Languages
Native
Bulgarian
85%
Secondary languages
English
25%
Russian
14%
Language Samples
Здравей, как си?
Zdravey, kak si?
Hello, how are you?
Добре съм, благодаря.
Dobre sam, blagodarya.
I am well, thank you.
Едно, две, три, четири, пет, шест, седем, осем, девет, десет.
Edno, dve, tri, chetiri, pet, shest, sedem, osem, devet, deset.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Bulgarian is a South Slavic language and the oldest written Slavic language, with literary traditions dating to the 9th century. Saints Cyril and Methodius devised the Glagolitic alphabet to write Old Church Slavonic, a language based on the Slavic dialect of the Thessaloniki region, which is closely ancestral to Bulgarian. Their disciples later created the Cyrillic alphabet, named in honour of Saint Cyril, which spread to other Slavic peoples from Bulgaria. Modern Bulgarian is distinguished from most other Slavic languages by having lost noun cases almost entirely, replacing them with a definite article (postpositional suffix) — a feature it shares with its close relative Macedonian.
Similar Languages
Macedonian
77%
Serbian
65%
Russian
60%
Ukrainian
57%
Media
Rila Monastery in the Rila Mountains — Bulgaria's most famous monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Photo: IngimarE · CC BY-SA 4.0
Did You Know
01
Bulgaria is the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, which is now used by over 250 million people across the world.
02
Bulgarians traditionally shake their head to mean 'yes' and nod to mean 'no' — the opposite of most cultures — though this habit is fading among younger generations.
03
Bulgarian has no infinitive verb form; instead of saying 'I want to go', Bulgarians say 'I want that I go' (Искам да отида).