The family is a central component of Bulgarian life. Families tend to be small, and children often have only one parent. Bulgarians count their kin by marriage or blood. Kindreds tend to be informal networks of families, and the inner circle of family members is known as the blizki. The role of distant relatives varies, depending on their proximity and frequency of contact. The Bulgarian family is monogamous, and it’s common for spouses to come from the same ethnic group.
In terms of vocabulary, the modern Bulgarian language is comprised of words inherited from Proto-Slavic, as well as local Bulgarian innovations. Most Bulgarian words have roots in Latin or Greek, but many have also been incorporated by Bulgarian speakers. As a result, 70 to 80% of the vocabulary is native.
Prior to World War II, Bulgaria’s economy was largely based on agriculture and light manufacturing enterprises, which processed agricultural and textile products. With the advent of the socialist era, Bulgarian industrialization was accelerated. By the end of the twentieth century, heavy industry became the dominant force, though agricultural and food production continue to play an important role.
Bulgarian verbs are grouped into perfective and imperfective categories. Perfective verbs signify the completion of an action while imperfective verbs are neutral with regard to action. They are often combined to form perfective verbs, although the resultant perfective forms often deviate from their original meaning. In some cases, a perfective verb may be formed from an imperfective verb, but this is not common. This means that Bulgarian verbs are derived from imperfective verbs, and the resultant perfective verbs are often modified from the original.
The Bulgarian language is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The original Cyrillic alphabet contained 44 letters for 44 sounds. By the nineteenth century, however, the Bulgarian sound system changed dramatically and had fewer sounds, necessitating an alphabet reform. The result was a more modern Bulgarian alphabet that contains thirty letters.
Although Bulgarian is closely related to other Slavic languages, its language has many differences from other languages. For example, many Bulgarian words sound more similar to their Turkish counterparts than those in other Slavic languages. Moreover, Bulgarian has three different case systems, including the personal, relative, interrogative, indefinitive, and possessive. Moreover, a Bulgarian verb can have up to 3,000 different forms, depending on the person, voice, aspect, and tense.
The Bulgarian language shares many similarities with Russian. However, most linguists regard the two languages as distinct languages. For example, Bulgarian has preserved ancient sounds that are not present in Russian. It is also pronounced differently than Russian. In addition, Bulgarian is written from left to right, and there are fewer letters.
Bulgarians value education. The state provides free, compulsory education for children between the ages of seven and sixteen. Some parents pay for private tutoring to improve their children’s performance. Others use bribery to get their children into better schools. In the last few years, a number of private schools have opened up to meet this need.