Symbols used in Bulgarian phonetic transcription
The list we offer is primarily based on the seminal 1968 book by the founder of Modern Bulgarian dialectology Stojko Stojkov (Стойков, С. 1993: 42–43).
Vowels
| Bulgarian phonetic symbol | IPA equivalent(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| а | а | open central un-rounded |
| ė | ranges between e and e̝ | raised close mid front un-rounded |
| е | ranges between ɛ and e | close mid front un-rounded |
| ê | ranges between ɛ and a, mostly æ | near open front unrounded |
| ̂ | used for more open pronunciation of any vowel | |
| ӥ | y | close front rounded |
| ы | ɨ | close central un-rounded |
| ъ | ɤ | mid close back un-rounded |
| | ɯ | close back un-rounded; traditionally termed “velar” or “velarized ъ” |
| у | u | close back rounded |
| o | o | close mid back rounded |
| ô | ɔ | open mid back rounded |
| ъ̂ | ʌ | open mid back un-rounded |
| å | ɒ | open back rounded |
| ә | ә | neutral |
| e̥ | e̽ | mid-centralized close mid front un-rounded; often termed “Miletich’s e” |
| ạ | ɐ | Dot under the letter indicates vowel reduction, i.e. raised pronunciation of open vowels but it is sometimes also used to indicate lowered pronunciation of close vowels. |
| ọ | ranges between ʊ and o̝ | near close back rounded |
| ̜ | less rounded |
Approximants
| Bulgarian phonetic symbol | IPA equivalent(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| й or i̯ or ĭ | j | palatal |
| у̯ or ў | w | labio-velar |
| ъ̆ | ɰ | velar |
Consonants
| Bulgarian phonetic symbol | IPA equivalent(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| п | p | voiceless bilabial stop |
| б | b | voiced bilabial stop |
| φ | ф | voiceless bilabial fricative |
| w | β | voiced bilabial fricative |
| ф | f | voiceless labiodental fricative |
| в | v | voiced labiodental fricative |
| θ | θ | voiceless dental fricative; very rare |
| ð | ð | voiced dental fricative; very rare |
| т | t | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻.voiced alveolar or denti-alveolar stop |
| д | d | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩ .voiced bilabial stop |
| с | s | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩.voiceless alveolar or denti-alveolar fricative |
| з | z | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩. voiced alveolar or denti-alveolar fricative |
| ц | ts͡ or ts͜ | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩. voiceless alveolar or denti-alveolar affricate |
| s | dz͡ or dz͜ | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩. voiced alveolar or denti-alveolar affricate |
| ш | ʃ | voiceless post-alveolar fricative |
| ж | Ʒ | voiced post-alveolar fricative |
| ч | tʃ͡ or tʃ͜ | voiceless post-alveolar affricate |
| џ | dƷ͡ or dƷ͜ | voiced post-alveolar affricate |
| j | j | voiced palatal fricative; termed “fricative jota” in older description as opposed to “non-fricative” i̯ or ĭ |
| к | k | voiceless velar stop |
| г | g | voiced velar stop |
| х | x | voiceless velar fricative |
| γ | ɣ | voiced velar fricative |
| χ | ħ | voiceless pharyngeal fricative |
| h | h | voiceless laryngeal fricative |
| ’ | palatalized consonant (e.g., п’ – pʲ palatalized voiceless bilabial stop etc.); the symbols l’ and n’ can be rendered with lʲ and nʲ | |
| ʺ | used to indicate stronger palatalization; the symbols lʺ and nʺ can be rendered with ʎ and ɲ | |
| ˺ | used to indicate slightly palatalized consonants | |
| л | l | Bulgarian consonants т, д, с, з, ц, s, л almost invariably described as “алвеодентали” or denti-alveolar and laminal. Laminal articulation indicated with underwritten rectangle: ̩̻̩. alveolar or denti-alveolar lateral consonant |
| l | ḻ | retracted alveolar or post-alveolar lateral |
| ł | ɫ | velarized alveolar or denti-alveolar lateral |
| лʺ | ʎ | palatal lateral |
| м | m | bilabial nasal |
| н | n | alveolar nasal |
| ŋ | ŋ | velar nasal |
| нʺ | ɲ | palatal nasal |
| р | r | alveolar trill |
| ̥ | ̩ | used under a symbol to indicate syllabicity: р̥ and л̥ - r̩ and l̩ |
| ̅ | ̅ | used to indicate length of any segment |
Accents
| Bulgarian phonetic symbol | IPA equivalent(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ̀ | ˈ | used to indicate primary stress; written on top of the syllable nucleus e.g. коза̀ – koˈzа |
| ̋ | ˌ | used to indicate secondary stress e.g. ка̀мъните̋ – ˈkаmɤniˌte |
More rarely used symbols
| Bulgarian phonetic symbol | IPA equivalent(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ä | ranges between æ and a | more open variant of ê (a, or open front un-rounded) |
Since the Bulgarian “soft” counterparts of postalveolar consonants, found for example in Rupa dialects of Bulgarian, are realized as palatalized postalveolar rather than alveolo-palatal, we do not list any special symbols for them.
Subtle shades of pronunciation are sometimes indicated by superscript letters.
Correlation between the Bulgarian phonetic transcription and the IPA
Most symbols for the consonants could survive automatic change but the vowels would pose difficulties if automatic change is applied to unedited texts, primarily due to different manners in which vowel reduction was indicated. Thus ẹ can phonetically be equivalent to ė, and reduced a can be written with a separate symbol (ә) or as ạ. It would also be very hard to indicate the stress in the way prescribed by the IPA without considering syllabic boundaries.
The phonetic transcription used in this part of the project is based entirely on the symbols prescribed by the IPA. The transcription is narrow, which means that all perceivable phonetic variation is taken into account, except for purely physiological and accidental processes, such as vowel nasalization between nasal consonants or word-finally. Other phonetic details, frequently deemed automatic and hence of no linguistic value, including vowel reduction, consonant palatalization before front vowels, voicing assimilation and devoicing of final obstruents will be represented.
The reason for such an approach is two-fold. In order to claim that a variation has phonemic versus purely phonetic significance, it is necessary to offer a comprehensive phonological analysis which could prove hard to attain in view of sometimes incomplete material, not to speak of the possibility of theoretically biased analysis. More importantly, consistent dialect differences could be found on sub-phonemic level and nevertheless they can be not only of classificatory importance for investigators but may be recognized by native speakers as markers of local identity or as sociolinguistic variables.
The sound system of each locality is represented as a list of the inventory of phonetic segments with their full description by the IPA recommended terms, e.g. voiceless palatalized bilabial stop commonly written п’ in Bulgarian transcription (we find it redundant to add “pulmonic egressive”), followed by the IPA symbol pʲ.
Pending the reaction of the users, some of the lesser known symbols could be replaced by less accurate but better known symbols for the sake of accessibility.
Principles of phonetic description
The vowels are compared to the vowels of standard Bulgarian. In turn they can be positioned in the well-known system of cardinal vowels developed by Daniel Jones (Jones, D. 1962: 31–41), which serves as a base of the IPA vowel chart. Their positions can be described as follows (the abbreviation CV stands for “cardinal vowel”):
и (i) – very close to 1CV;
е (e) – between 2CV and 3CV;
ъ (ɤ) – centralized 15CV;
а (ä) – low central vowel (the use of а for ä is accepted in phonetic publications);
у (u) – very close to 16CV;
o (o) – between 7CV and 6CV.
When the dialect vowels are in same region as their standard counterparts, this is briefly stated in the beginning of the transcription. In most villages this is the case with the vowels i, ɤ, a, u. In many villages the vowels e and o are raised approximately to 2CV for e and 7CV for o, which is explicitly stated in the description. In addition, they may have closed on-glide, j for e, and w for o. In the former case, the j is combined with the preceding consonant into a palatalized consonant, and in the latter case, as labialized consonants do not exist in the inventory, it is interpreted as a separate sound.
Vowels that are far from any of the cardinal vowels, like ы (ɨ), are adequately described by the position of the symbol in the IPA vowel chart. If an allophone of such a vowel is close to a cardinal vowel, it is used as a reference point, as in the case with ɯ, which approximates 16CV.
The raised pronunciation of e and o is found in many villages in the Corpus. It occurs in all subdivisions of the two major dialect types – western and eastern. On the other hand, in each subdivision there are villages in which such raising does not occur. The raised o is slightly more frequent than the raised e. Only future research can determine whether this is an old feature brought from the previous locations in Bulgaria, or an instance of Romanian influence.
The vowel reduction is found in eastern dialects, in addition to some minor, exceptional cases in the eastern-most subdivision of the western group; for example Atârnáţi from the Iskŭr-Vit group, where a and o may be reduced respectively to ә and u.
The two Pavlikjani dialects in the Corpus, Popéşti-Leordéni and Cióplea, can be compared to the Pavlikjani villages in Bulgaria. The latter can be divided in two groups according to the development of etymological e (and some other features that are irrelevant here). In some of them, like Trŭnčovica and Malčika, е was raised to the closed variant of е known in Bulgarian dialectology as “narrow е”, and in others, like Belene and Oreš, е was raised to i (Неделчев, Н. 1988: 125). In both Popéşti-Leordéni and Cióplea, the second type of raising is found, which confirms Romanski’s claim that the inhabitants of Popéşti-Leordéni came from the village of Oreš and is also evidence that the inhabitants of Cióplea came from either Belene or Oreš.
In both Romanian villages the retracted variant of the vowel ɨ, transcribed here as ɯ, is very frequent. In Bulgarian Pavlikjani locations, according to my own observations, this variant appears when e˃i (e.g. in Rakovski), but not when e˃e̝ (e.g. in Trŭnčovica and Žitnica).
The basic difference in the consonant inventories concerns the palatal correlation. In the eastern dialects, all but post-alveolar consonants have palatalized correlates functioning as separate phonemes, including the lateral l and the nasal n. These palatalized consonants are traditionally referred to as “soft”. In western dialects no such correlation exists and only the consonants k, g, l, and n have soft counterparts, however, as Stojko Stojkov asserts, their softness is very strong (Стойков, С. 1993: 213). Leaving aside the soft correlates of k and g for now, that means that the western soft counterparts of l and n have primary palatal place of articulation (ʎ and ɲ), unlike the eastern soft l and n, which are alveolar with secondary articulation in the palatal region – lʲ and nʲ. Benjo Conev used the term “fused palatality” for the former and “separate palatality” for the latter (Array [613] 3: 212).
In strict phonetic terms, the soft counterparts of k and g, in both eastern and western dialects, also have their articulation displaced in the palatal region, rather than secondary articulation imposed on the primary velar one. However, it was decided not to use the symbols for the palatal stops – c and ɟ – for two reasons. Firstly, the articulation of the these soft counterparts remains dorsal and in the back part of the palate, and, more importantly, k and g have exactly the same articulation before front vowels, but this fronting is no more salient than in other languages and does not affect the perception of the consonants as essentially velar, leaving aside the problem of readability.
As can be expected, this difference can become blurred near the boundary. Thus, in the eastern-most part of the western dialects a number of palatalized consonants may appear, as in the dialect of Atârnáţi (Iskŭr-Vit group).
Compared to standard Bulgarian, almost all the villages in the Corpus have a different pronunciation of the phonologically “hard” consonant l. It is retracted to the post-alveolar region and palatalized, but not to the same degree as the phonologically soft l. This variant is very close to the lateral consonant pronounced before front vowels in the standard language and has a distinct “clear” acoustic quality. The palatalization of l is stronger before front vowels.
Syllabic liquids are another feature that clearly delineates eastern from western dialects. Their pronunciation is unstable in most cases and one can hear a full or shorter schwa-like vowel on either side of the liquid, especially if a voiced segment is involved; yet the fact that no one would be tempted to indicate a syllabic consonant in an eastern dialect is evidence, albeit elusive, of their phonetic reality in western dialects.