The Botevgrad dialect is a Bulgarian dialect, member of the

Southwestern Bulgarian dialects The Southwestern Bulgarian dialects are a group of Bulgarian dialects which are located west of the yat boundary and are part of the Western Bulgarian dialects. The range of the Southwestern dialects on the territory of Bulgaria includes most of ...

, which is spoken in the region of

Botevgrad Botevgrad ( bg, Ботевград ) is a town in western Bulgaria. It is located in Sofia Province and is close to Pravets. Botevgrad lies 47 km from Sofia. History and name The village was called Samundzhievo (Самунджиево) unti ...

and

Etropole Etropole ( bg, Етрополе, ) is a town in western Bulgaria, part of Sofia Province. It is located close to the northern slopes of the Balkan Mountains in the valley of the Iskar River, from Sofia. History The area was first settled by th ...

in northwestern Bulgaria. It is located on the yat boundary and is closely related to the Eastern Bulgarian Pirdop dialect.

Phonological and morphological characteristics

* Vowel a for Old Church Slavonic (yus), ь and ъ: ''маж'' vs. formal Bulgarian ''мъж'' (man), ''сан'' vs. formal Bulgarian ' (sleep). However, Old Church Slavonic has resulted in o in the prepositions and prefixes ''във'' and ''въз'': ''вов водата'' vs. formal Bulgarian ' (in the water). The

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

is usually pronounced only in Turkish words, e.g. ' (copper) * Vocalic r and l for Old Church Slavonic and instead of the combinations (~) and (~) in Standard Bulgarian - ' instead of ' (tree, tear). * Lack of iotation between two vowels: ' (also ') vs. formal Bulgarian ' (to dig) * The masculine definite article is -a, as in the Pirdop dialect: ''кра'ка'' (the leg) * Verb ending -a instead of formal Bulgarian -ъ in verbs of the first and second conjugation: ''чет'а'' vs. formal Bulgarian ' (I read) * Future tense particle is ща for 1st person and ще for all other persons ( in all cases in Standard Bulgarian) * Personal pronouns for 3rd person той, т҄а,The diacritic ◌҄ indicates palatalization. то, тиа (, , то, те in Standard Bulgarian) For other phonological and morphological characteristics typical for all Southwestern dialects, cf.

Sources

Стойков, Стойко: Българска диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов", 200

References

{{Bulgarian dialects Dialects of the Bulgarian language