Bulgarian language


Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian language, it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund. The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported.
It is the official language of Bulgaria, and since 2007 has been among the official languages of the European Union. It is also spoken by minorities in several other countries.

History

One can divide the development of the Bulgarian language into several periods.
is one of the oldest manuscripts in the Old Bulgarian language, dated from the late 10th or early 11th century
Bulgarian was the first "Slavic" language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, the oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language as языкъ словяньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name языкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, this name was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism is the Service of Saint Cyril from Skopje, a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in the Greek hagiography of Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid.
During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, but preserving the rich verb system and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in the Balkan language area and later also by Turkish, which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language, mostly lexically. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule, a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот, непонятен, ядро and others. Many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well.
Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian. Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria, there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed,
and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography.

Dialects

The language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel. This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's:
The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of yat. However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of all synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels – e.g. поляна vs. полени "meadow – meadows" or even жаба vs. жеби "frog – frogs", even though it co-occurs with the yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it.
More examples of the yat umlaut in the literary language are:
Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter yat, which was commonly called двойно е at the time, to express the historical yat vowel or at least root vowels displaying the ya – e alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both mlyako and mlekar were spelled with. Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area was controlled by Serbia and Greece, but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation.
This had implications for some grammatical constructions:
Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelled as other words with different meanings, e.g.:
In spite of the literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia, will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations vidyal vs. videli, some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat". Others, attempting to adhere to the norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e". The latter hypercorrection is called свръхякане.
;Shift from to
Bulgarian is the only Slavic language whose literary standard does not naturally contain the iotated sound . The sound is common in all modern Slavic languages, as well as some Western Bulgarian dialectal forms – e.g. ора̀н’е , however it is not represented in standard Bulgarian speech or writing. Even where occurs in other Slavic words, in Standard Bulgarian it is usually transcribed and pronounced as pure – e.g. Boris Yeltsin is "Eltsin", Yekaterinburg is "Ekaterinburg" and Sarajevo is "Saraevo", although - because the sound is contained in a stressed syllable at the beginning of the word - Jelena Janković is "Yelena" – :bg:Йелена Янкович|Йелена Янкович.

Relationship to Macedonian

Until the period immediately following the Second World War, all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, North Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects. In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects. Some local naming conventions included bolgárski, bugárski and so forth. The codifiers of the standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise. In 1870 Marin Drinov, who played a decisive role in the standardization of the Bulgarian language, rejected the proposal of Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev for a mixed eastern and western Bulgarian/Macedonian foundation of the standard Bulgarian language, stating in his article in the newspaper Makedoniya: "Such an artificial assembly of written language is something impossible, unattainable and never heard of."
After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Macedonian consciousness. With the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists, as well as some linguists from other countries, still consider the various Macedonian dialects as part of the broader Bulgarian pluricentric dialectal continuum. Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum. Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgments.

Alphabet

In 886 AD, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria in the 9th century.
Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of the 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. The alphabet of Marin Drinov 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.
With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts.

Phonology

Bulgarian possesses a phonology similar to that of the rest of the South Slavic languages, notably lacking Serbo-Croatian's phonemic vowel length and tones and alveo-palatal affricates. The eastern dialects exhibit palatalization of consonants before front vowels and reduction of vowel phonemes in unstressed position - both patterns have partial parallels in Russian and lead to a partly similar sound. The western dialects are like Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian in that they do not have allophonic palatalization and have only little vowel reduction.
Bulgarian has six vowel phonemes, but at least eight distinct phones can be distinguished when reduced allophones are taken into consideration.

Grammar

The parts of speech in Bulgarian are divided in ten types, which are categorized in two broad classes: mutable and immutable. The difference is that mutable parts of speech vary grammatically, whereas the immutable ones do not change, regardless of their use. The five classes of mutables are: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns and verbs. Syntactically, the first four of these form the group of the noun or the nominal group. The immutables are: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections. Verbs and adverbs form the group of the verb or the verbal group.

Nominal morphology

Nouns and adjectives have the categories grammatical gender, number, case and definiteness in Bulgarian. Adjectives and adjectival pronouns agree with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns have gender and number and retain a more significant part of the case system.

Nominal inflection

Gender
There are three grammatical genders in Bulgarian: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender of the noun can largely be inferred from its ending: nouns ending in a consonant are generally masculine are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –е, –о are almost always neuter, as are those rare words that end in –и, –у, and –ю. Perhaps the most significant exception from the above are the relatively numerous nouns that end in a consonant and yet are feminine: these comprise, firstly, a large group of nouns with zero ending expressing quality, degree or an abstraction, including all nouns ending on –ост/–ест -, and secondly, a much smaller group of irregular nouns with zero ending which define tangible objects or concepts. There are also some commonly used words that end in a vowel and yet are masculine: баща 'father', дядо 'grandfather', чичо / вуйчо 'uncle', and others.
The plural forms of the nouns do not express their gender as clearly as the singular ones, but may also provide some clues to it: the ending –и is more likely to be used with a masculine or feminine noun, while one in –а/–я belongs more often to a neuter noun. Also, the plural ending –ове occurs only in masculine nouns.
Number
Two numbers are distinguished in Bulgarian–singular and plural. A variety of plural suffixes is used, and the choice between them is partly determined by their ending in singular and partly influenced by gender; in addition, irregular declension and alternative plural forms are common. Words ending in –а/–я generally have the plural ending –и, upon dropping of the singular ending. Of nouns ending in a consonant, the feminine ones also use –и, whereas the masculine ones usually have –и for polysyllables and –ове for monosyllables. Nouns ending in –о/–е mostly use the suffixes –а, –я and –та.
With cardinal numbers and related words such as няколко, masculine nouns use a special count form in –а/–я, which stems from the Proto-Slavonic dual: два/три стола versus тези столове ; cf. feminine две/три/тези книги and neuter две/три/тези легла. However, a recently developed language norm requires that count forms should only be used with masculine nouns that do not denote persons. Thus, двама/трима ученици is perceived as more correct than двама/трима ученика, while the distinction is retained in cases such as два/три молива versus тези моливи.
Case
Cases exist only in the personal and some other pronouns, with nominative, accusative, dative and vocative forms. Vestiges are present in a number of phraseological units and sayings. The major exception are vocative forms, which are still in use for masculine and feminine nouns in the singular.
Definiteness (article)
In modern Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun, much like in the Scandinavian languages or Romanian or to the first nominal constituent of definite noun phrases. There are four singular definite articles. Again, the choice between them is largely determined by the noun's ending in the singular. Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят, when they are grammatical subjects, and –а/–я elsewhere. Nouns that end in a consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –а/–я use –та. Nouns that end in –е/–о use –то.
The plural definite article is –те for all nouns except for those whose plural form ends in –а/–я; these get –та instead. When postfixed to adjectives the definite articles are –ят/–я for masculine gender, –та for feminine gender, –то for neuter gender, and –те for plural.

Adjective and numeral inflection

Both groups agree in gender and number with the noun they are appended to. They may also take the definite article as explained above.

Pronouns

Pronouns may vary in gender, number, and definiteness, and are the only parts of speech that have retained case inflections. Three cases are exhibited by some groups of pronouns – nominative, accusative and dative. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, relative, reflexive, interrogative, negative, indefinitive, summative and possessive.

Verbal morphology and grammar

The Bulgarian verb can take up to 3,000 distinct forms, as it varies in person, number, voice, aspect, mood, tense and in some cases gender.

Finite verbal forms

Finite verbal forms are simple or compound and agree with subjects in person and number. In addition to that, past compound forms using participles vary in gender and voice as well as aspect.

Aspect

Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect: perfective verbs signify the completion of the action of the verb and form past perfective forms; imperfective ones are neutral with regard to it and form past imperfective forms. Most Bulgarian verbs can be grouped in perfective-imperfective pairs. Perfective verbs can be usually formed from imperfective ones by suffixation or prefixation, but the resultant verb often deviates in meaning from the original. In the pair examples above, aspect is stem-specific and therefore there is no difference in meaning.
In Bulgarian, there is also grammatical aspect. Three grammatical aspects are distinguishable: neutral, perfect and pluperfect. The neutral aspect comprises the three simple tenses and the future tense. The pluperfect is manifest in tenses that use double or triple auxiliary "be" participles like the past pluperfect subjunctive. Perfect constructions use a single auxiliary "be".

Mood

The traditional interpretation is that in addition to the four moods shared by most other European languages – indicative imperative, subjunctive and conditional – in Bulgarian there is one more to describe a general category of unwitnessed events – the inferential mood. However, most contemporary Bulgarian linguists usually exclude the subjunctive mood and the inferential mood from the list of Bulgarian moods and don't consider them to be moods but view them as verbial morphosyntactic constructs or separate gramemes of the verb class. The possible existence of a few other moods has been discussed in the literature. Most Bulgarian school grammars teach the traditional view of 4 Bulgarian moods.

Tense

There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time – present, past and future – which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses – i. e. "past imperfect" would mean that the verb is in past tense, in the imperfective aspect, and in the indicative mood. There are more than 40 different tenses across Bulgarian's two aspects and five moods.
In the indicative mood, there are three simple tenses:
  • Present tense is a temporally unmarked simple form made up of the verbal stem and a complex suffix composed of the thematic vowel, or and the person/number ending ; only imperfective verbs can stand in the present indicative tense independently;
  • Past imperfect is a simple verb form used to express an action which is contemporaneous or subordinate to other past actions; it is made up of an imperfective or a perfective verbal stem and the person/number ending ;
  • Past aorist is a simple form used to express a temporarily independent, specific past action; it is made up of a perfective or an imperfective verbal stem and the person/number ending ;
In the indicative there are also the following compound tenses:
  • Future tense is a compound form made of the particle ще and present tense ; negation is expressed by the construction няма да and present tense ;
  • Past future tense is a compound form used to express an action which was to be completed in the past but was future as regards another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of the verb ща , the particle да and the present tense of the verb ;
  • Present perfect is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past but is relevant for or related to the present; it is made up of the present tense of the verb съм and the past participle ;
  • Past perfect is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past and is relative to another past action; it is made up of the past tense of the verb съм and the past participle ;
  • Future perfect is a compound form used to express an action which is to take place in the future before another future action; it is made up of the future tense of the verb съм and the past participle ;
  • Past future perfect is a compound form used to express a past action which is future with respect to a past action which itself is prior to another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of ща, the particle да the present tense of the verb съм and the past participle of the verb.
The four perfect constructions above can vary in aspect depending on the aspect of the main-verb participle; they are in fact pairs of imperfective and perfective aspects. Verbs in forms using past participles also vary in voice and gender.
There is only one simple tense in the imperative mood, the present, and there are simple forms only for the second-person singular, -и/-й, and plural, -ете/-йте, e.g. уча : учи, sg., учете, pl.; играя 'to play': играй, играйте. There are compound imperative forms for all persons and numbers in the present compound imperative, the present perfect compound imperative and the rarely used present pluperfect compound imperative.
The conditional mood consists of five compound tenses, most of which are not grammatically distinguishable. The present, future and past conditional use a special past form of the stem би- and the past participle. The past future conditional and the past future perfect conditional coincide in form with the respective indicative tenses.
The subjunctive mood is rarely documented as a separate verb form in Bulgarian,, but nevertheless it is used regularly. The most common form, often mistaken for the present tense, is the present subjunctive. The difference between the present indicative and the present subjunctive tense is that the subjunctive can be formed by both perfective and imperfective verbs. It has completely replaced the infinitive and the supine from complex expressions. It is also employed to express opinion about possible future events. The past perfect subjunctive refers to possible events in the past, which did not take place, and the present pluperfect subjunctive, which may be used about both past and future events arousing feelings of incontinence, suspicion, etc. and has no perfect English translation.
The inferential mood has five pure tenses. Two of them are simple – past aorist inferential and past imperfect inferential – and are formed by the past participles of perfective and imperfective verbs, respectively. There are also three compound tenses – past future inferential, past future perfect inferential and past perfect inferential. All these tenses' forms are gender-specific in the singular. There are also conditional and compound-imperative crossovers. The existence of inferential forms has been attributed to Turkic influences by most Bulgarian linguists. Morphologically, they are derived from the perfect.

Non-finite verbal forms

Bulgarian has the following participles:
  • Present active participle is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffixes –ащ/–ещ/–ящ and is used only attributively;
  • Present passive participle is formed by the addition of the suffixes -им/аем/уем ;
  • Past active aorist participle is formed by the addition of the suffix –л– to perfective stems ;
  • Past active imperfect participle is formed by the addition of the suffixes –ел/–ал/–ял to imperfective stems ;
  • Past passive aorist participle is formed from aorist/perfective stems with the addition of the suffixes -н/–т ; it is used predicatively and attributively;
  • Past passive imperfect participle is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffix –н ; it is used predicatively and attributively;
  • Adverbial participle is usually formed from imperfective present stems with the suffix –йки, relates an action contemporaneous with and subordinate to the main verb and is originally a Western Bulgarian form.
The participles are inflected by gender, number, and definiteness, and are coordinated with the subject when forming compound tenses. When used in attributive role the inflection attributes are coordinated with the noun that is being attributed.

Reflexive verbs

Bulgarian uses reflexive verbal forms which behave in a similar way as they do in many other Indo-European languages, such as French and Spanish. The reflexive is expressed by the invariable particle se, originally a clitic form of the accusative reflexive pronoun. Thus –
  • miya – I wash, miya se – I wash myself, miesh se – you wash yourself
  • pitam – I ask, pitam se – I ask myself, pitash se – you ask yourself
When the action is performed on others, other particles are used, just like in any normal verb, e.g. –
  • miya te – I wash you
  • pitash me – you ask me
Sometimes, the reflexive verb form has a similar but not necessarily identical meaning to the non-reflexive verb –
  • kazvam – I say, kazvam se – my name is
  • vizhdam – I see, vizhdame se – "we see ourselves" or "we meet each other"
In other cases, the reflexive verb has a completely different meaning from its non-reflexive counterpart –
  • karam – to drive, karam se – to have a row with someone
  • gotvya – to cook, gotvya se – to get ready
  • smeya – to dare, smeya se – to laugh
;Indirect actions
When the action is performed on an indirect object, the particles change to si and its derivatives –
  • kazvam si – I say to myself, kazvash si – you say to yourself, kazvam ti – I say to you
  • peya si – I am singing to myself, pee si – she is singing to herself, pee mu – she is singing to him
  • gotvya si – I cook for myself, gotvyat si – they cook for themselves, gotvya im – I cook for them
In some cases, the particle si is ambiguous between the indirect object and the possessive meaning –
  • miya si ratsete – I wash my hands, miya ti ratsete – I wash your hands
  • pitam si priyatelite – I ask my friends, pitam ti priyatelite – I ask your friends
  • iskam si topkata – I want my ball
The difference between transitive and intransitive verbs can lead to significant differences in meaning with minimal change, e.g. –
  • haresvash me – you like me, haresvash mi – I like you
  • otivam – I am going, otivam si – I am going home
The particle si is often used to indicate a more personal relationship to the action, e.g. –
  • haresvam go – I like him, haresvam si go – no precise translation, roughly translates as "he's really close to my heart"
  • stanahme priyateli – we became friends, stanahme si priyateli – same meaning, but sounds friendlier
  • mislya – I am thinking, mislya si'' – same meaning, but usually about something personal and/or trivial

    Adverbs

The most productive way to form adverbs is to derive them from the neuter singular form of the corresponding adjective—e.g. бързо, силно, странно —but adjectives ending in -ки use the masculine singular form, instead—e.g. юнашки, мъжки, майсторски. The same pattern is used to form adverbs from the ordinal numerals, e.g. първо, второ, трето, and in some cases from cardinal numerals, e.g. двойно, тройно, петорно.
The remaining adverbs are formed in ways that are no longer productive in the language. A small number are original, for example: тук, там, вътре, вън, много etc. The rest are mostly fossilized case forms, such as:
  • Archaic locative forms of some adjectives, e.g. добре, зле, твърде, and nouns горе, утре, лете
  • Archaic instrumental forms of some adjectives, e.g. тихом, скришом, слепешком, and nouns, e.g. денем, нощем, редом, духом, цифром, словом ; or verbs: тичешком, лежешком, стоешком
  • Archaic accusative forms of some nouns: днес, нощес, сутрин, зиме/зимъс
  • Archaic genitive forms of some nouns: довечера, снощи, вчера
  • Homonymous and etymologically identical to the feminine singular form of the corresponding adjective used with the definite article: здравата, слепешката ; the same pattern has been applied to some verbs, e.g. тичешката, лежешката, стоешката
  • Derived from cardinal numerals by means of a non-productive suffix: веднъж, дваж, триж
Adverbs can sometimes be reduplicated to emphasize the qualitative or quantitative properties of actions, moods or relations as performed by the subject of the sentence: "бавно-бавно", "едва-едва", "съвсем-съвсем".

Syntax

Bulgarian employs clitic doubling, mostly for emphatic purposes. For example, the following constructions are common in colloquial Bulgarian:
The phenomenon is practically obligatory in the spoken language in the case of inversion signalling information structure :
Sometimes, the doubling signals syntactic relations, thus:
This is contrasted with:
In this case, clitic doubling can be a colloquial alternative of the more formal or bookish passive voice, which would be constructed as follows:
Clitic doubling is also fully obligatory, both in the spoken and in the written norm, in clauses including several special expressions that use the short accusative and dative pronouns such as "играе ми се", студено ми е, and боли ме ръката :
Except the above examples, clitic doubling is considered inappropriate in a formal context.

Other features

Questions

Questions in Bulgarian which do not use a question word are formed with the particle ли after the verb; a subject is not necessary, as the verbal conjugation suggests who is performing the action:
  • Идваш – 'you are coming'; Идваш ли? – 'are you coming?'
While the particle ли generally goes after the verb, it can go after a noun or adjective if a contrast is needed:
  • Идваш ли с нас? – 'are you coming with us?';
  • С нас ли идваш? – 'are you coming with us'?
A verb is not always necessary, e.g. when presenting a choice:
  • Той ли? – 'him?'; Жълтият ли? – 'the yellow one?'
Rhetorical questions can be formed by adding ли to a question word, thus forming a "double interrogative" –
  • Кой? – 'Who?'; Кой ли?! – 'I wonder who'
The same construction +не is an emphasized positive –
  • Кой беше там? – 'Who was there?' – Кой ли не! – 'Nearly everyone!'

    Significant verbs

Съм
The verb съм – 'to be' is also used as an auxiliary for forming the perfect, the passive and the conditional:
  • past tense – – 'I have hit'
  • passive – – 'I am hit'
  • past passive – – 'I was hit'
  • conditional – – 'I would hit'
Two alternate forms of съм exist:
  • бъда – interchangeable with съм in most tenses and moods, but never in the present indicative – e.g. , ; in the imperative, only бъда is used – ;
  • бивам – slightly archaic, imperfective form of бъда – e.g. ; in contemporary usage, it is mostly used in the negative to mean "ought not", e.g. .
    Ще
The impersonal verb ще is used to for forming the future tense:
  • – 'I am going'
  • – 'I will be going'
The negative future is formed with the invariable construction няма да :
  • – 'I will not be going'
The past tense of this verb – щях is conjugated to form the past conditional :
  • – 'I would have gone;' 'you would have gone'
    Имам and нямам
The verbs имам and нямам :
  • the third person singular of these two can be used impersonally to mean 'there is/there are' or 'there isn't/aren't any,' e.g.
  • * ;
  • *.
  • The impersonal form няма is used in the negative future –.
  • *няма used on its own can mean simply 'I won't' – a simple refusal to a suggestion or instruction.

    Conjunctions and particles

But
In Bulgarian, there are several conjunctions all translating into English as "but", which are all used in distinct situations. They are но, ама, а, ами, and ала .
While there is some overlapping between their uses, in many cases they are specific. For example, ami is used for a choice – ne tova, ami onova – "not this one, but that one", while ama is often used to provide extra information or an opinion – kazah go, ama sgreshih – "I said it, but I was wrong". Meanwhile, a provides contrast between two situations, and in some sentences can even be translated as "although", "while" or even "and" – az rabotya, a toy blee – "I'm working, and he's daydreaming".
Very often, different words can be used to alter the emphasis of a sentence – e.g. while pusha, no ne tryabva and pusha, a ne tryabva both mean "I smoke, but I shouldn't", the first sounds more like a statement of fact, while the second feels more like a judgement. Similarly, az ne iskam, ama toy iska and az ne iskam, a toy iska both mean "I don't want to, but he does", however the first emphasizes the fact that he wants to, while the second emphasizes the wanting rather than the person.
Ala is interesting in that, while it feels archaic, it is often used in poetry and frequently in children's stories, since it has quite a moral/ominous feel to it.
Some common expressions use these words, and some can be used alone as interjections:
  • da, ama ne – means "you're wrong to think so".
  • ama can be tagged onto a sentence to express surprise: ama toy spi! – "he's sleeping!"
  • ами! – "you don't say!", "really!"
    Vocative particles
Bulgarian has several abstract particles which are used to strengthen a statement. These have no precise translation in English. The particles are strictly informal and can even be considered rude by some people and in some situations. They are mostly used at the end of questions or instructions.
  • бе – the most common particle. It can be used to strengthen a statement or, sometimes, to indicate derision of an opinion, aided by the tone of voice.
  • *kazhi mi, be – tell me ; taka li, be? – is that so? ; vyarno li, be? – you don't say!.
  • де – expresses urgency, sometimes pleading.
  • *stavay, de! – come on, get up!
  • ма – originally simply the feminine counterpart of be, but today perceived as rude and derisive.
  • бре, мари – similar to be and ma, but archaic. Although informal, can sometimes be heard being used by older people.
    Modal particles
These are "tagged" on to the beginning or end of a sentence to express the mood of the speaker in relation to the situation. They are mostly interrogative or slightly imperative in nature. There is no change in the grammatical mood when these are used.
  • нали – is a universal affirmative tag, like "isn't it"/"won't you", etc.. It can be placed almost anywhere in the sentence, and does not always require a verb:
  • *shte doydesh, nali? – you are coming, aren't you?; nali iskaha? – didn't they want to?; nali onzi? – that one, right?;
  • *it can express quite complex thoughts through simple constructions – nali nyamashe? – "I thought you weren't going to!" or "I thought there weren't any!".
  • дали – expresses uncertainty – e.g. dali shte doyde? – "do you think he will come?"
  • нима – presents disbelief ~"don't tell me that..." – e.g. nima iskash?! – "don't tell me you want to!". It is slightly archaic, but still in use. Can be used on its own as an interjection – nima!
  • дано – expresses hope – shte doyde – "he will come"; dano doyde – "I hope he comes". Grammatically, dano is entirely separate from the verb nadyavam se – "to hope".
  • нека – means "let" – e.g. neka doyde – "let him come"; when used in the first person, it expresses extreme politeness: neka da otidem... – "let us go".
  • *neka, as an interjection, can also be used to express judgement or even schadenfreude – neka mu! – "he deserves it!".
    Intentional particles
These express intent or desire, perhaps even pleading. They can be seen as a sort of cohortative side to the language. They are also highly informal.
  • хайде – "come on", "let's"
  • *e.g. hayde, po-barzo – "faster!"
  • я – "let me" – exclusively when asking someone else for something. It can even be used on its own as a request or instruction, indicating that the speaker wants to partake in or try whatever the listener is doing.
  • *ya da vidya – let me see; ya? or ya! – "let me.../give me..."
  • недей – can be used to issue a negative instruction – e.g. nedey da idvash – "don't come". In some dialects, the construction nedey idva is used instead. As an interjection – nedei! – "don't!".
These particles can be combined with the vocative particles for greater effect, e.g. ya da vidya, be, or even exclusively in combinations with them, with no other elements, e.g. hayde, de! ; nedey, de!.

Pronouns of quality

Bulgarian has several pronouns of quality which have no direct parallels in English – kakav ; takuv ; onakuv ; nyakakav ; nikakav ; vsyakakav ; and the relative pronoun kakavto. The adjective ednakuv derives from the same radical.
Example phrases include:
  • kakav chovek?! – "what person?!"; kakav chovek e toy? – what sort of person is he?
  • ne poznavam takuv – "I don't know any "
  • nyakakvi hora – lit. "some type of people", but the understood meaning is "a bunch of people I don't know"
  • vsyakakvi hora – "all sorts of people"
  • kakav iskash? – "which type do you want?"; nikakav! – "I don't want any!"/"none!"
An interesting phenomenon is that these can be strung along one after another in quite long constructions, e.g.
wordliteral meaningsentencemeaning of sentence as a whole
––edna kolaa car
takavathis sort ofedna takava kola...this car
nikakvano sort ofedna takava nikakva kolathis worthless car
nyakakvasome sort ofedna takava nyakakva nikakva kolathis sort of worthless car

An extreme sentence, with almost no physical meaning in it whatsoever – yet which does have perfect meaning to the Bulgarian ear – would be :
  • "kakva e taya takava edna nyakakva nikakva?!"
  • inferred translation – "what kind of no-good person is she?"
  • literal translation: "what kind of – is – this one here – this sort of – one – some sort of – no sort of"
—Note: the subject of the sentence is simply the pronoun "taya".
Another interesting phenomenon that is observed in colloquial speech is the use of takova not only as a substitute for an adjective, but also as a substitute for a verb. In that case the base form takova is used as the third person singular in the present indicative and all other forms are formed by analogy to other verbs in the language. Sometimes the "verb" may even acquire a derivational prefix that changes its meaning. Examples:
  • takovah ti shapkata – I did something to your hat
  • takovah si ochilata – I did something to my glasses
  • takovah se – I did something to myself
Another use of takova in colloquial speech is the word takovata, which can be used as a substitution for a noun, but also, if the speaker doesn't remember or is not sure how to say something, they might say takovata and then pause to think about it:
  • i posle toy takovata... – and then he ...
  • izyadoh ti takovata – I ate something of yours. Here the word takovata is used as a substitution for a noun.
Similar "meaningless" expressions are extremely common in spoken Bulgarian, especially when the speaker is finding it difficult to describe something.

Miscellaneous

  • The commonly cited phenomenon of Bulgarian people shaking their head for "yes" and nodding for "no" is true but, with the influence of Western culture, ever rarer, and almost non-existent among the younger generation.
  • *A dental click also means "no", as does ъ-ъ . The two are often said with the upward 'nod'.
  • Bulgarian has an extensive vocabulary covering family relationships. The biggest range of words is for uncles and aunts, e.g. chicho, vuicho, svako ; an even larger number of synonyms for these three exists in the various dialects of Bulgarian, including kaleko, lelincho, tetin, etc. The words do not only refer to the closest members of the family, but extend to its furthest reaches, e.g. badzhanak from Turkish bacanak and etarva. For all in-laws, there are specific names, e.g. a woman's husband's brother is her dever and her husband's sister is her zalva. In the traditional rural extended family before 1900, there existed separate subcategories for different brothers-in-law/sisters-in-law of a woman with regard to their age relative to hers, e.g. instead of simply a dever there could be a braino, a draginko, or an ubavenkyo.
  • As with many Slavic languages, the double negative in Bulgarian is grammatically correct, while some forms of it, when used instead of a single negative form, are grammatically incorrect. The following are literal translations of grammatically correct Bulgarian sentences that utilize a double or multiple negation: "Никой никъде никога нищо не е направил." – "Nobody never nowhere nothing did not do." ; "Никога не съм бил там." – I never did not go there ; Никога никакви чувства не съм имал! – I never no feelings had not have! . The same applies for Macedonian.

    Vocabulary

Most of the vocabulary of modern Bulgarian consists of terms inherited from Proto-Slavic and local Bulgarian innovations and formations of those through the mediation of Old and Middle Bulgarian. The native terms in Bulgarian account for 70% to 80% of the lexicon.
The remaining 25% to 30% are loanwords from a number of languages, as well as derivations of such words. Bulgarian adopted also a few words of Thracian and Bulgar origin. The languages which have contributed most to Bulgarian are Russian, French and to a lesser extent English and Ottoman Turkish. Also Latin and Greek are the source of many words, used mostly in international terminology. Many Latin terms entered the language through Romanian, Aromanian, and Megleno-Romanian during Bulgarian Empires, loanwords of Greek origin in Bulgarian are a product of the influence of the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church. Many of the numerous loanwords from another Turkic language, Ottoman Turkish which were adopted into Bulgarian during the long period of Ottoman rule, have been replaced with native terms. In addition, both specialized and commonplace English words have also penetrated Bulgarian since the second half of the 20th century, especially since 1989. A noteworthy portion of this English-derived terminology has attained some unique features in the process of its introduction to native speakers, and this has resulted in peculiar derivations that set the newly formed loanwords apart from the original words, although many loanwords are completely identical to the source words. A growing number of international neologisms are also being widely adopted, causing controversy between younger generations who, in general, are raised in the era of digital globalization, and the older, more conservative educated purists. Prior to standardization in the 19th century, after a period of Ottoman Turkish as a lingua franca for about 5 centuries, vernacular Bulgarian is estimated to have consisted of 50% Ottoman vocabulary, which contained predominantly Arabic and Persian words.