Lecture for Bulgarian Language

[Ian da Bitour]

Лекция за Българския Език
Lecture for Bulgarian Language
Leitürâ

The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.

Bulgarian (Български) - a Southern Slavic, the official language in Bulgaria - is mutually intelligible with Macedonian, and closely related to Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene and Russian. Spoken in: Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Outlands region in Serbia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Turkey,

Bulgarian was the first Slavic language to be written: it start to appear in writing during the 9th century in the Glagolitic alphabet (www.omniglot.com/writing/glagolitic.htm) and Modern Bulgarian is based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language.
The present Bulgarian alphabet has 30 letters in a Cyrilic form.

Some history:

The development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several historical periods.

Prehistoric period - occurred between the Slavonic invasion of the eastern Balkans and the mission of St. Cyril and St. Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s.

Old Bulgarian (9th to 11th century, also referred to as Old Church Slavonic) - a literary norm of the early southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by St. Cyril, St. Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible and other liturgical literature from Greek into Slavic.

Middle Bulgarian (12th to 15th century) - a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of rich literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

Modern Bulgarian - dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar and syntax changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. The historical development of the Bulgarian language can be described as a transition from a highly synthetic language (Old Bulgarian) to a typical analytic language (Modern Bulgarian) with Middle Bulgarian as a midpoint in this transition.

Official status – Official language of: Bulgaria and European Union ( ;D )

English Bulgarian Pronunciation
Thank you Благодаря blagodarya
You areр welcome Моля molya
Good morning Добро утро dobro ootro
Good afternoon Добър лен dobir den
Good evening Добър вечер dobir vyecher
Good night Лека нощ leka nosht
So long Доскоро doskoro
How are you? Какси? kak si?
Thank you very much Благодаря, вимного blagodarya,vimnogo
Excuse me / Please Извинете / Ако обичате izivinyetye / ako obichatye
Yes / No Да / Не da / nye
one / two / three / four едно / две / три / четири edno / dve / tri / chetiri
five / six / seven пет / шест / седем pet / shest / sedem
eight / nine / ten осем / девет / десет osem / devet / decet

Bulgarian English IPA
A, a March a
Б, б baby b
В, в visa v
Ґ, ґ; garden g
Д, д doctor d
Е, е Edward e
Ж, ж measure Z
З, з zone z
И, и idiot i
Й, й May j
К, к cake, stock k
Л, л lily, lot l
М, м minute m
Н, н net n
О, о Bob o
П, п Peter p
Р, р rose r
С, с salt s
Т, т title t
У, у put, book u
Ф, ф fine, phone f
Х, х hotel x
Ц, ц bets, pizza ts
Ч, ч charm tS
Ш, ш show S
Щ, щ ash St
Ъ, ъ action, run «
Ь, ь - -
Ю, ю dune, new u, ju
Я, я yard ja


Nouns

Bulgarian nouns have the categories grammatical gender, number, case (only vocative) and definiteness. A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural), With cardinal numbers and some adverbs, masculine nouns use a separate count form. Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun.


Adjectives

A Bulgarian adjective agrees in gender, number and definiteness with the noun it is appended to and is put usually before it. The comparative and the superlative form (unlike most other Slavic languages) are formed analytically.

Pronouns

Bulgarian pronouns vary in gender, number, definiteness and case. They, more than any other part of speech, have preserved the proto-Slavic case system. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, possessive, interrogative, demonstrative, reflexive, summative, negative, indefinite and relative.

Verbs

Bulgarian verbs are the most complicated part of Bulgarian grammar. They are inflected for person, number and sometimes gender. They also have lexical aspect (perfective and imperfective), voice, nine tenses, five moods and six non-finite verbal forms. Bulgarian verbs are divided into three conjugations.

Word order
Although Bulgarian has almost no noun cases its word order is rather free. It is even freer than the word order of some languages that have cases, for example German. This is due to the agreement between the subject and the verb of a sentence. So in Bulgarian the sentence "I saw Lubomir" can be expressed thus:

Видях Любомир.
Любомир (го) видях.
It is clear that the subject is "аз" ("I"), because the verb "видях" ends in x.

Other examples - Ivan greeted the girls:

Иван поздрави момичетата.
Момичетата (ги) поздрави Иван.
Иван момичетата поздрави.
Момичетата Иван (ги) поздрави.
Поздрави Иван момичетата.
Поздрави (ги) момичетата Иван.
Theoretically all permutations are possible but the last one sounds rather odd.

The girls greeted Ivan:

Момичетата поздравиха Иван.
Иван (го) поздравиха момичетата.
Момичетата Иван поздравиха.
Иван момичетата (го) поздравиха.
Поздравиха момичетата Иван.
Поздравиха (го) Иван момичетата.
The clitic doubling (го/ги) is obligatory only when the subject and the object are both in third person, and they are either both singular or both plural, but when the meaning is clear from the context it can be omitted. Examples:

Иван го поздрави Мария. - Maria greeted Ivan.
Мария я поздрави Иван. - Ivan greeted Maria.
but

Ролите озвучиха артистите... - The artists... (enumerating their names) sound-screened the roles. (They made the soundtrack for the film.)
In the compound tenses, when a participle is used, and when the subject and the object are of different gender or number, the clitic doubling can also be left out. So the first two of the above examples can be expressed in a compound tense thus:

Иван (го) е поздравила Мария. - Maria has greeted Ivan.
Мария (я) е поздравил Иван. - Ivan has greeted Maria.
Although they sound odd without the doubling, the meaning is clear.



My Talossan name is Ián. ( Името ми на талоски е Иан or Талоското ми име е Иан)
My Bulgarian name is Иван. (Името ми на Български е Иван or Българското ми име е Иван)
You can see my project BG-TAL Cudësch dals fraçâs (BG-TAL phrasebook) www.kingdomoftalossa.net/index.cgi?lingo=&page=bg


Guest Lecturer: Ián da Bitoûr
Гостуващ Лектор: Иван