Bulgar language

Not to be confused with the Bulgarian language.

Bulgar
RegionFrom Central Asia to the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Volga and the Danube and Southern Italy (Molise, Campania)
EthnicityBulgars
ExtinctBy the 9th or 10th centuries on the Danube and by the 14th century in the Volga region[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-3xbo
xbo
Glottologbolg1250

Bulgar (also known as Bulghar, Bolgar, or Bolghar) is an extinct Oghur Turkic language spoken by the Bulgars.

The name is derived from the Bulgars, a tribal association that established the Bulgar state known as Old Great Bulgaria in the mid-7th century, giving rise to the Danubian Bulgaria by the 680s.[1][2][3] While the language initially went extinct in Danubian Bulgaria (in favour of Old Bulgarian), it persisted in Volga Bulgaria, but even there it was eventually replaced by the modern Chuvash language.[4][5][6] Other than Chuvash, Bulgar is the only language to be definitively classified as an Oghur Turkic language.

The inclusion of other languages such as Hunnish, Khazar and Sabir within Oghur Turkic remains speculative owing to the paucity of historical records. Some scholars suggest Hunnish had strong ties with Bulgar and to modern Chuvash[7] and refer to this extended grouping as separate Hunno-Bulgar languages.[8][9] However, such speculations are not based on proper linguistic evidence, since the language of the Huns is almost unknown except for a few attested words, which are Indo-European in origin, and personal names. Thus, scholars generally consider Hunnish as unclassifiable.[10][11][12][13]

  1. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online – Bolgar Turkic Archived 2008-06-23 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Campbell, George L. Compendium of the World's Languages. Routledge, 2000. page 274
  3. ^ Marcantonio, Angela. The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics. Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002. page 25
  4. ^ Marcantonio, Angela (2002). The Uralic language family: facts, myths and statistics. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 167. ISBN 0-631-23170-6.
  5. ^ Price, Glanville (2000). Encyclopedia of the languages of Europe. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 88. ISBN 0-631-22039-9.
  6. ^ Clauson, Gerard (2002). Studies in Turkic and Mongolic linguistics. Taylor & Francis. p. 38. ISBN 0-415-29772-9.
  7. ^ Pritsak, Omeljan (1982). "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. IV (4). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute: 470. ISSN 0363-5570. JSTOR 41036005. The language had strong ties to Bulgar language and to modern Chuvash, but also had some important connections, especially lexical and morphological, to Ottoman Turkish and Yakut
  8. ^ Archived, Article. ""The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (pages 428, ..., 476), author: Omeljan Pritsak": 430. I was able to establish a Danube- Bulgarian nominative- suffix /A/ from the consonant stems. Recalling that Danube- Bulgarian was a Hunnic language. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ Ramer, Alexis Manaster. "Proto-Bulgarian/Danube Bulgar/Hunno-Bulgar Bekven": 1 p. Granberg's suggestion that we should revive the term Hunno-Bulgar may well became that replacement — once it is clear that Hunnic and Bulgar were closely related and perhaps even the same language. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. ^ Savelyev, Alexander (27 May 2020). Chuvash and the Bulgharic Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 448. ISBN 978-0-19-880462-8. Retrieved 30 March 2024. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  11. ^ Golden, Peter B. (1992). An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples: ethnogenesis and state-formation in medieval and early modern Eurasia and the Middle East. Turcologica. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz. pp. 88 89. ISBN 978-3-447-03274-2.
  12. ^ RÓNA-TAS, ANDRÁS (1 March 1999). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages. Central European University Press. p. 208. doi:10.7829/j.ctv280b77f. ISBN 978-963-386-572-9.
  13. ^ Sinor, Denis (1997). Studies in medieval inner Asia. Collected studies series. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate. p. 336. ISBN 978-0-86078-632-0.