The dialects are numerous, chiefly distinguished by phonetic differences. The most usual division is into an Eastern and a Western group, according to how C.S. é is pronounced. In the West, the sound—which in O.B. is thought to have been that of a in "sand," with palatalization of the preceding consonant—is e, as in Serbian, but in the East the old sound has been maintained before non-palatal consonants. East Bulgarian is further divided into two zones, according to whether the articulated noun ends in 0 or It. In the main the modern literary language is based on the 1,t dialects of East Bulgarian.
The Slav dialects spoken in Macedonia represent a transitional stage between Bulgarian and Serbo-Croat. None of them is used for literary purposes, but they have been carefully investigated in recent years, with a view to determining to what extent they have preserved characteristics of their lineal ancestor, the old eccle siastical language (O.B.). A feature shared by many of them, but not occurring in O.B., is the development of C.S. tj and dj to fronted k and g, in place of literary Bulgarian st and id.
In some Bulgarian dialects, notably those in the neighbourhood of Salonica and Castoria, there are distinct traces of the O.B. nasal vowels, which are not elsewhere preserved except in Polish and, also in traces, in some Slovene dialects.
In the vocabulary of modern Bulgarian there are many foreign elements, chiefly Turkish and Greek, but also some Rumanian and Albanian words. Russian supplied literary models, and its vocabu
lary has been very freely drawn upon, although there is now a tendency to restrict the loan words to expressions belonging to more abstract thought. The phraseology of Russian, French and German has had considerable influence on the sentence con struction.
the linguistic affinities of Bulgarian consult V. Vondrak, Vergleichende Slavische Grammatik (Gottingen, 1924) and B. Coney, History of the Bulgarian Language (in Bulgarian—Sofia, 1919). G. Weigand's Balkan-Archiv (Leipzig, 1925) also is valuable for the comparative study of the Balkan languages. Das Ostbulgarische by L. MiletiE (Vienna, 1903) and A. Mazon's Contes slaves de la Macedoine sud-occidentale (Paris, 1923) are excellent introductions to the study of the dialects.
Dictionaries: N. Gerov, Reenik na blgarskyj jazyk (Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language, 5 vols., Philippopolis, 1895-1904) ; C. Stephanove, Complete English-Bulgarian Dictionary (Sofia, 1914), is the best work for English users. For those able to read Bulgarian the Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija i narodopis, published by the Bulgarian Acad emy, is the standard publication, and the Bulgarska Rd, a monthly linguistic periodical published at Sofia since 1921, will prove useful.
There are no scientific grammars, nor annotated and accented texts in English, but beginners able to read German will find G. Weigand's grammar and addition of Baj Ganja of great assistance. (N. B. J.)