно), and yus was also known as "big nasal sign" (голяма носовка), crossed yer (ъ кръстато), and "wide yer" (широко ъ). Although Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, some preferred letter shapes in Bulgaria are different to those in Russian use.
The following table gives the letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, along with the IPA values for the sound of each letter. The listed transliteration in the Official transliteration column (known as the Streamlined System) is official in Bulgaria and is listed in the Official orthographic dictionary (2012). For other transliteration standards see Romanization of Bulgarian.
|Bulgarian alphabet[a]||ISO 9||Official transliteration||IPA[b]||Name of letter||English equivalent|
|А а (а)||A a||A a||/a/, /ɐ/ or /ə/||а||a as in "apart"|
|Б б||B b||B b||/b/ or /p/||бъ||b as in "bug"|
|В в (в)||V v||V v||/v/ or /f/||въ||v as in "vet"|
|Г г (г)||G g||G g||/ɡ/ or /k/||гъ||g as in "good"|
|Д д (ɡ/д)[c]||D d||D d||/d/ or /t/||дъ||d as in "dog"|
|Е е||E e||E e||/ɛ/||е||e as in "best"|
|Ж ж||Ž ž||Zh zh||/ʒ/ or /ʃ/||жъ||s as in "treasure"|
|З з||Z z||Z z||/z/ or /s/||зъ||z as in "zoo"|
|И и (и)||I i||I i||/i/||и||i as in "machine"|
|Й й (й)||J j||Y y||/j/||и кратко||y as in "yes" or "yoyo"|
|К к||K k||K k||/k/ or /ɡ/||къ||
k as in "kick"
|Л л (л)||L l||L l||/l/ before е and и, /ʎ/ before ю, я and ь, /ɫ/ elsewhere||лъ||l as in "call" or "lend"|
|М м||M m||M m||/m/||мъ||m as in "man"|
|Н н||N n||N n||/n/||нъ||n as in "normal"|
|О о||O o||O o||/ɔ/, /o/||о||o as in "order"|
|П п (п)||P p||P p||/p/ or /b/||пъ||p as in "pet"|
|Р р||R r||R r||/r/||ръ||trilled r as in Spanish "perro"|
|С с||S s||S s||/s/ or /z/||съ||s as in "sound"|
|Т т (т)||T t||T t||/t/ or /d/||тъ||t as in "stick"|
|У у||U u||U u||/u/, /o/ or /ʊ/||у||оо as in "boot"|
|Ф ф||F f||F f||/f/ or /v/||фъ||f as in "food"|
|Х х||H h||H h||/x/||хъ||h as in "hot"|
|Ц ц (ц)||C c||Ts ts||/t͡s/||цъ||ts as in "fits"|
|Ч ч||Č č||Ch ch||/t͡ʃ/||чъ||ch as in "chip"|
|Ш ш (ш)||Š š||Sh sh||/ʃ/ or /ʒ/||шъ||sh as in "shot"|
|Щ щ (щ)||Št št[d]||Sht sht||/ʃt/||щъ||sht as in "shtick"|
|Ъ ъ||Ǎ ǎ[d]||A a||/ɤ/, /ɐ/ or /ə/||ер голям||u as in "turn"|
|Ь ь||ʹ [d]||Y y||/j/ or not pronounced||ер малък||soft sign: y as in "canyon"|
|Ю ю||Ju ju[d]||Yu yu||/ju/, /jo/, /ʲu/ or /ʲo/||ю||yu as in "youth"|
|Я я||Ja ja[d]||Ya ya||/ja/, /jɐ/, /ʲa/ or /ʲɐ/||я||ya as in "yarn"|
- Lowercase cursive characters are shown in brackets when they look significantly different from their corresponding roman type. See Letterforms and typography of Cyrillic script for more information.
- See Help:IPA/Bulgarian for details.
- For д, both ɡ and д are used.
- The romanizations of these characters differ from the current version, ISO 9:1995, as it[clarification needed] was never officially adopted as a Bulgarian standard.
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 (ch), ш (sh), щ (sht), ю (yu), and я (ya). Two additional sounds are written with two letters: these are дж (/dʒ/) and дз (/dz/). The letter ь marks the softening (palatalization) of any consonant (except ж, ч, and ш) before the letter о, while ю and я after consonants mark the palatalization of the preceding consonant in addition to representing the vowels /u/ and /a/.
The names of most letters are simple representations of their phonetic values, with consonants being followed by /ɤ/ – thus the alphabet goes: /a/ – /bɤ/ – /vɤ/, etc. However, the name of the letter Й is "i-kratko" (short i), the name of Ъ is "er-golyam" (large yer), and the name of Ь is "er-malak" (small yer). People often refer to Ъ simply as /ɤ/.
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 [ɐ] and [o], 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 [ɤ]. Thus чета ("I read") is pronounced [t͡ʃeˈtɤ], and мъжа ("the man") is pronounced [mɐˈʒɤ].
- Voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced when at the end of a word or when preceding an unvoiced consonant – e.g. втори ("second") is pronounced [ˈftɔri], and град ("city") is pronounced [ˈɡrat]. Similarly, unvoiced consonants are pronounced voiced when preceding a voiced consonant – e.g. сграда ("building") is [ˈzɡradɐ]. (The voiced consonant "в" is an exception – it does not cause the preceding unvoiced consonant to become voiced – сватба (wedding) is [ˈsvadbɐ].)
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.:
- French – e.g. тротоар (trottoir – sidewalk), тирбушон (tire-bouchon – corkscrew), партер (from par terre – ground floor)
- German – e.g. бинт (Bind – bandage), багер (Bagger – digger), бормашина (Bohrmaschine – drill)
Notable is the transliteration of many English names through German, e.g.:
- Washington → Вашингтон (Vashington), Scotland → Шотландия (Shotlandiya)
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:
- кликвам на файла (click-vam na file-a) – I click on the file
- даунлоудваш го на десктопа (download-vash go na desktop-a) – you download it onto the desktop
- чатим в нета (chat-im v net-a) – we chat on the net
The computer-related neologisms are often used interchangeably with traditional Bulgarian words, e.g. 'download' and 'upload' can be simply свалям and качвам (svalyam and kachvam – 'to bring down' and 'to put up').
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 –
- Янките против още US войски в Афганистан (instead of американски - American)
- The Yanks oppose more US troops in Afghanistan
- To avoid the need to transcribe to Cyrillic or translate to Bulgarian well known abbreviations:
- Ние не сме видели края на SOPA, PIPA и ACTA (instead of, for example, СОПА, ПИПА и АКТА)
- We have not seen the end of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA
Brand names are also often not transcribed: WikiLeaks, YouTube, Skype – as opposed to Уикиликс, Ю-Тюб, Скайп. However, this is not always the case, as in the headline "Фейсбук vs. Гугъл" (official transliteration: Feysbuk vs. Gugal). 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.
- Belarusian alphabet
- Bulgarian Braille
- Bulgarian language
- Cyrillic script
- Cyrillic alphabets
- Early Cyrillic alphabet
- Greek alphabet
- Macedonian alphabet
- Old Bulgarian
- Romanization of Belarusian
- Romanization of Bulgarian
- Romanization of Greek
- Romanization of Macedonian
- Romanization of Russian
- Romanization of Ukrainian
- Russian alphabet
- Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic
- Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
- Ukrainian alphabet
- Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.
- Gornitsky, Roman. "Soyuz Grotesk: release notes". The Temporary State. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- Leonard Orban (24 May 2007). "Cyrillic, the third official alphabet of the EU, was created by a truly multilingual European" (PDF). europe.eu. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
- pg. 11–12 of Правопис и пунктуация на българския език. (Orthography and punctuation of the Bulgarian language). Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 2011.
- The Yanks oppose more US troops in Afghanistan Archived April 12, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (in Bulgarian) Monitor.bg, 13 Nov 2009. Retrieved 16 Sept 2012.
- Wikipedia: We are aware that we have not seen the end of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA (in Bulgarian) Darik News, 23 Feb 2012. Retrieved 16 Sept 2012.
- "Standart News". Archived from the original on 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2015-04-11.