A History of Bulgarian Language

Despite the fact that as a separate study the history of Bulgarian language begins its development as early as the beginning of 19th c., nowadays an absence is felt of a comprehensive work presenting thoroughly the development of Bulgarian in its two basic forms: written and spoken through the centuries starting from its formation as a separate Slavic language up until now. The only attempt at this so far ­ “Geschichte der bulgarischen Sprache” by Stephan Mladenov (Berlin u. Leipzig, 1929) ­ notwithstanding its importance in its time, was written 70 years ago and under different circumstances. Later, “A Historical Grammar of Bulgarian Language” by Cyril Mirchev (Sofia, 1958) and “A History of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian” (Sofia, BAS, 1989), written by a panel of scholars, were published.
The following study is an attempt at filling the gaps that still exist, by presenting in a systematic way problems concerning the development of written Bulgarian in its pre-national period (9th to 18th c.) and outlining the course of development of spoken Bulgarian in fuller detail and in accordance with the latest achievements in the last 50 years.
The work consists of a short preface, an introduction, where fundamental theoretical issues of Bulgarian language history are posed, and two main parts: the development of the spoken language and the development of the written Bulgarian up until the National Revival period. With a few exceptions, noted in the table of contents, the section on the history of the spoken Bulgarian has been written by Ivan Haralampiev and the one on the history of the pre-National Revival written Bulgarian by Dora Ivanova-Mircheva.
The history of the spoken Bulgarian has been presented as fully and profoundly as it can be for such type of study. Parts have been added which are not included in the “Historical Grammar of Bulgarian Language” by Mirchev, e.g. combinatory consonant shifts, a history of adverbs and prepositions, theoretical problems of Bulgarian historical lexicology and semantics etc.
An original contribution is the section on the history of the written Bulgarian in its pre-national period. In this section, apart from presenting for the first time in a systematic form this highly important problem, the creative and formative role has been described of such outstanding figures in Bulgarian literary language development as Constantine-Cyril and Methodius, Clement of Ochridas, John, Exarch of Bulgaria, Presbyter Kosmas, Euthimius of Turnovo, and Gregory Tsamblak.
A considerable part of the problems in “A History of Bulgarian Language” have been formulated and worked upon by the two authors and are based on their earlier studies. On this respect this book in many ways goes beyond the framework of an ordinary university textbook on history of Bulgarian language in its pursuit to describe from a certain angle of approach the developing processes and regularities of Bulgarian language through the centuries. It is this by which the authors hope to provoke the interest of both Bulgarian and foreign experts of Slavic studies.