The cyrillic alphabet appears difficult to get the hang of at first, but in the case of Bulgarian it is almost always phonetic, making it much simpler to learn than our own! The words in the “Essential Bulgarian” section are a direct transliteration from the cyrillic, using the scheme shown below. In addition to the pronounciation advice below, when a stand-alone ‘y (й)’ is combined with a vowel, other sounds are produced: ey (ей) is more like the sound “a” - for example in the word say, iy is like the sound “e”, for example in bee, and ay is like the sound “i”, for example in light. Finally, when a word ends in a ‘hard’ vowel, it is changed into a ’soft’ vowel. B –> P, D –> T, and G –> K. The “cursive” or italic writing is closer to actual Bulgarian handwriting, although in printed text and on modern signs you will usually see only the capitals, and sometimes the other (non-italic) small letters shown. The cursive letters (lower-case only) are often very different from the normal letters - especially confusing is the small ‘t’ (т), which is easily confused with a lower case ‘m’ (м). Sometimes they alter more than is shown on the site - for example, often the letter “l” (л) is often very close to triangular, losing the flat top. Also, a capital D (Д) is frequently shown simply as a triangle.

Useful place names

Last updated: February 25th, 2008