This map shows the regions
of the world where Bulgarian is commonly spoken (red circle).
Bulgarian is in the South Slavic subfamily of Slavic languages
that descended from the Balto-Slavic branches of Indo-European.
Bulgarian is most closely related to modern Slovenian,
Sebo-Croatian, and
Macedonian. It is also
closely related to East Slavic languages like Ukrainian,
Belarusian, and Russian,
and to West Slavic languages like Sorbian,
Polish, Slovak,
and Czech. The Slavic languages
are so similar that scholars think the languages did not diverge
from each other until about 800 CE. The oldest sample of South
Slavic language surviving today is a Bible written in Old Church
Slavonic (also called Old Bulgarian), which dates from the time
of the missionaries Cyril and Methodius (about 850 CE). Modern
Bulgarian has borrowed extensively from Turkish for everyday
vocabulary, and its literary language borrows even more heavily
from Russian. One testament to the stamina of Bulgarian is that,
even after a series of non-Bulgarian races have invaded the
area, the conquerors have always been absorbed linguistically
into the Bulgarian language.
| Daniel M. Short originally created this
map and the other Indo-European language charts for his website at http://www.danshort.com/.
I reproduce these images here with the author's permission, but they are
copyrighted by Daniel Short as of 2002. These charts should not be reproduced
or reused without Mr. Short's approval. You may contact him at danshort@gte.net
for more information. These images are not public domain. |