Bulgar language
| Bulgar | |
|---|---|
| Region | from Central Asia to the steppes North of the Caucasus, the Volga, and the Danube, and Southern Italy (Molise, Campania) |
| Extinct | by the 9th or 10th centuries on the Danube and by the 14th century in the Volga region |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
|
Linguist list
|
xbo |
| Glottolog | bolg1250 |
Bulgar (also spelled Bolğar, Bulghar) is an extinct language which was spoken by the Bulgars.
The name is derived from the Bulgars, a tribal association which established the Bulgar state, known as Old Great Bulgaria in the mid-7th century, giving rise to the Danubian Bulgaria by the 680s. While the language was extinct in Danubian Bulgaria (in favour of the Slavic Bulgarian language), it persisted in Volga Bulgaria, eventually giving rise to the modern Chuvash language.
Mainstream scholarship place the Bulgar language among the "Lir" branch of Turkic languages referred to as Oghur-Turkic, Lir-Turkic, or, indeed, "Bulgar Turkic" as opposed to the "Shaz"-type of Common Turkic. The "Lir" branch is characterized by sound correspondences such as Oghuric r versus Common Turkic (or Shaz-Turkic) z and Oghuric l versus Common Turkic (Shaz-Turkic) š. As was stated by Al-Istakhri "the language of Bulgars resembles the language of Khazars". The only surviving language from this linguistic group is the Chuvash. Omeljan Pritsak in his notable study "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (1982) concluded that the language of the Bulgars was from the family of the Hunnic languages, as he calls the Oghur languages. According to the Bulgarian Antoaneta Granberg "the Hunno-Bulgarian language was formed on the Northern and Western borders of China in the 3rd-5th c. BC." The analysis of the loan-words in Slavonic language shows the presence of direct influences of various language-families: Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese and Iranian.
On the other hand, some Bulgarian historians, especially modern ones, link the Bulgar language to the Iranian language group instead (more specifically, the Pamir languages are frequently mentioned), noting the presence of Iranian words in the modern Bulgarian language. According to Prof. Raymond Detrez, who is a specialist in Bulgarian history and language, such views are based on anti-Turkish sentiments, and the presence of Iranian words in the modern Bulgarian is result of Ottoman Turkish linguistic influence. Indeed, other Bulgarian historians, especially older ones, only point out certain signs of Iranian influence in the Turkic base, or indeed support the Turkic theory.
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