The Bulgarian alphabet

The Bulgarian alphabet (also know as the Cyrillic) is the official language of the Balkans.

The Bulgarian alphabet forms the official language of the Balkans. The symbolic notation, also called the Cyrillic alphabet, is the alphabet most commonly used in Bulgaria, one of the few countries, besides Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Macedonia, which do not use the Roman alphabet. The Cyrillic symbols are said to represent Bulgaria, and will be used on the new coins made for Bulgaria's entry into the Euro.

The History of the Cyrillic Alphabet

The current Bulgarian alphabet contains thirty letters and is the third most popular alphabet in the European Union. Scholars trace its origins to St. Cyril, which is where the name Cyrillic comes from. St. Cyril lived in Greece in the ninth century and served as a missionary to convert the Balkans to Christianity. Creating a new alphabet for the church to use in its teaching, St. Cyril took inspiration from the Greek, Hebrew and old Latin languages spoken in the area. Using letters from all three, along with some other older runic symbols, he created a vast new alphabet.

The alphabet has affected the Bulgarian language, and even during the long rule of the region by the Ottoman Empire, Bulgarians used the Cyrillic alphabet to incorporate Turkish words into the language. The language is evolving to incorporate the new words, such as Internet and McDonald's, and has been converted into the Slavic alphabet to make it more accessible to its neighbors such as Croatia and Bosnia.

Because of changes the Bolsheviks made when they came to power in 1918, the modern Bulgarian alphabet has very little in common with the Cyrillic of the ninth century. The Bolsheviks removed many letters that could be sounded out by other letter combinations and got rid of the “hard sign,” which changed the pronunciation of the letter before it.

These changes made their way to the Bulgarian satellite of the Soviet Union, and the Cyrillic alphabet has remained the national language since Bulgaria’s independence in the 1980s. The Cyrillic alphabet is therefore the perfect tool for transcribing Slavic languages, and once you know the letter sounds, you can sound out all Bulgarian words phonetically.

Pronunciation

The original borrowing from Latin explains why English speakers will recognize such letters in the Bulgarian alphabet as O, T and A in their original form. Other Latin letters appear, such as P, C and Y, but with a completely different pronunciation: these three sound like R, S and U respectively. A first word to learn as a tourist is that for restaurant, which is written PECTOPAH and pronounced RESTORAN.

Letters taken from Greek or Hebrew present a harder challenge: the only way to learn these is by practice. Any Bulgarian lessons will, by necessity, start by introducing the new alphabet and its pronunciation. Because each letter is pronounced in only one way, you can have hours of fun reading out Bulgarian words, certain of their pronunciation without a clue to what they mean.

As with any country, you’ll get a lot more from Bulgaria if you take the time to learn the Bulgarian alphabet and master some basic phrases. While most Bulgarians in the big tourist destinations speak English, they will be much more receptive to a traveler who makes the effort to speak their language. Learning the alphabet also means that you’ll be able to read road and transport signs, which will make traveling easier.