"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.
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