Bulgarian phonology

This article discusses the phonological system of the Bulgarian language.

The phonemic inventory of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian (CSB) has been a contested and controversial matter for decades, with two major currents, or schools of thought, forming at national and international level:

One school of thought assumes palatalization as a phonemic distinction in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian and consequently states that it has 17 palatalized phonemes, rounding its phonemic inventory to 45 phonemes. This view, originally suggested in a sketch made by Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy in his 1939 book Principles of Phonology, was subsequently elaborated by Bulgarian linguists Stoyko Stoykov and Lyubomir Andreychin. It is the traditional and prevalent view in Bulgaria and is endorsed by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; some international linguists also favour it.

The other view considers that there are only 28 phonemes in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian: 21 consonants, 1 semivowel and 6 vowels and that only one of them, the semivowel /j/, is palatal. This view is held by a minority of Bulgarian linguists and a substantial number of international ones.