The Bulgarian language - so in a simple way they call a whole group of dead, now non-existent (not existing in living speech) languages ​​used by the Bulgars. Bulgars as a nation settled in the Balkans, parts of the Volga region and also in the north of the Caucasus. Along with the modern Chuvash language, and, presumably, with the Khazar (also dead), this language was part of the so-called Bulgarian group of languages, uniting them according to the principles of kinship and genetic similarity (grammar, phonetics, etc.)
Basic information. Classification
An interesting fact from the history of the language: Bulgarian writing has repeatedly changed. So, initially it was based on the Bulgarian runic writing, however, in the VI – IX centuries of our era, it lost to the Greek alphabet. However, there was a period of dominance of the Arabic alphabet over the rest. This is not surprising if we consider in more detail the classification of the Bulgarian language.
In the most global view, Bulgarian refers to the languages ​​of Eurasia. Whether to consider him involved in the Altai languages ​​- scientists have not yet come to an agreement on this. However, it is known for sure that the Bulgarian group belongs to the Turkic languages ​​- hence the connection with the Arab culture.
Territorial and historical varieties
In total, several stages of the "life" of the Bulgarian language can be distinguished. Thus, the period of the early Bulgarian language can be distinguished. It was distributed in the 5th – 7th centuries among the tribes that subsequently formed the basis of the population of Great Bulgaria. Echoes of this language are observed today in some Caucasian languages.
The Danube-Bulgarian language was distributed in the Balkans from the 7th century to the Xth century. It was a kind of sociolect of the so-called Bulgarian aristocracy. According to researchers, it disappeared due to Slavic influence (merger and subsequent crowding out). There is an opinion that it is on this variety of the Bulgarian language that many still not deciphered runic messages are written.
Srednebulgarsky (a term often used in linguistics) is also called Volga-Bulgarian and has historical distribution, as you might guess, in the Volga region - where the Chuvash Republic, the Republic of Tatarstan, and the Ulyanovsk Region are located today.
Runic writing
As mentioned above, in certain territories during a certain period of historical development in the Bulgarian language a special runic script was used. It is interesting that for some time on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula it was also used along with the increasingly popular (and subsequently become the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian alphabets) cyrillic alphabet.
The most historically significant monuments of the Bulgarian (or Bulgarian) runic script were found in Romania, Bulgaria (in the Shumen region, more specifically in Plisk - the first capital of the Bulgarian state).
However, as to how such writing should be called and whether it should be attributed to the so-called “runic”, there are also a number of questions. According to some researchers (including scientists from Bulgaria itself), the ancient Bulgars runes, like the Germans, had a special magical meaning. Others argue that this writing consisted of both Greek and Cyrillic elements, often without the expected connections, and it was not connected with the runes.
Materials, monuments, literature
Sad as it may be, in reality today there is no final option for deciphering the ancient Bulgarian written language. The main problem preventing this from happening is the insufficient amount of quality material found.
So, for the most part, the Bulgarian language is being studied today thanks to lexical and other borrowings preserved in modern living, related and simply neighboring languages. The study materials also include the Preslav inscription, the Namebook of the Bulgarian khans, runes from Murfatlar (a city in Romania), the “Collection of Turkic dialects” by Mahmud Kashgari, as well as data from modern Chuvash and Tatar languages ​​(comparative method; for example, a word meaning “the afterlife” in the Chuvash language it looks like “Akhrat”, in the Tatar language it looks like “Akhir »t”, in the Volga-Bulgarian unfamiliar to us in a similar way - “Akhirat”).