Bulgarian

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Vowels

The vowel system of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian comprises 6 phonemes, as follows.

SAMPA symbol	Gloss  		Transcription 	Orthography
i		peak		pik		пик
e		heat		pek		пек
a		again		pak		пак
@		but		p@k		пък
O		under		pOt		под
u		crack!		puk		пук

In unstressed positions there is considerable qualitative reduction of vowels.

Consonants

The consonant system comprises 21 'hard' (non-palatalized) phonemes, as follows.

p		again		pak		пак
b		ball		bal		бал
t		there		tam		там
d		give		dam		дам
k		how		kak		как
g		gas		gas		газ
ts		tsar		tsar		цар
dz		ting		dz@n		дзън
tS		pine		tSam		чам
dZ		glass		dZam		джам
f		foul		fal		фал
v		bank		val		вал
s		alone		sam		сам
z		dice		zar		зар
S		shawl		Sal		шал
Z		pity		Zal		жал
x		plight		xal		хал
m		swing		max		мах
n		us		nas		нас
l		varnish		lak		лак
r		once		ras		раз

j		eaten		jal		ял

There are also 17 'soft' (palatalized or palatal) consonants, which are shown by the symbol ' (ASCII 39) written after the consonant symbol. Before /i, e/ they do not contrast with the corresponding 'hard' consonants, but elsewhere they do.

p'		sung		p'al		пял
b'		white		b'al		бял
t'		them		t'ax		тях
d'		share		d'al		дял
k'		profit		k'ar		кяр
g'		rose		g'ul		гюл
ts'		whole		ts'al		цял
dz'		waste		dz'an		дзян
f'		phew!		f'ut		фют
v'		apathetic	v'al		вял
s'		sown		s'al		сял
z'		waste		z'an		зян
x'		Hume (name)	x'um		хюм
m'		wineskin	m'ax		мях
n'		dumb		n'am		ням
l'		poured		l'ax		лях
r'		cut		r'as		ряз

SAMPA home page
UCL Phonetics and Linguistics home page
BABEL home page

Maintained by J.C. Wells. Last modified 1998 April 17. Unicode version 1998 04 28