This week's episode of Mother Tongues is all about the language, life and culture of Bulgaria, and there's a lot to learn about this country's rich heritage!
From food and street art in the capital Sofia, to local traditions and popular beach side villages, we get the run down on all things Bulgarian from nine-year Nevan, and his Mum Vicky!
"We are Vicky and Neven and on this episode we're gonna talk to you about Bulgaria and why we love it so much. We are a Bulgarian-Ukranian family that live in Ireland. We love that our family is international and has a mix of Eastern European culture together with an Irish one.
We would love to share with you a bit about our culture, food and the mountains.
"Blagodaria" for listening!"
Bulgarian belongs to the South Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken in Bulgaria by 5.7 million people and is also spoken in Canada, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Ukraine, and the US. It is estimated that the total number of speakers of Bulgarian worldwide is 6.8 million.
Here is a basic Bulgarian greeting and response:
Hi, how are you today?
'Здравей, как си днес'pronounced: Zdraveĭ, kak si dnes
I’m very good thank you!
'много съм добре благодаря’ pronounced: mnogo sŭm dobre blagodarya
If you would like to learn some more Bulgarian phrases, or are interested in discovering more about life and culture in Bulgaria, be sure not to miss this jam-packed episode of Mothertongues!
Click here to listen to all the podcasts!
If your family, or your school would like to share ways in which you make language a part of your day, why not get in touch? Email junior@rte.ie.
Full details on how to take part are HERE!
Thanks so much to all the families who have taken part so far and to everyone at mothertongues.ie for helping connect the dots. They do amazing work and this is only a small addition to the help they give multilingual families across the country.
