Bulgarian Alphabet

There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet ^[1]. This includes 6 vowels (а, е, и, о, у, ъ), 21 consonants, 3 iotated vowels (ю, я, йо), and the soft sign (ь) which is rarely used in modern Bulgarian.

The Bulgarian alphabet has several unique features: ^[1]

• Letter Ъ (ă): The "er goliam" (big yer) represents the unique /ɤ̞/ sound, a mid central vowel with no direct English equivalent
• Letter Щ: Represents /ʃt/ consonant cluster, pronounced as "sht" in one sound, distinct to Bulgarian
• No soft sign: Unlike Russian, the soft sign (ь) is rarely used in modern standard Bulgarian
• Historical significance: The Cyrillic script was created in the First Bulgarian Empire, making Bulgarian Cyrillic one of the oldest Slavic writing systems

Bulgarian is primarily spoken in Bulgaria, where it is the official language ^[2]. It has approximately 7.8 million native speakers. Significant Bulgarian-speaking communities also exist in Romania, Serbia, Greece, Ukraine, and Moldova. Bulgarian is also one of the official languages of the European Union. The language belongs to the South Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family ^[3].

The difficulty of learning Bulgarian depends on your native language. For speakers of other Slavic languages (especially Russian, Serbian, or Macedonian), Bulgarian is relatively easy due to shared vocabulary and Cyrillic script. For English speakers, the main challenges include:

• Learning the Cyrillic alphabet (30 letters)
• Mastering the unique ъ sound (no English equivalent)
• Understanding verb aspects (perfective vs. imperfective)
• Learning the definite article system which is unique among Slavic languages

However, Bulgarian has some easier features: it has no grammatical cases (unlike Russian or Polish), uses definite articles (like English), and has relatively phonetic spelling.

The letter Ъ ъ (called "er goliam" or "big yer") is unique to the Bulgarian alphabet ^[1]. It represents the mid central vowel sound /ɤ̞/, which is somewhere between "u" and "a" but has no direct equivalent in English. The sound is similar to the "u" in "but" but produced further back in the mouth. This letter appears in many common Bulgarian words, such as "България" (Bulgaria), "съм" (I am), and "къде" (where).

To type Bulgarian Cyrillic letters, you have several options:

• Bulgarian keyboard layout: Install the Bulgarian keyboard layout on your device (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android). The Bulgarian phonetic layout maps Cyrillic letters to similar-sounding Latin letters.
• Character map / Symbol insertion: Use your operating system's character map or insert symbol function to find and insert Bulgarian letters.
• Alt codes (Windows): Hold Alt and type the numeric code on the number pad for specific letters
• Copy and paste: Copy Bulgarian letters from a website or document and paste them where needed
• Online keyboards: Use online virtual Bulgarian keyboards that let you click letters