History and Development of the Bulgarian Language > Bulgaria

All Slavic languages, including Bulgarian, are descendants of a Common Slavic Language, spoken thousands of years ago. After the Great Migration of the Slavs, the Common Slavic language slowly disintegrated and the modern Slavic languages began to develop.

The development of the Bulgarian language began in the 9th century and is divided into three periods: old, middle, and modern. The Old Bulgarian Period lasted from the 9th century through the 11th century, and it was during that time that the Bulgarians were the first among all Slavs to adopt Christianity and the Cyrillic alphabet. The invention of the Cyrillic alphabet is attributed traditionally to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine missionaries, whose purpose was to translate the New Testament into the then-common language of the Slavic peoples.
 (However, the two brothers created the Glagolithic alphabet; it was their disciple Saint Climent who invented the simpler Cyrillic alphabet and named it in honor of his teacher) .
Since Sts. Cyril and Methodius were from the city of Thessaloniki, they chose the dialect of the Bulgarian Slavic tribes residing in the area as the foundation for the creation of the new alphabet. Hence the language written in this alphabet is known as Old Bulgarian, Old Slavonic or Old Church Slavonic and is still used as a liturgical language in Eastern Orthodox Slavic churches. For most of the middle ages Old Bulgarian was the language of the ecclesiastical literature and of official and diplomatic documents of the Eastern Orthodox Slavs.

The Middle Bulgarian Period lasted from the 12th century through the 14th century.

The Modern Bulgarian Period started in the 15th century, but the modern literary language, which is quite different from Old Bulgarian, formed only during the 19th century. Modern Bulgarian's two major dialect groups are the eastern and western dialects, each subdivided into north and south varieties. The modern literary language is based primarily on the northeastern dialects.