Editing Bulgarian language (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Bulgarian}}
One can divide the development of the Bulgarian language into several periods.
* The '''Prehistoric period''' covers the time between the [[Slavic migrations to Southeastern Europe|Slavic migration to the eastern Balkans]] ({{circa}} 6th century CE) and the mission of [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]] to Great Moravia in 860s.
* '''[[Old Church Slavonic]]''' (9th to 11th centuries) a literary norm of the early southern dialect of the [[Proto-Slavic language]] from which Bulgarian evolved, also referred to as '''Old Bulgarian'''.<ref>The Development of the Bulgarian Literary Language: From Incunabula to First Grammars, Late Fifteenth–Early Seventeenth Century, by Ivan N. Petrov. Lexington Books, 2021; {{ISBN|978-1-4985-8608-5}}, p. 1.</ref> [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]] and their disciples used this norm when translating the [[Bible]] and other liturgical literature from [[Greek language|Greek]] into Slavic.
* '''[[Middle Bulgarian]]''' (12th to 15th centuries) – a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations occurred. A language of rich literary activity, it served as an official administration language of the [[Second Bulgarian Empire]], [[Walachia]], [[Moldavia]] (until the 19th century) and an important language in the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359950277_Written_Languages_in_Wallachia_during_the_Reign_of_Neagoe_Basarab_1512-1521)</ref> Sultan [[Selim I]] spoke and used it well.<ref>{{cite book |last= Чилингиров |first= Стилиян |author-link= :bg:Стилиян Чилингиров |title= "Какво е дал българинът на другите народи" |year= 2006 | page = 60}}</ref>
* '''Modern Bulgarian''' dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar and syntax changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. The present-day written Bulgarian 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 fusional inflecting [[synthetic language]] with some analyticity (Modern Bulgarian) with Middle Bulgarian as a midpoint in this transition.
[[File:ZographensisColour.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|The [[Codex Zographensis]] is one of the oldest [[manuscript]]s in the Old Bulgarian language, dated from the late 10th or early 11th century]]
''Bulgarian'' was the first Slavic language attested in writing.<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Bulgaria/Language |display=Bulgaria § {{sc|Language and Literature}} |volume=4 |page=785 |first=James David |last=Bourchier}}</ref> As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, the oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language as ѧзꙑкъ словѣньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name ѧзꙑкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, this name was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism is the Service of [[Saints Cyril and Methodius|Saint Cyril]] from Skopje ({{langx|bg|Скопски миней|Skopski miney}}), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]] according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. 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 [[Archbishopric of Ohrid]] in the 11th century, for example in the [[Greek language|Greek]] hagiography of [[Clement of Ohrid]] by [[Theophylact of Ohrid]] (late 11th century).

[[File:Old Bulgarian alphabet.png|left|thumb|[[Cyrillic]]]]

During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic [[case system]], but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in the [[Balkan language area]] (mostly grammatically) and later also by [[Turkish language|Turkish]], which was the official language of the [[Ottoman Empire]], in the form of the [[Ottoman Turkish language]], mostly lexically.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}} The [[damaskin]] texts mark the transition from [[Middle Bulgarian]] to New Bulgarian, which was standardized in the 19th century.<ref name="scripta-bulgarica">{{cite web|url=http://scripta-bulgarica.eu/en/terms/damaskini|title=дамаскини|website=Scripta Bulgarica|access-date=2019-11-17}}</ref>

As a [[Bulgarian National Revival|national revival]] occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on [[Old Church Slavonic language|Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian]] (and to some extent on literary [[Russian language|Russian]], which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in {{langx|bg|оборот|oborot}} (turnover, rev), {{langx|bg|непонятен|neponyaten}} (incomprehensible), {{langx|bg|ядро|yadro}} (nucleus) and others. Many other loans from French, English and the [[classical language]]s have subsequently entered the language as well.

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 (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the [[National awakening of Bulgaria]] (most notably [[Neofit Rilski]] and [[Ivan Bogorov]]),<ref>Michal Kopeček. ''Discourses of collective identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770–1945): texts and commentaries, Volume 1'' (Central European University Press, 2006), p. 248</ref> there had been many attempts to [[Codification (linguistics)|codify]] a [[Standard language|standard]] Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued.<ref name="Glanville Price 2000 p.45">Glanville Price. ''Encyclopedia of the languages of Europe'' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000), p.45</ref> Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed,<ref name="Victor Roudometof 2002 p. 92">
Victor Roudometof. ''Collective memory, national identity, and ethnic conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian question'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), p. 92
</ref>
and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified<ref name="Glanville Price 2000 p.45"/> a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography.<ref name="Victor Roudometof 2002 p. 92"/>