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Culture
People of Bulgaria.
According to the 2001 census, Bulgaria's population is mainly ethnic Bulgarian (83.9%), with two sizable minorities, Turkish (9.4%) and Roma (4.7%). Of the remaining 2.0%, 0.9% are distributed among some forty smaller minorities, the most numerous of which are the Armenians, Russians, Vlachs, Crimean Tatars, Karakachans, Macedonians and Jews; the people who have not declared their ethnicity are 1.1% of the total population. In the period between 1985 and 1989, the communist government of Bulgaria attempted to forcefully assimilate the country's Turkish minority.
After the introduction of the new laws in 1985, the Bulgarian government banned education in the Turkish language and sought to erase Turkish culture and identity. Turkish names were forcibly changed to Slavic ones and some 300,000 ethnic Turks emigrated permanently to Turkey in light of heavy persecution. These laws were removed after the change to democracy in the early months of 1990. Bulgarian, is the mother-tongue of 84.8% of the population; it is a member of the Slavic languages.
Bulgarian is the only official language, but other languages such as Turkish and Romani, and are spoken corresponding closely to ethnic breakdown. Most Bulgarians (82.6%) are, at least nominally, members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the national Eastern Orthodox church. Other religious denominations include Islam (12.2%), various Protestant denominations (0.7%), Roman Catholicism (0.5%), with other denominations, atheists and undeclared numbering ca. 4.1%.
According to athe census caried out in 2001 the population at that time was approximately just under 8,000,000 people. Now in 2007 the population is closer to 7,500,000 as younger people head for the greater earning potential from other Countries. Of the approximately 7,500,000 people within Bulgaria around 1,500,000 of them live in the capital Sofia, this figure is increased by several hundred thousand by the people that travel to work in Sofia, being attracted by the prospects of higher wages and a more "material" lifestyle.
Language.
The plan of the alphabet is derived from the early Cyrillic alphabet, itself a derivative of the Glagolitic alphabet, a ninth century uncial cursive (a type of script) usually credited to two brothers from Thessaloniki, Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. The glyphs in the Cyrillic alphabet are, however, mainly Byzantine Greek letters. Some of them, especially those representing sounds that did not exist in medieval Greek, retain their Glagolitic forms.
Whereas it is widely accepted that the Glagolitic alphabet was invented by Saints Cyril and Methodius, the origins of the early Cyrillic alphabet are still a source of much controversy. Though it is usually attributed to Saint Clement of Ohrid, a Bulgarian disciple of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, the alphabet is more likely to have developed at the Preslav Literary School in northeastern Bulgaria, where the oldest Cyrillic inscriptions have been found, dating back to the 940s. The theory is supported by the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet almost completely replaced the Glagolitic in northeastern Bulgaria as early as the end of the tenth century, whereas the Ohrid Literary School where Saint Clement worked continued to use the Glagolitic until the twelfth century.
Among the reasons for the replacement of the Glagolithic with the Cyrillic alphabet is the greater simplicity and ease of use of the latter and its closeness with the Greek alphabet, which had been well known in the First Bulgarian Empire.
There are also other theories regarding the origins of the Cyrillic alphabet, namely that the alphabet was created by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius themselves, or that it preceded the Glagolitic alphabet, representing a "transitional" stage between Greek and Glagolitic cursive, but these have been widely disproved. Although Cyril is almost certainly not the author of the Cyrillic alphabet, his contributions to the Glagolitic and hence to the Cyrillic alphabet are still recognised, as the latter is named after him.
The alphabet was disseminated along with the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language, and the alphabet used for modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the following ten centuries, the Cyrillic alphabet adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reforms and political decrees. Today, dozens of languages in Eastern Europe and Asia are written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Below is a list of 10 of the major national parks within Bulgaria, they are linked and we hope you will find the information informative and helpful for your stay in Bulgaria. Contact Us. 
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