Languages Spoken in Bulgaria
- Ibukun Olawore
- Apr 28, 2021
- 3 min read
Bulgaria is a country with about 110,994 square km situated in Southern Europe. Bulgaria shares boundaries with Romania to the North, Turkey, and Greece to the South, and Macedonia and Serbia to the West while the black sea lies to Eastern Bulgaria.
With about 7.4 million populations – the Bulgarians are the major ethnic group in the country while the Turks and Roma are the minority group. Besides, there is an increase in the migration of expatriates from the United States, Russia, and Western Europe looking to take advantage of the beauty, the black sea coastline, and the low cost of living in the country.
Official Language in Bulgaria:
Bulgarian
It is an Indo-European language that is spoken by the majority of the country's population. It shares similarities with the Macedonian language and it is usually written using the Cyrillic alphabet.
The Bulgarian language (and Macedonian) have some unique features which differentiate them from other Slavic languages. Some of these features are; absence of verb infinitive, continuous use of the suffixed definite article, limited grammatical case system, and other factors.
Other Minority Languages in Bulgaria:
In Bulgaria – the two main minority languages in Bulgaria are Turkish and Roma
Turkish
This is the language of the Turks residing in Bulgaria. There are up to 600,000 Turks residing in the Southern part of Bulgaria – this accounts for about 9% of the total population of the country. Besides, the Turks arrived during the 14th and 15th centuries during the reign of the Ottoman when he conquered the Balkans.
However, the Turks form the biggest minority group in the country with about 96.4% of the Bulgarian Turks still identifying the Turkish language as their mother tongue.
Romani
This is the second most spoken minority language in Bulgaria. About 300,000 people who form about 5% of people living in Bulgaria speak Romani as their first language. This is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Roma people who migrated from the Middle East and Europe about 1500 years ago during the 13th century.
Greek
Before now, there used to be an appreciable number of Greek which account for about 2% of the overall population towards the end of the 19th century. However, the number has dropped to about 1000 Greeks presently living in Bulgaria – this has dropped the relevance of the language in Bulgaria.
Other Foreign Languages Spoken in Bulgaria:
There are other foreign languages spoken in Bulgaria outside the Bulgarian language. For example, about 25% have a good understanding of the English language, 23% speak the Russian language while about 8% speak the German language.
90% of Bulgarians have agreed that the English language is beneficial to be taught in schools followed by 36% for the German language and 14% for Russian.
According to a report in 2015, about 99% of Bulgarian children learned the English language while 17% were learning how to read and write the Russian language.
Translation Services:
Bulgaria is gradually gaining the attention of business investments and investment prospects as a result of its economic and business development plans. Therefore, this has made English – Bulgarian or Bulgarian - English translation a necessity even as more people find their way into the country.
In doing this, the services of a professional translation agency with proven experience and accuracy should be employed. This is because a small error in vocabulary, contract papers and business papers, arrangement of words, legal papers, and other materials could lead to grave consequences.
Besides, as you search for translation services, emphasis must be on the ones that specialize in Eastern European languages or on Bulgarian translation and localization – this will ensure that the best results are generated.
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