How it works
The Bulgarian alphabet online, to copy: the 30 Cyrillic letters as capitals, then as small letters, each with the Latin letters it is written as and its sound. Б is b, Ж is zh and Щ is sht.
Read the full guide
One letter, one sound
Most letters stand for one sound. Five stand for sounds English writes with two or more letters: Ч ch, Ш sh, Щ sht, Ю yu and Я ya. Two sounds take two letters each, дж and дз. A consonant is named by its sound with ъ after it: бъ, въ, гъ.
Ъ, Ь and Й
Ъ stands for a vowel sound, /ɤ/, and is called er golyam, large yer. Ь is er malak, small yer: it softens the consonant before it when о follows. Й is i kratko, short i.
- The Latin letters on the tiles are Bulgaria's official transliteration, the Streamlined System: Ц is ts, Х is h and Ъ is a.
- Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union when Bulgaria joined, on 1 January 2007.
Questions and answers
How many letters are in the Bulgarian alphabet?
30, from А to Я. The count has stood since the spelling reform of 1945, which took two letters out of an alphabet of 32.
What was the old Bulgarian alphabet?
The alphabet of 32 letters that gained prominence in the 1870s: today's 30 with Ѣ, yat, and Ѫ, yus. Earlier in the 19th century several alphabets of 28 to 44 letters were in use. Both dropped letters are under Old letters.
Where does the Bulgarian alphabet come from?
The Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th and 10th centuries, at the Preslav Literary School, and was in official use from 893. It took the place of the Glagolitic alphabet.
Why do some Bulgarian letters look different?
Some letter shapes in Bulgaria were made to look more Latin in the 20th century, and the small letters б, г, д, и, п, т and ш have Bulgarian forms. Which form a tile shows depends on the font of your device.