BULGARS AND BULGARIANS 1

PROF. DR. PLAMEN S. TZVETKOV

NEW. BULGARIAN UNIVERSITY
THE TURKS, SLAVS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BULGARIANS
The Turks
Vol 1, p 562-567, Ankara, 2002, ISBN 975-6782-55-2, 975-6782-56-0
Links
http://www.yeniturkiye.com/display.asp?c=6012&page=562#x
Posting introduction
Terminology: In the course of reinventing history, both Russian and Bulgarian
scientists and scientologists had to invent a language suitable for their perch, which
is confusing for anybody else. Here it goes: Bulgars are renamed Proto-Bulgars,
which means that the Türkic Bulgars are Türkic, but without saying it, maybe you
would not guess. The modern Bulgars are named Bulgarians, or in Russian Bolgars.
Thus made a distinction between the Türkic-speaking Bulgars and Slavic-speaking
Bulgars. Dr. P.Tzvetkov follows the accepted nomenclature, but since ”Proto-
Bulgars” does not make sense, he dubs it with the real term, Bulgars, like in Great
Bulgaria, which seems to be never rechristened to Great Proto-Bulgaria.
The bottom line of the article is that Bulgars were, and remain now, Bulgars, a
people with ancient and rich history. Bulgarian is a Ural-Altaic language under strong
Indo-European influence, whereas the Slavic languages are Indo-European
languages under strong Ural-Aliaic influence. The analysis of the history of the
Bulgar people may be applicable to other ”Slavic” peoples, in particular the Croats
and Bosnians, who are directly connected with the history of the Türkic peoples,
Croatia with the Besenyo (Badjanak, Pecheneg) tribe Charaboi, and the Bosnians
with the Besenyos (Badjanaks, Pechenegs). This analysis is applicable to the Rus
and Russian state, where institutions, dynasties, language, folklore, even a czar
were deeply rooted in the Türkic people. The Balto-Slavic concept on the origin of
Slavs needs to be studied without prejudice. As should have been expected, Dr.
P.Tzvetkov position and argumentation incited a burning reaction, in iron silence and
in exalted opposition.
The posting's notes and explanations, added to the text of the author and not noted
specially, are shown in parentheses in (blue italics) or blue boxes.
Prof. Dr. Plamen S. Tzvetkov
THE TURKS, SLAVS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BULGARIANS
562
Most scholars accept as an axiomatic truth that the Bulgars or Bulgarians, mentioned
in Chinese, Byzantine, Arabic, and Western European sources from the first to the
tenth centuries A.D., have little in common with those Bulgarians who are today the
majority of the population in Balkan or Danubian Bulgaria. Even in widespread

1 Turkic World: http://bit.ly/V9Lnec

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language dictionaries, such as the ”Random House Webster's College Dictionary”,
the Bulgars are defined as a ”Turkic people who formed a state in the Southern
Balkans in the late 7lh century A.D.” and who were, ”by c.900, largely assimilated by
the local Slavic population”. Meanwhile the Bulgarians are, according to the same
dictionary, natives or inhabitants of Bulgaria who speak a ”South Slavic language”. 1
However, everything seems to indicate that the deeply rooted myth about the Slavic
origin of the Bulgarians is motivated mainly, if not exclusively, by political
considerations. Up to 1601 A.D., when the Ragusian Mauro Orbini published his
”Kingdom of the Slavs”, practically everyone made a clear distinction between the
Bulgarians and the Slavs. Eager to see the emergence of a great and unified Slavic
empire, Mauro Orbini assigned a Slavic descent to a number of definitely non-Slavic
peoples, such as the Goths, the Khazars, and even the Etruscans. Naturally enough,
the Bulgarians were also included in the Slavic family, it should be noted in this
regard that Mauro Orbini denied the very existence of separate Slavic ethnicities and
considered that the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Slovenes, the
Croats, and the Serbs were just ''tribes” of one and the same nation. 2
At a later stage the idea about the Slavic origin of the Romanians and of the
Bulgarians was strongly supported by Russia for the simple reason that these two
nations lay on the road of Russia's expansion toward Constantinople and the Straits.
In a 1769 manifesto the Russian empress Catherine II (1762-1796) claimed that the
”Slavs” of Moldova, Wallachia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and
Albania had come to the Balkans from Russia. Hence they had to rise against the
Turks in support of the Russian armies that were about to attack the Ottoman
Empire. 3
Looking for foreign support against the Ottoman rule many Bulgarian national
leaders turned out to be quite susceptible to the propaganda of Russian Pan-
Slavism. Even the father of the Bulgarian national revival Paissi of Chilandar, who
didn't like the Russians and the Serbs at all, readily accepted Orbini's theories about
the Slavic origin of: the Bulgarians. As a matter of fact, he dreamed about the
restoration of the ancient Bulgarian Tsardom and any hint at a possible kinship with
the Turks was out of the question. For this reason he deliberately distorted a popular
legend of his time, according to which the Bulgarians were relatives both to the
Slavs, to the Russians, and to the Turks: in his ”Slavobulgarian History” Paissi simply
omitted the relationship with the Turks. 4
Up to 1601 all written sources make a clear distinction between the Bulgarians and
the Slavs who are considered as entirely alien and often hostile to each other. 5 For
instance, a late eleventh century Bulgarian author is obviously convinced that the
Bulgarians are just ”the third part of the Cumans”. In his eyes the only difference
between the Bulgarians and the Cumans was that the Bulgarians were Christians,
while the Cumans were still pagans. 6
The issue of linguistic differences between Kumans and Kipchaks still has no
answer. The highest achievement was to determine that Kumans were actually
ethnically different from the Kipchaks, leaving plenty of room for further research.
Even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when there were already
considerable differences between the separate Slavic peoples, foreign observers

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duly noticed that the Slavs had no direct relationship either with the Bulgarians or
with the Wallachians.
563
Thus the Venetian Andrea Dandolo wrote about Dahnaria as the country of the
Southern Slavs, while Bulgaria was the country of the Bulgarians and Wallachia was
the country of the Wallachians, even though there was no single southern Slavic,
Bulgarian, or Wallachian state at that time. The Serbs were split among several
principalities, while the Croats were under the supremacy of the Hungarians. The
Bulgarians lived, in their turn, in at least ten different kingdoms and principalities and
there were no less than two Romanian or Wallachian states. 7
Scholars often refer to such phrases as ”Slavs or Bulgarians”, ”Slavs from Bulgaria”
or ”Slavs, called Bulgarians”, which are found in a number of primary sources, as an
evidence of the Slavic character of the Bulgarians. However, the meaning is quite
clear: the people mentioned in these sources were not Bulgarians, but Slavs who
were called Bulgarians because they had either spent some time under Bulgarian
rule or emigrated from Bulgaria. As Imre Boba points out, the Slavs of Pannonia,
Upper Moesia, and the Carpathian foothills were often referred to as ”Sclavi ex
Bulgariae” since back in the ninth and tenth centuries these areas were part of the
Bulgarian Empire. 8
The theory about the Slavic origin of the present-day Bulgarians does not seem to be
confirmed by the archaeological data either. Many attempts have been made to find
in the three historical provinces of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia some Slavic
pottery, Slavic settlements, or even isolated Slavic dwellings, but the results are so
far highly doubtful. Some scholars hastened to proclaim that the primitive,
nonprofessional pottery, found in many Balkan areas, is the product of Slavs.
However, such pottery was characteristic of the ancient Thracians as well, and the
Romanian archaeologists appear right in their belief that this pottery belongs to the
local ”Dridu” culture. 9
As a matter of fact, it is impossible to judge about a particular ethnicity by the
nonprofessional pottery since it is nothing more than a local domestic product of a
quite primitive technology. The same by no means applies to the professional pottery
and in this regard the professional pottery found in the lands of today's Bulgaria and
Macedonia is definitely similar, it not identical with the professional pottery of the
Volga Bulgaria. 10 Moreover, the architecture of medieval cities like Pliska and
Preslav has nothing to do with the Slavs, but it is related to the architecture of the
cities, whose ruins lie basically in the lands once inhabited by the Bulgarians or
”Bulgars” in their long way from Asia to Europe. 11
Bulgar city in Caucasus, 10th c.
Practically none of the human skulls and skeletons that are found in Bulgaria or
Macedonia have any Slavic features whatsoever. The same applies to the present-
day Bulgarians who, according to most experts, belong to a local Mediterranean
race, differing from the remaining southern Europeans but identical with the racial
characteristics of the medieval Bulgarians. On the other hand, the southern
European racial type is completely absent from the eastern and western Slavs.
There are no southern European elements in the skulls, found in the medieval Slavic
graveyards.

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The southern Slavs, namely the Serbs and the Croats, belong in their turn to the so-
called ”Dinaric” type of the southern European subrace. This ”Dinaric” type is less
pronounced in the plains, while the skulls of the medieval Slavic graveyards of
Serbia and Croatia have all the features, proper to the Slavic sub-race which is
totally absent from Bulgaria and Macedonia. In other words, in the case of the Serbs
and the Croats one may talk about a mixture between Slavic and significant native
elements, while the Bulgarian sub-race is entirely different from the Slavic racial
type. It goes without saying that the Bulgarians were and, of course, are far from
being a ”pure race” but everything seems to indicate that the Bulgarian sub-race is
by no means a mixture between Slavic and non-Slavic elements: it is a mixture
between Iranoids, Balkan natives, and a limited amount of Mongoloids. 12
Dinaric
Iranoids: In the nomenclature of Carleton S. Coon, apparently used by Dr.
P.Tzvetkov, ”Iranoids” aka ” Iranid race” is short for Irano-Afghans; anthropologist
C.S.Coon described Iranoids as long-faced, high-headed and nose-hooked
( C.S.Coon, ” The Races of Europe”, 1939). Different scholars applied the same term
”Iranoid” to taxonomically different and opposing morphologies, which indicates that
a definable category may not exist at all. Nowadays that is confirmed by the genetic
testing, which results in severely spotty and clashing pictures. Though the
terminology may be faulty, the underlying analysis of Dr. P.Tzvetkov remains
unaffected in respect to the osteological results.
Within his definition, C.S.Coon stated
”If we are correct in identifying the Corded people with the introduction of Altaic
speech into Europe, then the further identification of the Corded racial type with (a)
the non-Mongoloid modern Turks and (b) the Afganian racial type of the Irano-Afgan
plateau, makes it seem possible that there was, in remote food producing times, an
ancestral bloc of peoples living on that plateau who spoke languages ancestral to
Altaic, and perhaps remotely related to Uralic, Sumerian, or both. Some of the
peoples who formed that bloc presumably moved northward onto the central Asiatic
grasslands (Anav Culture?). This change of scene on the part of these early
agriculturalists may have had two effects: the introduction of agriculture into the
oases of Turkestan and into Mongolia, and the development of pastoral nomadism
by some of the immigrants, with the subsequent rise of the horse culture.
This step in our speculative structure leads logically to the question of the origin of
the Turks. Having placed Ural-Altaic-speaking white men, of a special Mediterranean
type still found in Iran and Afghanistan, in Turkestan and Mongolia, it is not difficult to
suppose that Mongoloid peoples, originally hunters, were attracted to the plains from
their forests and rivers by the advantages of the new economy, and that they
assimilated, in adopting it, those of the white immigrants with whom they were in
immediate contact.” (pp. 237-238).
C.S.Coon's ”Iranoid” position is corroborated by the spread of A1a Y-DNA gene.
C.S.Coon's Ural-Altaic/Mongoloid position is corroborated by the linguistical studies
(Johanson L. Altaic Linguistic family), which in turn are corroborated by genetical
results.
Altaic Paleoasiatic DNA ca 1500 AD
Mongolian

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Buryat, Mongol, and Tungus (Evenk) DNA ca 1500 AD
As can be readily seen, genetically the Paleoasiatic and Mongolic peoples are totally
incongruous, pointing to independent genesis and consequently independent
languages - Translator's Note
The Slavic theory about the origin of the Bulgarians is based mainly on the argument
that today the Bulgarians speak a Slavic language. Indeed, most philologists claim
that about 80 per cent of the Bulgarian words have more or less identical Slavic
counterparts. However, a closer look at these words leads to the discovery that too
many words, existing both in Bulgarian and in all the Slavic languages, have a Ural-
Altaic rather than an Indo-European origin, even though the Slavic idioms belong, no
doubt, to the Indo-European family. For instance, for a long time it has been
established, that such words as ”tovar” (”load”, ”cattle”), ”kniga” (”book”),
”zhupan” (”governor”) and ”otets” (”father”) are probably early Altaic loanwords in the
Slavic languages. In the same vein the Bulgarian word ”dyado” and Slavic
”ded” (”grandfather”) may be related to Turkish ”dede”, while Bulgarian ”vrukh” and
Slavic ”verkh” (”summit”) are apparently of the same origin as Chuvash ”vur”,
Mongolian ”oroi”, and Hungarian ”orr”. The Bulgarian and Slavic word for
”waler”-”voda” is clearly related to the German ”Wasser”, but it is even closer to the
Mordvinian ”ved”'.
564
The same applies to ”olovo” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”lead” as metal, which is
”olom” in Hungarian), to ”med” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”honey”, which is ”med”' in
Mordvinian and ”mez” in Hungarian), ”beg” or ”byag” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”run,
rush, flight”, which is ”beige” In Kirgiz, ”paige” in Eastern Turkic, and ”poktem”,
”potta” and ”fut” in a number of Finno-Ugric languages), to ”pol” or
”polovina” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”half”, which is ”pele” in Mordvinian), to
”slovo” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”word”, which is ”szo” in Hungarian and ”söz” in
modern Turkish), to ”tsvet” or ”tsvyat” (Bulgarian and partly Slavic for ”color” or
”flower”, which is ”chechek” in Chuvash and ”chichek” in Turkish), to
”sveti” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to shine”, which is ”süt” in Hungarian), to ”tegne” or
”tezhi” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to weigh”, which may be associated with ”takmak”
in Turkish, as well as with the ”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian” word ”tagrogi”), to
”koza” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”goat”, which may be associated with the Chuvash
word ”kachaga” and Turkish ”kechi”), to ”vodi” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to lead”,
which is ”ved” in Mordvinian), to ”dee” or ”dyava” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to do”,
which is ”tei” in Mordvinian), to ”pishe” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to write”, which is
”pit” in Eastern Turkic and ”bichi” in Mongolian), to ”meri” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to
measure”, which is ”mer” in Hungarian), to ”pali” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”to light” or
”to kindle”, which is ”pal” in Mordvinian).
Even a numeral like ”edin” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”one”) may be associated with
the Hungarian word ”egy”, while ”devet” (Bulgarian and Slavic for ”nine”) has no
certain Indo-European parallels, but it might be of the same origin as ”tovir”. which is
presumably the ”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian” word for ”nine”.
All these words, as well as many others, should be considered early Ural-Altaic, if
not Bulgarian loanwords in the Slavic languages rather than Slavic words in modern
Bulgarian. This assumption seems to be confirmed by the existence of a

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considerable number of Bulgarian words, which are totally absent from the Slavic
and Indo-European languages and which have at the same time clear Altaic or-
Finno-Ugric counterparts, such as ”biser” (”pearl”), ”beleg” (”mark, sign”),
”belchug” (”bracelet; handcuffs”), ”bubrek” (”kidney”), ”pashenog” (”brother-in-law”),
”toyaga” (”stick”), ”kapishche” (”temple”), ”kumir” (”idol”), ”kushta” (”house”),
”kani” (”to invite”), etc.
On the other hand, though, both modern Bulgarian and ”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian”
are distinguished by a great number of Indo-Iranian words. Thus, for instance, the
word ”Bog” (”God”) has parallels in all the Slavic languages, but it seems to be
related to an Indo-Iranian word. ”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian” words like ”bogatur” or
”bagain” (aristocratic titles in medieval Bulgaria) apparently derive from ”Bog”. On the
other hand, such words as ”san” (”rank”), ”delva” (”large earthen jar”),
”stopan” (”owner, proprietor, master, husband, landlord”), ”Asparukh” (the name of
the first ruler of Danubian Bulgaria) and many others originate from Indo-Iranian
radicals but they are absent from the Slavic languages.
Words go easily from one language to another but the same by no means applies to
phonetics and morphology. In this regard modern Bulgarian is clearly different from
the Slavic languages and at the same time, there is an obvious kinship of modern
Bulgarian both with the Ural-Altaic languages and with ”Bulgar” or ”Proto-bulgarian”.
On the other hand, both modern Bulgarian and ”Protobulgarian” appear to be a
peculiar mixture of Ural-Altaic and Indo-Iranian features.
The division of modern Bulgarian into two groups of dialects according to the
pronunciation of the old ”ae” sound is also unknown to the Slavic languages. For
instance the word ”byag” (”run, rush, flight”) is pronounced as ”beg” in today's
Western Bulgaria and Macedonia. This division seems to correspond to the areas,
once colonized by the Bulgarians under Asparukh on one hand, and by the
Pannonian Bulgarians on the other. The presence of the ”ae” sound in ”Bulgar” or
”Protobulgarian” appears to be corroborated by such forms as ”belyazvam” and
”beleja” (”to mark”), whose ”Protobulgarian” character is a well established fact.
Similarly to Turkish, modern Bulgarian differs from the Slavic languages by the
accentuated form of the ”eu” sound, pronounced like ”i” in ”bird”. Some of these
sounds come from the ”o(n)” nasal, which existed in the Cyrillo-Macedonian version
of Old Slavonic and which still exists in Polish. However, the same nasal was surely
typical of ”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian” as well, which is proven by such
”Protobulgarian” words as ”to(n)gan” (”falcon”). Probably under Turkish influence,
this word has changed in modern Bulgarian into ”dogan”.
Unlike the Ural-Altaic languages both modern Bulgarian and ”Bulgar” or
”Protobulgarian” have no vocal harmony. As far as ”Protobulgarian” is concerned,
this seems to be corroborated by such words as ”dilom” (”snake”), 13
”shegor” (”cattle”) 14 ”tovir” (”nine”), etc. Nevertheless, according to some scholars
there are remnants of vocal harmony in at least one or two modern Bulgarian
dialects. For instance, words like ”shapka” (”hat”), ”zhaba” (”frog”), and
”chasha” (”cup”) change in these dialects into ”shepki”, ”cheshi”, and ”zhebi”. 15
Modern Bulgarian differs substantially from the Slavic languages also by the
absence of soft and hard forms of the letters ”l”, ”n” and ”r”, but both Bulgarian and
the Slavic idioms are different from the Indo-European languages by the

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correspondence of ”ch”, ”sh” and ”j” to the Indo-European ”k”, ”x”, ”g” and ”k”, ”s”, ”z”.
In a paper to the Sixth International Congress of South-East European Studies in
Sofia in 1939 the Austrian philologist Gallon pointed out that these ”Slavic” sounds
are in fact of Ural-Altaic origin.
565
An undoubtedly Indo-European feature of modern Bulgarian is the existence of three
genders. Both in modern Bulgarian and in the Slavic languages masculine nouns, for
instance, end usually in a consonant, feminine nouns usually end in ”a”, while most
neutral nouns end in ”o” or' ”e”. It is difficult to say whether genders existed in
”Bulgar” or ”Protobulgarian” as well. However, such endings are found also in well
established ”Protobulgarian” words, such as ”beleg” (masculine?),
”toyaga” (feminine?), and ”kupe” (neuter?), which means ”chain amour” and which
has been probably preserved in some modern Bulgarian dialects as
”kepe” (”shepherdscloak”).
The plural of nouns and adjectives is formed in modern Bulgarian in a great variety
of ways. However, ”kucheta” (”dogs”) from ”kuche” (”dog”) may be compared to the
Finnish word ”talot” (”houses”) from ”talo” (”house”), while ”kushti” (”houses”) from
”kushta” (”house”) may be associated with the Hungarian form ”könyveim” (”my
books”) from ”konyv” (”book”). It should be also noted that the particular possessive
form of the Ural-Altaic languages like Samoyed ”tubkami” (”my ax”) from
”tubka” (”ax”) or Turkish ”odam” (”my room”) from ”oda” (”room”) have their exact
counterparts both in ”Protobulgarian” and in modern Bulgarian: e.g.”bashta mi” (”my
father”) from ”bashta” (”father”) or ”alkhasi” (”his or her ring”) from ”alkha” (”ring”).
This way of indicating possession is unknown to the Slavic languages.
As a rule, unlike the Slavic languages there are no cases of declension in literary
Bulgarian. Modern Bulgarian has preserved some case inflections of pronouns in its
literary version and both of pronouns and nouns in a number of dialects, as well as in
folk songs. However, unlike the Slavic and Indo-European languages and similarly to
the Ural-Altaic languages the Bulgarian case inflections do not change according to
gender or number and there is no difference between the case inflections of nouns
and adjectives.
Not less important is the fact that the Bulgarian case inflections are not more similar
to the Slavic than to the Ural-Altaic ones, but they are almost identical with the
Moksha-Mordvinian case inflections. Thus the ”kogo” (”'whom”) interrogative pronoun
seems to be identical with its Slavic counterpart. However', Bulgarian ”kogo” comes
from ”koi” (”who”), which is obviously different from the Slavic forms ”kto”, ”tko”, and
”ko”, but it is almost identical with Finno-Ugric forms such as Chantian ”koii”.
Moreover, the ”go” suffix for genitive is absent from the Indo-European languages
but it may be associated with the Mordvinian ”ka” suffix for translative. The same
suffix may be found in a well established ”Protobulgarian” form, namely ”ichirgo” from
”*ichir”. 16
In the same vein modern Bulgarian ”komu” (”whom”) from ”koi” (”who”) may be
identical with its Slavic counterparts, but it may have been formed by an epenthetic
”m”. 17 The ”u” suffix for dative is widespread both in the Indo-European and Ural-
Altaic languages, and it may be associated with the Mordvinian ”u” suffix for illative
or directive importative, e.g. ”oshu” (”into the city”) from ”osh” (”city”).

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In some western Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects there is a special genitive-
dative case that is completely absent from the Slavic and Indo-European languages,
for instance ”taieta” (”fathers”) from ”tate” (”father”). The ”ta” suffix is almost identical
with the Moksha-Mordvinian ”ta” and ”da” for ablative.
Some Bulgarian dialects have preserved the ”a”, ”eu” or ”u” endings for accusative.
All the three suffixes probably come from a more ancient ”o(n)”, which may be
associated with the Moksha-Mordvinian ”ny” for genitive.
Forms like ”noshtem” (”during the night”) from ”nosht” (”night”) are absolutely
impossible for the Slavic languages, since ”nosht” is a feminine noun. The ”in”, ”om”,
”em” and ”am” suffixes may be related to the Moksha-Mordvinian form ”ama” in
”ftama” for extractive. Completely alien to the Slavic languages are also Bulgarian
forms like ”dobre” for locative-dative from ”dobur” (”good”). The “e” and especially the
”i” suffix may be also found in a ”Protobulgarian” form like ”Bigi” from ”Big” 18 in the
phrase ”kanasubigi” which is at the beginning of a number of the 9th century
Bulgarian stone inscriptions. The ”i” suffix might be related to the Moksha-Mordvinian
”i”, which is a parallel form for directive importative.
Vocative is still widely used in modern Bulgarian. Its ”e” suffix may have existed in
”Protobulgarian” as well. In any case, a number of the 9th century Bulgarian stone
inscriptions begin with the word ”kane” which might be a vocative form from
”kan” (”king”).
A substantial difference between the Bulgarian and Slavic languages is the use of
postpositive definite articles both in modern Bulgarian and in ”Bulgar”” or
”Protobulgarian”, for instance ”kushtata” (”the house”) from ”kushta” (”house”). The
word ”kana” in the above-mentioned phrase obviously comes from ”kan” by adding
an ”a”, which is probably a postpositive definite article. Such articles are completely
absent from the Slavic languages. They may be found in a number of Indo-European
languages such as Armenian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Romanian and
Albanian, but in these languages postpositive definitive articles are used
simultaneously with prepositive ones. Indeed, postpositions in general are a typical
feature of the Ural-Altaic languages and, for instance, there are postpositive definite
articles in the Mordvinian languages as well. From such a viewpoint the Bulgarian
form ”kushtata” may be considered as almost identical with Mordvinian ”kudos'” (”the
house”) from ”kudo” (”house”).
The Bulgarian personal pronouns are also very different from the Slavic ones but at
the same time they seem to be again a peculiar mixture of Ural-Altaic and Indo-
European elements. Thus ”az” (”I”), which corresponds to Slavic ”ya”, and
”me” (”we”), which corresponds to Slavic ”mi” or ”my”, are obviously of Indo-
European origin, together with ”vie” (”you” in nominative), which differs from its Slavic
counterpart ”vi” or ”vy” by its two syllables instead of one. Moreover, the Bulgarian
forms ”tebe” (”thee”), ”nas” (”us”), ”vas” (”you” in accusative) are almost identical not
only with their Slavic, but also with their Tocharian (i.e. Indo-Iranian) counterparts.
On the other hand, the Bulgarian personal pronouns ”men” (”me”), ”on” (”he”) and
”nego” (”him”) are almost identical with their Slavic counterparts, but they have much
closer parallels in the Ural-Altaic than in the Indo-European languages. Finally, the
”toi” (”he”), ”to” (”it”), ”tya” (”she”), and ”te” (”they”) personal pronouns have no exact
Slavic or Indo-European parallels, but they can be easily associated with such Finno-
Ugric forms as Komi ”sia” and Chantian ”tow”.

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It should be also noted that negative pronouns are formed in Bulgarian in a way quite
similar to the Chuvash one. For instance, Bulgarian ”nikoi” (”no one”) from
”koi” (”who”) corresponds to Chuvash ”nikam” (”no one”) from ”kam” (”who”).
Another prominent Bulgarian ethnological feature connected with negation is causing
jokes among her neighbors, who say that Bulgars got their gesticulation wrong: on
yes they shake their heads sidewise, on no they shake the heads up and down. This
popular myth distorts the fact, and betrays the ignorance of their carriers, since the
undiluted Türkic gesticulation is to raise the chin up on no, and tilt it down on yes.
That gesticulation unmistakably points to the one's Türkic roots, whatever is the type
of the vernacular.
566
Last, but by no means least, the whole Bulgarian system of tenses and moods is
completely different from the Slavic verbal system, but its structure is almost identical
with the Turkish one. This applies, among many other things, to the re-narrative
mood, used for describing unwitnessed actions. Renarrative is entirely alien not only
to the Slavic, but also to the Indo-European languages. For instance, Bulgarian ”chel
sum” and ”chel” correspond to Turkish ”okumusum” - ”(I was told that) I have read”
and ”okumus,”-”he read (once)”.
Although limited in number, the ”Bulgar” or ”Proto-Bulgarian” texts, terms and
phrases, preserved in written sources until nowadays, are enough to suggest that
the difference between ”Protobulgarian” and modern Bulgarian is hardly greater than
that between ancient and modern Greek.
Bulgarian and the Slavic languages are both substantially different and obviously
similar to each other. This leads us to the conjecture that Bulgarian is a Ural-Altaic
language under strong Indo-European influence, whereas the Slavic idioms are Indo-
European languages under strong Ural-Aliaic influence. The closest Ural-Allaic
languages to Bulgarian are, no doubt, Chuvash (an Altaic idiom) and Mordvinian (a
Uralic idiom) and this corroborates a series of ethnographical data, indicating a
kinship of these two peoples to the Bulgarians. In other words, the general belief that
the Bulgarians are Slavs because they speak a Slavic language appears to be a
wrong answer to a wrongly put question: instead of asking why Bulgarian is so close
to the Slavic languages one should ask why the Slavic languages are so close to
Bulgarian. 19
According to some theories the Slavs existed as a separate ethnicity as far back as
the year 2000 B.C. but everything seems to indicate that up to the fourth and fifth
centuries A.D. there was virtually no difference between the Slavs or, rather, the
Protoslavs and the Balts, who are the ancestors of the present-day Lithuanians and
Latvians. Up to the invasion of the Huns in the second half of the fourth century A.D.,
the inhabitants of today's Poland, western Ukraine, western Belarus, Lithuania and
Latvia apparently belonged to one and the same ethnicity that may be called Balto-
Slavs. They worshipped the same gods and their culture, including the pottery and
the dwellings, remained practically unchanged until the fourth century A.D. It was
only after the conquest of the whole of Europe to the north of the Danube and to the
west of the Rhine by the Huns that the Balto-Slavs, living in the areas of today's
Poland, western Ukraine and western Belarus, came under strong Ural-Altaic and
Indo-Iranian influence. In other words, the Huns invaded these parts of Europe but

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they did not succeed in penetrating further to the north, and the lands of today's
Lithuania and Latvia were not touched by their invasion. The close similarity, if not
the identity of the Ural-Altaic and Indo-Iranian sounds and words in the Slavic
languages with their Bulgarian counterparts seems to reveal that the Slavs emerged
as a separate ethnicity as a result of the merger of a great part of the Balto-Slavs
with the Bulgarians or, at least, with some people that was very close to the
Bulgarians. 20
The Protobulgarian and the modern Bulgarian vocabulary, phonetics, morphology
and syntax seem to indicate that the ”Bulgars” or the Bulgarians emerged as a
separate ethnicity in a contact zone between Protoaltaic, Protouralic, and Indo-
European elements. One such zone may have been the area included between the
sources of the Huanghe and Changjiang rivers and the Balkhash Lake, i.e. today's
northwestern China and parts of what was formerly Soviet Central Asia. In was
precisely in this region that Protoaltaic tribes lived together with, or in the immediate
neighborhood of an Indo-European people, namely the Tocharians. 21
Under Tocharians Dr. P. Tsvetkov apparently means the Yuezhi of the ancient
Chinese nomenclature, who in popular science are listed as Indo-Europeans, and in
extreme cases even Indo-Iranians, but are showing signs of Türkic ethnological type
without any admixture of a settled population. Without questioning the correctness of
the Dr. P. Tsvetkov analysis, and recognizing non-applicability of the term
"Tocharians" to the ancient and medieval sedentary population of Middle and Central
Asia, the definition of the contact zone, and the product of the contact zone may
require more detailed studies.
As far back as the 6th century B.C. Chinese sources mention the people of Bo-Jiong
(Bo-Jiong, 戎 = Jung), where ”Jiong” means a foreigner or an alien, while ”Bo” might
have been the Chinese way of pronouncing ”Bulgar”. However, a more reliable
testimony about the presence of the Bulgarians in the above-mentioned lands may
be found in more recent Chinese chronicles, according to which in the 2nd century
B.C. the people of Po-le was in charge of the western wing of the Hsiung-nu Empire.
”Po-le” was apparently another Chinese way of pronouncing ”Bulgar” 22
567
The Hsumg-nu Empire was a federation of a great variety of peoples and tribes,
which included the Bulgarians, the ancient Turks, and at a later stage the ancient
Magyars or Hungarians, as well as an Indo-Iranian people like the Alans. The whole
territory of the federation was divided into three parts: center, left, and right. The
center belonged to the ruling tribe that maintained its dominating position by
marrying its ruler's children (usually his sons) to the children (usually the daughters)
of the other tribal rulers. Everything seems to indicate, therefore, that the Chinese
word ”Hsiung-nu”, the Latin word ”Hun” and the word ”Ouar”, as the Huns called
themselves, were not ethnonyms but a designation for all the members of the
federation, who enjoyed full rights. The ethnic origin did-not matter, the important
thing was to have dynastic relations with the ruling tribe. 23
Indo-Iranism of the Alans was invented at the end of the 19th c., and developed in
the first half of the 20th c. using fake Zelenchuk Inscription and fake Scythian
Lexicon. Archeological studies uncovered that the nomadic and settled Massagets/
Masguts, aka Alans, were a mix of two Kurgan Culture Timber Grave descendents

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separated by eons of centuries and continental-wide distance, who reassembled
together in the Caspian-Middle Asia interfluvial when the climate and Amu Darya
became favorable after the 10th c. BC. The eastern Kurgan Culture Timber Grave
component from the eastern steppes, that survived into the present as
ethnographically Türkic people, brought along into the mixture a tint of
Mongoloidness that was documented by anthropologists and by the Classical
sources. During the period from the 10th c. BC to the 3rd c. AD, the population of the
Caspian-Middle Asia interfluvial intermingled with many other migrants of different
ethnicities, including a good dosage of the Bactrian agricultural migrants, and
obtained that flavor that Biruni defined as a mixture of nomadic Kipchak-speaking
Badjanaks and oasis-dwelling Sogdian-speaking Chorasmians. A component of the
Massagets/Masguts/Alans were those parts of the Tocharian tribes, Ch.Yuezhi, and
their dynastic tribe of Ases, who remained behind in the 2nd-1st cc. BC when the
majority of them moved into Bactria, future Tocharistan. The linguistic attribution of
the Tochars is still disputed, but ethnographically they were Türkic people, and a
third component of their alliance, the Suvars, were undoubtedly Türkic.
The area between the Caspian and lake Balkhash appear to be the homeland of the
Bulgars before their westward extension headed by the Huns, that is the area where
they coagulated into their anthropologically distinct form, where was developed their
language, a primarily Ogur language with Uralic, Oguz, and Indo-Iranian admixture,
and where formed their unique version of the Kurgan culture. In the Caucasus, they
were known as Alans and Masguts, and their neighbors call their Balkar descendents
Alans to this day, including the innocent Caucasian Ossettes. So far for the "Indo-
Iranian people like the Alans". Excluding Indo-Iranian traits inherent to the Balto-
Slavs prior to the the 4th c. AD (of which we can't know), the Indo-Iranian traits
brought over to the Balto-Slavs in the 4th c. AD originated, like the Türkic and Uralic
loanwords into the Balto-Slavic language, in the Bulgaro-Slavic symbiosis, and are a
living testimony to the Alan language of the Bulgars. No wonder that all attempts to
archeologically discern Alans from Bulgars ended in failures, all attempts to read
Alan runiform inscriptions in Indo-Iranian lexicon ended in failures, and all attempts
to discern them osteologically ended in failures. The genetical unity of the Alans and
Bulgars does not mean a political unity, or a religious unity, politically they were as
separate as for example became Ostrogoths and Visigoths. With time, the
divergence became more pronounced, as the Alans joined in symbiotic relationship
with the Caucasian Goths, while the Bulgars joined in a symbiotic relationship with a
number of Türkic tribes and first with the Balto-Slavs and later Slavs. A search for the
Indo-European and Slavic roots blissfully brought forth the modern Türkology from its
infant state.
A useful genetic experiment was staged by Marcus Aurelius in 175 AD, when he
settled 5,500 "Sarmatian" Alans in Northern Britain at Ribchester south of Lancaster.
In the 20th c., the population along the Hadrian Wall has elevated level of group B
blood, 16% vs ambient 8%, allowing a peek into Alanian blood group, and thus
providing a corroborating confirmation of their genesis.
The early history of the Bulgarians was closely linked with the history of the Huns.
Naturally enough, they participated in the invasion of Europe which took place from
372-375 A.D. on. According to some authors, the Bulgarians started to settle
permanently in the Balkan lands at quite an early stage. Thus at the end of the fourth
century A.D., the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great (379-395) gave permission

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to two groups of Bulgarians to move into the lands of today's Dobruja, as well as into
Moesia. For his part, Theodosius II (402-450) allowed another group of Bulgarians to
settle in the same area. 24
Alter Attila's death in 453, the Bulgarians founded a realm of their own, stretching
from Pannonia to the northern coast of the Black Sea. According to a fourteenth
century Bulgarian chronicle, at the time of the Eastern Roman emperor Anastasius I
(491-518), a great number of Bulgarians crossed the Danube at Vidin and settled in
Macedonia. 25
The disastrous epidemic of bubonic plague that spread since 542 no doubt facilitated
the Bulgarian colonization of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia since that disease
affected mostly the native sedentary population. The Eastern Roman emperor
Justinian I (527-565) succeeded in throwing the Kutrigur and Utigur Bulgarians
against each other, but at the same time he gave refuge to some 2,000 Kutrigurs
who settled somewhere in Thrace. 26
Kutrigurs and Utigurs are not Bulgarian tribes, but eastern and western halves of the
Bulgarian state, the very names stipulate a state organization:
Ogur
Ethnicons
Oguz
Ethnicons
Utra
front, opposite half, wing, ulus
Utragur > Uturgur
Tolis
eastern (left)
half, wing, ulus
Tolis
Köturi
behind, westward, western half, wing, ulus
Köturgur > Kutrigur

Tardush
western (right) half, wing, ulus
Tardush, Tardu-Khan
Otra
middle half, wing, ulus
Otragur > Uturgur
Otra
middle, center

Urta, orda > horde
Since the beginning of the 6th century, the Balkans also began to attract the Slavs.
The Eastern Roman emperor Heraclius I (610-641) gave permission to the Slavs to
settle in the province of Illyria, which corresponds roughly to the present-day
territories of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. The Slavs were not allowed,
therefore, to move into Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia, and until the victory of
Asparukh against the Romans or the Byzantines in 680-681, there were hardly more
than about 250.000 to 300,000 Slavs in the whole area between the Danube, the
Black Sea, the Mediterranean and today's border of Bulgaria and (apparently, Greek
Macedonia) with Yugoslavia. On the other hand, only those Bulgarians who came
under Asparukh must have been about 600.000 to 800,000 people. 27
As it is well known, the disintegration of Great Bulgaria after Kubrat's death in 665
resulted in the founding of two Bulgarian realms: Danubian Bulgaria and Volga
Bulgaria, while Kubrat's eldest son Batbayan remained in the lands between the
Black Sea and the Caspian. As a matter of fact, though, there seems to have been a
constant migration of Volga Bulgarians toward the Balkans because of the growing
pressure of the ancient Turks and of the Ruses. Finally, in 970 the Danubian
Bulgarians were joined by a large group of their Volga brethren under Bilu, Boksu
and Hesen. 28 The Bulgarian migration to the Balkans apparently ended with those
Bulgarians who were lead once by Batbayan and who came to Danubian Bulgaria
and Hungary together with the Cumans in several successive waves from the end of
the eleventh to the middle of the thirteenth centuries. 29

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The Bulgarians were pushed to Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia by a thirst for land
and the fate of the population they met there was the same as that of the native
inhabitants of North America at the time of the European colonization. Both the Slavs
and the descendants of the Thracians and Romans were simply massacred or
deported to the lands to the north of the Danube. Asparukh sent at least seven Slavic
tribes to the frontier with the Avars at the southern foothills of the Carpathians. In
760-763 some 208.000 Slavs fled from Bulgaria to Byzantium and were allowed to
settle in Asia Minor. According to the Byzantine writer and emperor Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus (912-959), there were two mass migrations of Slavs from the north
to the Greek lands, including the Peloponnesus: the first one took place at the end of
the seventh century, while the second one happened in the ninth century, when the
Bulgarians conquered the whole of Thrace and Macedonia. 30
Apparently, the same event drove other Slavs northeast, to the Middle Dnieper area,
the memories of the Kyiv Slavs' residing in the Danube area were recorded in the
oldest Rus annals. A century before that, at around 678, Asparukh drove his Slav
subjects from the Dnieper area to the Dobrija.
Each ethnicity changes in the course of the centuries, but everything seems to
indicate that the difference between the Bulgars and the present-day Bulgarians is
considerably less significant than the difference between the Hellenes of Aristotle's
times and the Greeks of today. There is no need, therefore, to make a distinction
between the ”Bulgars” and ”Bulgarians”.

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