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Noriega wrote:

"I have some questions:

Which Slavonic language is closest related to Bulgarian?

What does Bulgarian have instead of all those case endings? Prepositions?

Any archaic forms/idiomatic expressions with retained case endings?

Are there any specific words that Bulgarians consider to be representative for themselves and their state of mind or mood? Well, from your point of view at least"

- I answer to your questions:

Serbo-Croat, Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian form a close lagnauge sub-branch called South Slavonic. The Slavonic language which is closest to Bulgarian is definitely Macedonian; however, if we consider Macedonian as being a mere dialect of Bulgarian, then Slovenian is the Slavonic languages which is closest to Bulgarian; Slovenian shares with Bulgarian some common words not found in other Slavonic languges, as well as several phonetic features such as free word stress, the later disappearance of the nasal vowels in comparison with the other South Slavonic languages, the broad [e] instead of Croatian [ije] etc. In general, Serbo-Croat seems to be more distantly related to the other South Slavonic languages.

Yes, Bulgarian has prepositions instead of cases; this is probably explained in terms of Romance or Modern Greek influence or both.

Retained case endings: kogo (=whose?, genitive singular of koj=who), sega (=now, genitive singular of sej = this) etc.

I don't know any word or expression characteristic of Bulgarian mentality.

I disagree ? I don't consider Slovenian the closest, in fact I don't understand a word of it. Serbo-cro-bosnian is the closest to BG.

?kogo? actually means ?whom?, the form for ?whose? is ?chii?.

Could anyone could give me translations (in cyrillic) of the following into Bulgarian with phonemic transcriptions (with stress marked please)?

"Student I.D." (for a high school student), as opposed to the booklet for university students mentioned earlier, what term might be used to describe what I'd been mentioning, even a simple term for a card with a picture and name on it

"(insert name of any Bulgarian high school"

"My English is not good. By any chance do you speak Bulgarian, or ancient Greek perhaps?"

"My English is not good... I don't speak English (well)."

"I don't know what "gum" is. So stop asking me if I'll give you any." (Don't translate gum. 'Tis the beauty of pretending to be foreign. Damn kids. NOT MAKING ME GIVE THEM GUM ANYMORE! )

"I could kill you with my THUMB, you..." (Something to mumble under my breath.)

"What? (Huh?, Eh?)"

"Hello... How are you?... (very) good... (very) bad... fine...goodbye"

"Thanks...Thank you...You're Welcome"

And anything else you think I might need to know. I plan on starting this when I return to school from spring break. (Tuesday)

I realize I could look up a few of these but when I do I usually have no idea how to pronounce them. Merely memorizing stress rules, palatalization rules, etc., confuse me muchly.

1. "Student I.D." ? Лична карта

2. "name of any Bulgarian high school" ? Национална Априловска Гимназия http://www.nag-gabrovo.org/

3. "My English is not good. By any chance do you speak Bulgarian, or ancient Greek perhaps?" ?
Не говоря добре английски. Случайно да знаеш български или старогръцки2

4. "My English is not good." ? Не говоря добре английски.

5. "I don't know what "gum" is. So stop asking me if I'll give you any." ? Не знам какво е "гъм". Затова спри да ме питаш дали имам.

6. "I could kill you with my THUMB, you..." ? Ще те смачкам като гнида, ти...

7. "What? (Huh?, Eh?)" ? Кво?? А?

8. "Hello... How are you?... (very) good... (very) bad... fine...goodbye" ? Здрасти... Как си?... (много) добре... (много) зле... добре... чао

9. "Thanks...Thank you...You're Welcome" ? Благодаря... Благодаря... За нищо
<hr>
It's 07:00 here I'll get back on the pronunciation some time later. Or ZZ can do it for me

Io wrote:It's 07:00 here I'll get back on the pronunciation some time later. Or ZZ can do it for me

Thanks! When you do, don't forget to teach me how to properly pronounce my own name. (Найден Стоянов)

by the way Nayden means found, it's a past active participle.
And yes, it IS a real name here

I've decided to take a different approach, since I'm not IPA/Sampa expert, I've decided to give you latinized versions of the BG text + sound files. There are 11 sound files, most of them are 1 file 1 sentence

Here they are:

1. Лична карта ? L?chna k?rta

2. Национална Априловска Гимназия ? Natsion?lna Apr?lofska Gimn?ziya

3. Не говоря добре английски. ? Ne gov?rya dobr? angl?yski.

4. Случайно да знаеш български или старогръцки? ? Sluch?yno da zn?esh b?lgarski il? starogr?tski?

5. Не знам какво е "гъм". ? Ne znam kakv? e 'gum'.

6. Затова спри да ме питаш дали имам. ?Zatov? spri da me p?tash dal? ?mam.

7. Ще те смачкам като гнида, ти... ? Sh'te sm?chkam kat? gn?da, ti... (this one did not come out really well, though, it just doesn't sound natural)

8-9. Кво?? А? ? Kvo? A?

10-16. Здрасти... Как си?... (много) добре... (много) зле... добре... чао ? Zdr?sti... Kak si?... (mn?go) dobr?... (mn?go) zle.... dobr?... chao

17. Благодаря ? Blagodary?

18. За нищо ? za n?shto

Thanks very much!

How is Найден Стоянов stressed?

N?yden Stoy?nov

Is Macedonian exactly the same as Bulgarian or are there many differences?

As far as i know, slavomacedonian (*) is considered by many as a bulgarian dialect. Personally, I don't wish to get into the language vs. dialect debate, so I'll just say that slavomacedonian is a language very close to bulgarian with many innovative tendencies.


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(*) I'm using the term 'slavomacedonian' because otherwise there will be a confusion with ancient macedonian which (probably) was part of the hellenic branch.

Io wrote: c) Cases:

? farewell = сбогом, с/with + богом/god (I think the case is gennitive);
? with body & soul = телом и духом;

In fact, all those examples are old Instrumentals (and, funnily enough, the Russian equivalents would be exactly the same orthographically).
Best regards,
Hans

Hlewagastiz wrote: Serbo-Croat, Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian form a close lagnauge sub-branch called South Slavonic.

Well, not so close, much less so than West or East Slavic. I'd even go so far to say that it would be hard to find even a single isogloss which would define South Slavic - i.e., an an isogloss which is common to all South Slavic languages and does not include at least one non-South Slavic language. South Slavic is basically what is left out when you define East and West Slavic.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

Io wrote:I disagree ? I don't consider Slovenian the closest, in fact I don't understand a word of it. Serbo-cro-bosnian is the closest to BG.

I'd agree on that (BTW, I like your "Serbo-cro-bosnian" - did you get it patented?). The second language which would help you most if you don't know Bulgarian would be Russian, for the more abstract words - Russian loaned the major part of its abstact words from Old/Middle Bulgarian in the Middle Ages, and Modern Bulgarian loaned a major part of its abstract and technical vocabulary back from Russian in the 19th century. From my personal experience, it is easy for anyone having a good grasp of Russian to read scientific or technical literature in Bulgarian, but much harder to make sense of a restaurant menu or of song lyrics...
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

I said I think
Now when I look at it it doesn't really look like gennitive, I really don't know, it might be tvoritelen, I'll have to check that with my old BG textbook.

As for the patent: no, I'll just wait few more moths (years?) for Montenegro to secede from the current alliance (or whatever it is) with Serbia and then I'll patent serbo-cro-bosno-montenegran

Hlewagastiz wrote:Which Slavonic language is closest related to Bulgarian?

Serbo-Croat, Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian form a close lagnauge sub-branch called South Slavonic. The Slavonic language which is closest to Bulgarian is definitely Macedonian; however, if we consider Macedonian as being a mere dialect of Bulgarian, then Slovenian is the Slavonic languages which is closest to Bulgarian; Slovenian shares with Bulgarian some common words not found in other Slavonic languges, as well as several phonetic features such as free word stress, the later disappearance of the nasal vowels in comparison with the other South Slavonic languages, the broad [e] instead of Croatian [ije] etc. In general, Serbo-Croat seems to be more distantly related to the other South Slavonic languages.

Indeed, Slovene seems to be quite (probably the most) similar to Bulgarian in the field of phonetics. The more flexible stress is due to both languages being more archaic at this point, while the "[e] instead of Croatian [ije]" usually isn't broad.
But Bulgarian grammar and vocabulary are much more similar to those of Serbo-Croatian. There are of course some words common to Slovene and Bulgarian but not SC, but there's much more words shared by Slovene&SC or SC&Bulgarian.

Io wrote: ?kogo? actually means ?whom?, the form for ?whose? is ?chii?.

to be more precise, чии (/tSi"i/) is the plural, чий the masculine singular.

EDIT: alos, where Io used a stressed <y> in his pronounciation guide, it's a schwa, otherwise /j/.

There are Bulgarian dialects in which the nasal vowels are preserved, these (this?) dialect(s) is/are spoken in Albania around lake Prespa.

here

Yes, indeed. I didn't remember well the region where those (this) dialect/s are spoken... I thought it was around Ohrid lake, but you're right, it must be Prespa. An example is the word: pont (=way) = Bulg. път.

Do you by any chance know the etymology of the Bulgarian word chvyrljam? (cf. Rumanian azvirli)? It seems not to be of Slavonic origin...

Hlewagastiz wrote:Do you by any chance know the etymology of the Bulgarian word chvyrljam? (cf. Rumanian azvirli)? It seems not to be of Slavonic origin...

Do you mean хвърлям (perfective хвърля)? Related words include хвърча, хвърлей, хвърчило (hvyrchy, hvyrlej, hvyrchilo). I don't have anywhere to check right now but it seems very probable to me it is the result of metathesis of връх-/върх- (vryh-/vyrh-). See връхлетя (vryhletjy), too.

In the Rodopa mountains there dialects with interesting vowel changes:

черква ? чорква
ръка ? рока
къща ? коща

zmeiat_joro wrote:

Hlewagastiz wrote:Do you by any chance know the etymology of the Bulgarian word chvyrljam? (cf. Rumanian azvirli)? It seems not to be of Slavonic origin...

Do you mean хвърлям (perfective хвърля)? Related words include хвърча, хвърлей, хвърчило (hvyrchy, hvyrlej, hvyrchilo). I don't have anywhere to check right now but it seems very probable to me it is the result of metathesis of връх-/върх- (vryh-/vyrh-). See връхлетя (vryhletjy), too.

What does the word mean?
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

I means throw. Хвърча (hvyrchy) means somehting like летя (letjy) - fly, but not exactly. Hvyrchilo means kite. Hvyrlej means 'a throw away', as measure of distance. Vryhletjy means to come at someone with great speed (and possibly great force). An adjective derived from хвър- like hvyrkovat is close in meaning to that last word.