No comment: Linguistic Fascists in Bulgaria

The parliamentary group of "Vazrazhdane" has resubmitted its draft law on the Bulgarian language, which in the previous parliament was strongly criticized by scholars, according to the National Assembly's filing system.

The draft is motivated by the need for a comprehensive legal regulation of public relations related to the Bulgarian literary language and the preservation of the language as a basis for national identity. A similar bill is currently being discussed in the Russian Duma. The government is the sponsor there.

The text submitted by "Vazrazhdane" was first published in 2018, submitted then by the VMRO party, and during its discussion in March 2022, representatives of the Bulgarian Language Institute criticized it as imprecise and scientifically unsound.

The new words and expressions with which the language will be enriched can be borrowed from other languages if there are none with a reproducing meaning in the Bulgarian language, another of the draft norms reads.

Authors of literary works and journalists are allowed to use common dialect words and expressions.

Among the texts is a proposal that information signs (including street names) should be written only in Bulgarian, and that for the convenience of foreigners the signs should be transliterated. If this is adopted, the comical situation of fifteen years ago will be repeated, when Sofia's James Boulevard, named after the Balkan correspondent of the British Times, will be spelled Dzheyms Bauchar instead of the correct James Bourchier.

Another idea is to oblige foreigners who want to work in Bulgaria to comply with the 'Bulgarian language proficiency requirements', which, if adopted, would make it more difficult for international companies where the working language is English and some of the employees are foreigners.

Importers and sellers of electronic and mobile devices will have to ensure that they support the symbols of the Bulgarian form of the Cyrillic alphabet if the law is adopted.

The purity of the language will be monitored by an 11-member Bulgarian Language Council, whose salaries and utility costs will not exceed BGN 100 thousand a year, according to estimates by Vazrazhdane. Part of the amount will be covered by the fines under this law - up to BGN 500 for officials and BGN 2,000 for companies publishing textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, etc.

Another interesting article, 5 days after the Vazhrazhdane is:

In the most read yellow media in Bulgaria PIK, a few days after Konstantinov's bill, the question was asked whether we are a Catholic country. As in the article on the background of Christmas about the Americanization of the Bulgarian language during the holidays. Which has taken many countries positions in recent years. In a large part of the late period of the ruling Bulgaria in the last 15 years, the party GERB- the media PIK was the staunchest advocate and lawyer of Boyko Borisov. In the last two years of political crisis, PIK has been a bridge between the patriotic formations of the President and GERB, definitely taking a radically pro-Slavic and pro-Orthodox position.