Official curricula in the Bulgarian language for Bulgarian citizens abroad can be found on the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science (MoEYS) website. They are part of the National Language and Culture Abroad governmental programme.

The Education, Science, Children, Youth and Sports Committee and the Culture, Civil Society and Media Committee at the National Assembly are responsible for all issues concerning the national language, and draft resolutions and make recommendations. Scientists and experts are allowed to participate in the Committees’ meetings. The Institute for Bulgarian Language (IBL) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is a central coordinating body responsible for the Bulgarian national language policy (http://www.ibl.bas.bg/en/index.htm). IBL cooperates with Bulgarian language and literature university departments.

The 1991 Constitution declares Bulgarian the country’s sole official language (article three), but it also guarantees (article 36) the right for ‘citizens whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian’ to study and use their mother language.

Bulgaria has been a State Party to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities since 7 May 1999. The National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues (http://www.nccedi.government.bg/), whose secretariat is part of the government administration (the Council of Ministers), monitors the implementation of the convention at national level.

Turkish, Roma and other minorities are now entitled to mother tongue tuition. The Educational Standards, Basic General Education and Curriculum Law of July 1999, amended in 2002, stipulates that the ‘mother tongue’ subject is a compulsory elective subject in the primary and secondary education curricula (article 15-3). The Public Education Law of 1991 Implementation Rules, amended in 1998, provide a definition of the term ‘mother tongue’: the language in which the child communicates in his/her family (article 8-2). The Centre of Educational Integration of Children and Young people from the Minorities (http://coiduem.mon.bg) was established in 2005. It is the only governmental institution whose name contains the term ‘from the minorities’ instead of ‘citizens whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian’.

The Radio and Television Law of 1998 contains an article on programmes in minority languages:

Article 49. (1) The Bulgarian National Radio and the Bulgarian National Television shall produce national and regional programmes; broadcasts for abroad, including for Bulgarians living abroad; broadcasts intended for Bulgarian nationals whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian, including in their own language.

The Union of the Deaf in Bulgaria created in 2004 the National Centre on Sign Language. The Bulgarian National Television offers daily translation into Sign Language of the 4 p.m. news.

Languages offered in pre-primary education

The national programme for the development of school instruction and pre-school education (2006-2015) mentions the necessity to provide children whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian with programmes in the Bulgarian language adapted to their special needs during the year of pre-school education which has been obligatory since 2003. The National Education Law, amended in 2002, introduced a specialised curriculum in the Bulgarian language for these children.

Languages offered in primary education

Official curricula for four languages offered as ‘mother tongue’ subject (Turkish, Armenian, Hebrew, Romani) for primary and secondary education can be found on the MoEYS website. Mother tongue tuition is not compulsory; it is only a ‘compulsory elective subject’ course which means it can be chosen from a list of alternative subjects including English, German, French or Russian. This is why few Turkish children take these courses, and their number has been decreasing in recent years. 

Languages offered in secondary education

There is a dense network of schools that are ‘foreign languages oriented’ (in all or part of their classes) all over the country. These schools use the first foreign language as a medium of instruction for a variety of subjects including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, and philosophy. These subjects are taught using Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methods from the beginning of upper secondary education (ninth and tenth year). These schools offer an intensive language course (at least 18 hours per week) for one year (the final year of the lower secondary education - the eighth year).

At the level of upper secondary education, it is difficult to find a class which is not part of the network. The ‘foreign languages oriented’ school model was established in 1952 at a school in Lovech, a town in North Bulgaria, where English, French and German were the three languages of instruction. In 1960, new schools were established in other towns, including the capital, with each of these three languages taught separately and with Russian. In 1970 Spanish was added to the network. Since1990, all of the above-mentioned languages, as well as other languages, are offered all over the country in (partly or fully) ‘foreign languages oriented’ schools.

Languages offered across 3 VET institutions in Bulgaria

Languages offered across 3 higher education institutions in Bulgaria

A two year course of Bulgarian as a foreign language is offered to Erasmus students, as well as to foreign students attending university.

The courses in Turkish language and literature at Sofia, Plovdiv and Shumen universities are in great need of highly qualified experts, as are the Higher Islamic Institute in Sofia, and the newly established Turkish theatres in Kurdzhali and Razgrad, which rely on the universities for this provision.

Languages offered in audiovisual media and press across 3 cities in Bulgaria

Radio Bulgaria offers web-based programmes in ten languages: English, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Serbian, Greek, Albanian, Turkish and Arabic.

Although on a rather limited scale, the Turkish language has also been introduced in mass media. The Bulgarian National Radio has had half-hour morning and evening broadcasts for the Turkish population in Bulgaria since 1993. News and Turkish and Bulgarian folk songs are included in the broadcasts. In the spring of 2001, the Bulgarian National Television began broadcasting ten-minute programmes in Turkish.

During the transition period attempts were also made to establish a Turkish press. At present, there are three weekly newspapers in Sofia (Sabah, Zaman and Müslümanlar), a children’s newspaper Filiz and a children’s magazine called Balon.

Languages offered in public services and spaces across 3 cities in Bulgaria (N ≥ 2)

There is still a lot to be done to strengthen multilingualism in this area.

In the three cities researched, Sofia, Plovdiv and Shumen all provide limited services in foreign languages, with the focus being on emergency, immigration and tourism services, although interpreters are commonly used. Aside from Bulgarian, English is the language most often available in public services and spaces with some services also being available in Turkish, German, French and Russian. For example, the websites of all cities are available in English, but in Shumen Russian is also available. All city administrations recruit employees who speak foreign languages, with English the main priority, and English language teaching is also provided for them during their employment.

Languages other than English- offered in business across 24 companies in Bulgaria (N ≥ 2)

As with the Public Services and Spaces domain, there is much to be done to strengthen multilingualism in business.

In the surveyed companies, almost half have some form of language strategy and Business English is used by two thirds of companies in addition to Bulgarian for promotional purposes and on the web. Other languages are rarely used and training in languages is not provided other than occasionally in Business English. A few companies have partnerships with the education sector to support language training, and a very small number make use of international networks to support language skills of employees.

Our LRE research revealed many strong points in multilingualism in the areas of education at all levels, both for the national language and for foreign languages. Some important steps have been made towards a greater involvement of regional/minority languages in education and in the media.

Areas that need further development are public services and businesses.

Lilyana Kovatcheva, Director of the Centre of Educational Integration of Children and Young people from the Minorities (affiliated to MoEYS), was one of the six national consultants for The Curriculum Framework for Romani, created by the Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe in 2008 (http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Romani_doc_EN.asp).

The European Day of Languages in Bulgaria is a successful event organised by EUNIC – the network of European Union National Institutes for Culture. In its last edition the following member institutions participated: the Austrian Embassy, the British Council, the Czech Centre, the Polish Institute, French Institute, Goethe Institute, Hellenic Foundation of Culture, Hungarian Cultural Institute, Instituto Cervantes, Embassy of Spain, Italian Cultural Institute, as well as partners from the Russian Cultural Centre, the Embassy of Switzerland, the Directorate General for Translation to the European Commission, the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, and the Human Resource Development Centre. The European Day of Languages 2011 was supported by Sofia Municipality, MoEYS, with the media partnership of the Bulgarian National Radio.

National Statistical Institute, Republic of Bulgaria: 2011 POPULATION CENSUS IN THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA (FINAL DATA)

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES: Opinion on Bulgaria. (adopted on 27 May 2004)

STOYCHEVA, Maria, CHAVDAROVA, Albena and VESELINOV, Dimitar (2011) Language Policies Bulgaria-Europe (Ezikovi politiki. Bulgaria-Evropa). Sofia, Universitetsko izdatelstvo ‘Sv. Kliment Ohridski’.

PACHEV, Angel (2006): Ezikovite obštnosti, Sofia, Sema RŠ.

VIDENOV, Mihail (2005): Diglosijata, Sofia, Akademično izdatelstvo Marin Drinov.

JETCHEV, Gueorgui (2006): «Éléments de politique linguistique de l’État bulgare», Lengas, revue de sociolinguistique, n° 60, pp. 191-203.