Modern Bulgarian has two main dialects, Eastern and Western, which is also subdivided into Northern and Southern. The modern literary language is based mainly on Northern dialects.

The Cyrillic Alphabet

The invention of the Cyrillic Alphabet is attributed to SS Cyril and Methodius who were offered to translate the New testament from Latin into the language used by the new faithful to ease its understanding.

The people of Bulgaria were the first to use the new alphabet. The Cyrillic Alphabet is a mixture of Greek and Latin with new letters necessary to express the sounds that were unique. Bulgaria became a cultural centre of the Slav nations during the Middle Ages and affected neighbouring countries like Serbia and also other Slav peoples like the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians. During the 19th c. modern Bulgarian lost a number of sounds and after the reform the alphabet was reduced from 44 to 32 letters. This alphabet was in use till the orthographic reform of 1945, when the alphabet was reduced from 32 to 30 letters that are used today.

Almost all the letters of the Bulgarian alphabet has a single sound. Three letters are combined to express other sounds.