| Bulgar | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | from Central Asia to the steppes North of the Caucasus, the Volga, and the Danube, and Southern Italy (Molise, Campania) |
| Extinct | between the 9th century on the Danube and the 14th century on the Volga |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xbo |
Bulgar (also spelled Bolğar, Bulghar) is an extinct language which was spoken by the Bulgars. It was a language belonging to Oghur subgroup of Turkic languages,[1][2][3][4] while sometimes "Bulgar" has also been used as cognate for Oghur itself.[5]
It is named for the Bulgars, a tribal association of uncertain ethno-linguistic composition which conquered Moesia in the 7th century,[6][7][8] establishing the Bulgar khanate, 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.[9][10][11]
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The classification of Bulgar is somewhat controversial, but the most widely accepted theory placed it among the "Lir" branch of Turkic languages referred to as Oghur-Turkic, Lir-Turkic, or, indeed, "Bulghar 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.[6][8][12] As was stated by Al-Istakhri "the language of Bulgars resembles the language of Khazars".[13] The only surviving language from this linguistic group is the Chuvash.
On the other hand, on the base of politically motivated sentiments,[14] some modern Bulgarian scientists link it to the Iranian language group instead (more specifically, the Pamir languages are frequently mentioned), noting the Iranic words or words of Pamirian origin in the modern Bulgarian language.[15][16][17][18][19][20] However, most Bulgarian historians only point out certain signs of Iranian influence in the Turkic base,[21] or indeed actively oppose the "Iranian" theory.[22]
The language of the Danube Bulgars (or Danube Bulgar) is recorded in a small number of inscriptions, which are found in Pliska, the first capital of Danube Bulgaria and in the rock churches near the village of Murfatlar, present-day Romania. Some of these inscriptions are written with Greek characters, others with runes similar to the Orkhon script. Most of them appear to have a private character (oaths, dedications, inscriptions on grave stones) and some were court inventories. Although attempts at decipherment have been made, none of them has gained wide acceptance. These inscriptions in Danube-Bulgar are found along with other official ones written in Greek. Greek was used as the official state language of Danube Bulgaria until the 9th century, when it was replaced by Old Bulgarian (Slavonic).
The language of the Danube Bulgars is also known from a small number of loanwords in the Old Bulgarian language, as well as terms occurring in Bulgar Greek-language inscriptions, contemporary Byzantine texts, and later Slavonic Old Bulgarian texts. Most of these words designate titles and other concepts concerning the affairs of state, including the official 12-year cyclic calendar (as used e.g. in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian Khans). The language became extinct in Danubian Bulgaria in the 9th century as the Bulgar nobility became gradually Slavicized after the Slavic language was declared as official in 893.
The language spoken by the population of Volga Bulgaria is known as Volga-Bulgar. There are a number of surviving inscriptions in Volga-Bulgar, some of which are written with Arabic characters, alongside the continuing use of Turkic runes. These are all largely decipherable. That language persisted until the 13th or the 14th century. In that region, it may have ultimately given rise to the Chuvash language, which is most closely related to it[23] and which is classified as the only surviving member of a separate "Oghur-Turkic" (or Lir-Turkic) branch of the Turkic languages, to which Bulgar is also considered to have belonged (see above).[6][7][24] Still, the precise position of Chuvash within the Oghur family of languages is a matter of dispute among linguists. Since the comparative material attributable to the extinct members of Oghuric (Hunnic, Turkic Avar, Khazar and Bulgar) is scant, little is known about any precise interrelation of these languages and it is a matter of dispute whether Chuvash, the only "Lir"-type language with sufficient extant linguistic material, might be the daughter language of any of these or just a sister branch.[12]
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