Bulgarian is an official language in Bulgaria and the European Union, and is a recognized minority language in some regions of Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine. Bulgarian words have optional onsets and codas and a variety of word lengths, stress patterns, and word-initial and -medial clusters. There are both plain and palatalized consonants (or consonant-/j/ sequences), phonemic and allophonic vowels and dialectal differences. Bulgarian orthography is relatively transparent and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. The studies of children’s acquisition of Bulgarian generally demonstrate patterns found in other languages regarding early- and late-developing speech sounds and word structures, and developmental mismatch patterns. Researchers have focused minimally on children with speech sound disorders (Tsenova, 1997; Todorova, 2013). Common speech assessments include The Assessment of Articulation and Phonology in Childhood (Georgieva, 2004), and more recently Diagnostics of Speech and Speech Disorders in Childhood (Boyadzhieva-Deleva, 2022) and Phonological Development Test for Bulgarian Children (Ignatova et al., 2015). Speech interventions include approaches used in western countries, including nonlinear phonological intervention for goal setting and strategy planning (Ignatova et al., 2022), and Logorithmics (Tsenova, 2021), which is used as a supplementary intervention method.

Key words:
Bulgarian, phonological awareness, multilingual, communication, speech, language, children’s development, interdisciplinary, international communities, assessment, intervention

Book chapter:
Ignatova, D., Bernhardt, B.M., & Marinova-Todd, S. (2025). Bulgarian speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Language overview presentation:

• Ignatova, D., Marinova-Todd, S., & Bernhardt, B.M. (2024). Bulgarian: Multilingual children’s speech development. Charles Sturt University, Australia. https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/languages
• Video: Bulgarian [English version] – Children’s Speech Development
• PowerPoint: Bulgarian [Bulgarian version] – Children’s Speech Development (pdf)
• PowerPoint: Bulgarian [English version] – Children’s Speech Development (pdf)

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals