Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: What language is spoken in Bulgaria?
The official language of Bulgaria is Bulgarian. According to the 2001 census, 84.5% of the country's population speak Bulgarian natively.[1]
The original written Latin language (what is today referred to as "Classical Latin") was adapted from the actual spoken language of the Latins, with some minor modifications, long before the rise of the Roman Empire. As with many languages, over time the spoken "vulgar" language diverged from the written language, with the written language remaining somewhat static. During the classical period spoken (Vulgar) Latin still remained largely common across the Empire, some minor dialectal differences notwithstanding. 
The Ivatan language is basically a spoken language. Until lately, little effort was made to record the language in written form. What the young generation know about it is largely through hearing it spoken and speaking it.
The Balkan dialects are the most extensive group of dialects of the Bulgarian language, covering almost half of the present-day territory of Bulgaria and slightly less than a third of the territory on the Balkans where Bulgarian is spoken. Their range includes north-central Bulgaria and most of the Bulgarian part of Thrace, excluding the Rhodopes, the region of Haskovo and Strandzha. As a result of the mass population movements that affected eastern Bulgaria during the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the Balkan dialects are now spoken also in vast areas of northeastern Bulgaria, especially the regions of Dobrich and Varna. The most significant feature of the dialects, as in most Eastern Bulgarian dialects, is the pronunciation of Old Church Slavonic ѣ (yat) as or , depending on the character of the following syllable. The Balkan dialects, and in particular, the Central Balkan dialect, lie at the foundation of formal Bulgarian. However, they are not identical to the standard language because many of its features derive from the Western Bulgarian dialects, including the Macedonian dialects, or are a compromise between Eastern and Western standard.For the phonological and morphological characteristics of the individual dialects included in the Balkan dialects, cf. individual articles.
Turkic language of Azerbaijan gradually supplanted the Iranian languages in what is now northern Iran, and a variety of languages of the Caucasus and Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus, particularly Udi and Old Azeri. By the beginning of the 16th century, it had become the dominant language of the region, and was a spoken language in the court of the Safavids and Afsharids.
The population of Volga Bulgaria was mostly Muslim. Under the influence of Bulgarian culture, more and more nomadic Mongols and Kipchaks were converted to Islam. The language used by Muslims of the Golden Horde transformed into the Kipchak language, adopted by all Muslim Volga Bulgars. As a result of a later mixing of the Kipchak and Bolgar languages, the literary language of the Golden Horde became what is now called the Old Tatar language, and eventually evolved into the modern Tatar language. Some of Bulgaria's non-Islamic population kept the Bolgar language, which was influenced by the Mari language, a language commonly used in the territories to which they had relocated. This led to the development of the modern Chuvash language.
In most sources in and out of Bulgaria before the Second World War, the southern Slavonic dialect continuum covering the area of today's Republic of Macedonia and Northern Greece was referred to as a group of Bulgarian dialects. The local variants of the name of the language were also balgàrtzki, bùgarski or bugàrski; i.e. Bulgarian.[169] Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian. However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by an academic dispute, in 1999 the government in Sofia solved the problem of the Macedonian language by using the euphemistic formula: "the official language of the country (Republic of Macedonia) in accordance with its constitution".[170]
The Moesian dialects are a group of closely related dialects of the Bulgarian language, part of the Eastern Bulgarian dialects. The Moesian dialects are spoken in northeastern Bulgaria and in the regions of Karnobat, Aytos, Burgas and Yambol in southern Bulgaria. However, due to the mass population movements that affected eastern Bulgaria during the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, nowadays, there are very few areas where only Moesian is spoken. In most areas, and especially in southern Bulgaria and Dobruja, Moesian speakers are mixed with speakers speaking Balkan dialects. As a result of this and also due to the influence of the literary language, most features of the Moesian dialects have given way to features typical for the Balkan dialects.Стойков, Стойко: Българска диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов", 2006
The historical and linguistic relationships between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are special and complicated. Macedonian researchers claim Macedonian is spoken in southwestern Bulgaria, whereas Bulgarian and Greek linguists argue Macedonian is a variety of Bulgarian.
Pomak language (, "pomakiki glosa" or πομακικά, "pomakika"; , "pomaški ezik"; ) is a term used in Greece and Turkey to refer to some of the Rup dialects of the Bulgarian language spoken by the Pomaks in Western Thrace in Greece and Eastern Thrace in Turkey. These dialects are native also in Bulgaria, and are classified as part of the Smolyan subdialect. Not all Pomaks speak this dialect as their mother language.
The Thracian language was spoken in what is now Bulgaria, Romania, Republic of Macedonia, Northern Greece, European Turkey and in parts of Bithynia (North-Western Asiatic Turkey).
Other minority languages spoken are Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Tatar, Greek, Romanian, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian.
In addition to the languages which continue to be spoken in Spain to the present day, other languages which have been spoken within what are now the borders of Spain include:
This designation is based on the scant evidence available for the Piscataway language. The Doeg tribe, then located in present-day Northern Virginia, are also thought to have spoken a form of the same language. These dialects were intermediate between the Native American groups of Lenape languages formerly spoken to the north of this area (in present-day Delaware and New Jersey) and the Powhatan language, formerly spoken to the south, in what is now Tidewater Virginia.
The Turkish language also known as Istanbul Turkish is a southern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. It is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey, Balkans, the island of Cyprus, Meskhetia, and other areas of traditional settlement that formerly, in whole or part, belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Turkish is the official language of Turkey. In the Balkans, Turkish is still spoken by Turkish minorities who still live there, especially in Bulgaria, Greece (mainly in Western Thrace), Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Romania (mainly in Dobruja) and the Republic of Moldova (mainly in Gagauzia). The Turkish language was introduced to Cyprus with the Ottoman conquest in 1571 and became the politically dominant, prestigious language, of the administration.
Up to roughly 1340, the Romance languages spoken in the Middle Ages in the northern half of what is today France are collectively known as "ancien français" ("Old French") or "langues d'oïl" (languages where one says "oïl" to mean "yes"); following the Germanic invasions of France in the fifth century, these Northern dialects had developed distinctly different phonetic and syntactical structures from the languages spoken in southern France. The language in southern France is known as "langue d'oc" or the Occitan language family (a language where one says "oc" to mean "yes"), also known under the name of one of its dialects, the Provençal language). The Western peninsula of Brittany spoke Breton, a Celtic language. Catalan was spoken in the South, and Germanic languages and Franco-Provençal were spoken in the East.
The list of Bulgarian language poets includes those literary figures who are notable for their poetry written in the native tongue of Bulgaria. This language is also spoken in parts of Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, Greece, Romania, and Serbia.
Romania did not establish a colonial empire, but beyond its native territory in southeastern Europe, the Romanian language is spoken as a minority language by autochthonous populations in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Hungary, and in some parts of the former Greater Romania (before 1945), as well as in Ukraine (Bukovina, Budjak) and in some villages between the Dniester and Bug rivers. The Aromanian language is spoken today by Aromanians in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Greece. Romanian also spread to other countries on the Mediterranean (especially the other Romance-speaking countries, most notably Italy and Spain), and elsewhere such as Israel, where it is the native language of five percent of the population, and is spoken by many more as a secondary language. This is due to the large number of Romanian-born Jews who moved to Israel after World War II. And finally, some 2.6 million people in the former Soviet republic of Moldova speak a variety of Romanian, called variously Moldovan or Romanian by them.
Poitevin ("Poetevin") is a language spoken in Poitou, France. It is one of the regional languages of France and is not as commonly spoken as it once was, as the standard form of French now predominates. Poitevin is now classified as one of the langues d'oïl but is distinguished by certain features of the langue d'oc. The language is spoken on what was the border between the two language families of "oïl" and "oc" (placenames in the region clearly show historical settlement of "oc" speakers). The langue d’oïl subsequently spread south, absorbing "oc" features.
The existence of a Macedonian language and Macedonian ethnos is highly disputed in Bulgaria. Most Bulgarians do not recognize the Macedonian language as a separate language and assert that it is a dialect of Bulgarian. There are two dialects in Bulgaria which are considered Macedonian in Macedonia: the Maleševo-Pirin (widely spoken in most of Blagoevgrad Province in Bulgaria and Delčevo region in the Republic of Macedonia) and the Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop ones. Some linguists consider these dialects to be transitional between modern Bulgarian and Macedonian.
In the population of 200,000 to 300,000 Roma, or Gypsy, people in Greece today, the Romani language is spoken widely. Romani is an Indo-Aryan language similar to many Indian languages, due to the origins of the Roma people in northern India. The dialect spoken in Greece (as well as in Bulgaria, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, parts of Turkey, and Ukraine) is known as Balkan Romani. There are 160,000 Romani speakers in Greece today (90% of the Roma population).
The Lao language is descended from Tai languages spoken in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam in areas believed to be the homeland of the language family and where several related languages are still spoken by scattered minority groups.
There are 88 individual languages of Ethiopia according to Ethnologue, with the 1994 Ethiopian census indicating that some 77 tongues were spoken locally. Most of these languages belong to the Afroasiatic family (Semitic and Cushitic languages; Omotic languages are also spoken, though their classification is uncertain). Additionally, Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by what the government calls the "Nilotic" people, though scholars distinguish Nilotic from the Surmic languages, Gumuz languages, and Koman languages and spoken in Ethiopia.
Historically the language was spoken by various constituent groups of the Muscogee or "Maskoki" in what are now Alabama and Georgia. It is related to but not mutually intelligible with the other primary language of the Muscogee confederacy, Hitchiti/Miccosukee, spoken by the kindred Miccosukee (Mikasuki), as well as other Muskogean languages.
The Japonic languages are spoken in Japan and among emigrants from Japan and is attested in Japanese language writing from the 8th century CE, and in imperfect Chinese transcriptions from the late 5th century CE. Conservative historical linguists tend to classify a small number of Japanese languages as a language family of their own. The Ainu languages are a barely surviving family of languages or dialects that are spoken by indigenous populations on the island of Hokkaidō in what is now northern Japan as well as on the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Archipelago in what is now the Russian Far East at the time of the oldest extant historical records concerning those islands.