My native language is Bulgarian (български). An year ago I was curious about what could other people found about my language in the internet. So I searched in English in Google and ... I was horrified. The information in Wikipedia is full with totally wrong information, YouTube is full with strange lessons. So I have to write some words about my native language if someone wants to learn it.
Some boring facts. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is a member of the Balkan sprachbund ( I totally disagree with this) and South Slavic family of the Indo-European language family. Bulgarian is written with Cyrillic ( and in 10 century with Glagolitic) alphabet. The first written document (glagolitic) is Asemanii Gospels from 10 century preserved in latter transcriptions. The Cyrillic alphabet is invented from St. Clement (and other pupils of St. Cyril and Methodius from some scholars) and gradually superseded Glagolitic alphabet invented by St. Cyril and Methodius.
Some characteristics that is not present in other Slavic languages:
-lost of case declensions in 14 century ,
- development of a suffixed definite article and lack of a verb infinitive,
-preserve and further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system - 9 tenses, 4 moods
- evidential forms in narrative mood
-counting form with suffix -а for plural masculine nouns used at the end of cardinals as a remnant of the old pair number (e.g. два моста (two bridges), but тези мостове (these bridges))
- да-forms - they supersede infinitive and Subjunctive
Bulgarian is closed to Russian but only in vocabulary. When I learnt in school Russian the cases and lack of definite article were great problem for me. It was funny because I understood everything except who is subject and object. In Russian there are 3 verb tenses - in Bulgarian - 9. Verb tenses in Bulgarian are similar to these in Spanish:
tense in Bulgarian language | in Bulgarian 1p sg | in Russian | in Spanish | ||
1 | сегашно време | present tense | пиша | пишу | escribo |
2 | минало свършено време | aorist | писах | писал | escribí |
3 | минало несвършено време | past imperfect tense | пишех | писал | escribía |
4 | минало неопределено време | past indefinite tense | писал съм | писал | he escrito |
5 | минало предварително време | past perfect tense | бях писал | писал | había escrito |
6 | бъдеще време | future tense | ще пиша | буду писать | escribiré |
7 | бъдеще предварително време | future perfect tense | ще съм писал | habré escrito | |
8 | бъдеще време в миналото | future in the past tense | щях да пиша | escribiría | |
9 | бъдеще предварително време в миналото | future in the past perfect tense | щях да съм писал | habría escrito |
Of course this is a rough comparison. I will try to find some interesting facts about Bulgarian language to write to.
Not sure about your use of parentheses and some of your other punctuation as I am not an english teacher, just a native speaker. My gut says you over did it a bit, but I don't possess the knowledge to properly correct you there, so I just made your sentences sound more natural. Hope this helps!
Thank you very much. I am not sure about my punctuation. I try to write simple but this is not so easy. Your comments are very helpful.
Very interesting, especially for me since I speak fluent Russian and know nothing about the Bulgarian language. Good stuff!
title: The Bulgarian Language
Thank you very much for your great help. I made a great mistake writing directly what I thought. Now I think I have to write something in Bulgarian, make it readable and then translate it in English. I'll try to make more comparisons with Russian language. The problem is that I couldn't find good grammar comparison between Bulgarian and Russian. This is very strange because this is the main difference and difficulty when someone Bulgarian start to learn Russian.