Language Fact File – Bulgarian

Language fact file: Bulgarian

Bulgarian is spoken as an official language in: Bulgaria

Number of native speakers: 7.9 million

Learn some: Bulgarian pleasantries start with ‘Здрасти!’, pronounced ‘zdrasti!’, which means ‘hi!’, and ‘Благодаря’, pronounced ‘blagodarya’, meaning ‘thank you.

Fast facts:
Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic script, which many of us associate with Russian. However this script evolved from Bulgarian, which was the first Slavic language to have a written form! It dates back to the 9th century.

Bulgaria is a wonderful, beautiful country to visit, but beware of one thing: nodding means no and shaking your head means yes!

The Bulgarian language has influences from Turkish, Greek and Russian, which reflects the country’s position on the edges of Europe and Asia.