|
The development
of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several historical
periods. The prehistoric period (essentially proto-Slavic)
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) was the language used by St. Cyril,
St. Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible and
other liturgical literature from Greek. Middle Bulgarian (12th
to 15th century) was a language of rich literary activity
and major innovations. Modern Bulgarian dates from the 16th
century onwards; the present-day written 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.
Fewer than 20 words remain in Bulgarian
from the language of the Bulgars, the Central Asian people
who moved into present-day Bulgaria and eventually adopted
the local Slavic language. The Bolgar language, a member of
the Turkic language family or the Iranian language family
(Pamir languages), is otherwise unrelated to Bulgarian.
Old Bulgarian was the first Slavonic language
attested in writing. 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
Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for
example in the Greek hagiography of Saint Clement of Ohrid
by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century).
During the Middle Bulgarian period, the
language underwent dramatical changes, losing the Old Slavonic
case system, but preserving the rich verb system (while the
development was exactly the opposite in most other Slavic
languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced
by its non-Slavic neighbours in the Balkan linguistic union
(mostly gramatically) and later also by the Turkish language,
which had a dominant position in the Ottoman empire (mostly
lexically). As a national revival occured towards the end
of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century),
a modern Bulgarian literary language was gradually formed
by drawing heavily on Russian and Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian
and later by reducing the number of Turkish and partly other
Balkanic loans.
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.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
|
