The infrastructure of the Turkish language in Bulgaria: Visualization, semiotization, and contemporary challenges
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2025-2-105-132
In this article, we examine the role of the Turkish language in the semiotization of public space in Bulgaria. We begin by outlining the historical background that underpins the presence and significance of Turkish in the country, focusing primarily on the political framework that has shaped its use before and after Bulgarian independence. The Turkish population in Bulgaria constitutes the largest minority group in the country, and, therefore, the Turkish language continues to be the most important minority language. Next, we analyze the language management policies affecting Turkish in Bulgaria, considering the legal and social conditions under which it continues to develop in this southeastern European country. Through attempts at assimilation, the communist regime exerted pressure on Turkish and other Muslim communities living in Bulgaria, after changing its attitude since the democratic revolution. The historical and legal context is essential for understanding the semiotic representation of the Turkish language in the Bulgarian public sphere today. In our study, we then explore how this social background aligns with language management across different spheres in Bulgaria. We turn to the question of how the management of public space functions for the Turkish language. It is important to highlight that Turkish holds no official administrative status in Bulgaria and can therefore only appear in public spaces within certain domains. We argue that the visibility of the Turkish language in the public sphere in Bulgaria consists of two fundamental components: visualization and semiotization. Visualization is studied within the framework of linguistic landscapes, while semiotization is analyzed through semiotic landscapes. We briefly introduce these two theoretical approaches before exploring concrete examples of Turkish language use in Bulgaria. We analyze examples from relevant places with a dense Turkish minority, such as Shumen, Plovdiv, Razgrad, and others. Drawing on our empirical observations, we broaden the scope to explore both the significance and the challenges of Turkish language visibility in Bulgaria. As a result, our study shows that the Turkish language serves a niche infrastructure in the visualization of Bulgarian public space due to its absence from the administrative sphere, but the language appears where there is a sufficiently large ethnic Turkish community.
Keywords: Bulgaria, Turkish language, languages, visualization, minority languages, languages laws, language management, public space, linguistic landscapes, semiotics
References:
Acaroğlu 2016 – Acaroğlu, M. T. (2016). Türkçeden Bulgarcaya Geçen Kelimeler Sözlüğü [A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian]. Edirne. (In Turkish).
Ayverdi 2006 – Ayverdi, E. H. (2006). Yugoslavya’da Türk Abideleri ve Vakıflar [Turkish monuments and foundations in Yugoslavia]. Vakıflar Dergisi, 3, 151–223. (In Turkish).
Bilgiç 2013 – Bilgiç V. K. (2013). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Azınlıklar [Minorities in the Ottoman State]. İslam Hukuku Araştırmaları Dergisi [Journal of Islamic Law Studies], 21, 339–354. (In Turkish).
Braun, Brehmer 2023 – Braun, B., & Brehmer, B. (2023). Language as Infrastructure. In A. Pinnix et al. (eds.), Rethinking Infrastructure Across the Humanities (pp. 67–74). Transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839469835
Demiralp 2022 – Demiralp, O. (2022). Azınlıklar Hukuku [Minority law]. International Crimes and History, 23, 19–27. (In Turkish).
Dobrev 2022 --Dobrev, D. (2022). Taynite na Tombul Dzhamiya. Vavedenie v prakticheskata semiotika na kulturata [The secrets of the Tombul Mosque. An introduction to practical cultural semiotics]. Faber. (In Bulgarian).
Giesel 2023 – Giesel, C. (2023). Personennamen als Indikatoren slawisch-albanischer Symbiosen und Assimilationen am Beispiel von Grabinschriften in der albanisch-katholischen Mikroregion Südmontenegros. In W. Dahmen, P. Himstedt-Vaid, & G. Schubert (Hrsg.), Nomen est omen. Die Bedeutung von Namen in südosteuropäischen Kulturen (pp. 87–115). Harrassowitz Verlag. (In German).
Gorter 2006 – Gorter, D. (2006). Introduction: The study of the linguistic landscape as a new approach to multilingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668382
Gorter, Cenoz 2024 – Gorter, D., & Cenoz, J. (2024). A panorama of linguistic landscape studies. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800417151
Güneş 2016 – Güneş, N. (2016). Güneydoğu Bulgaristan Burgaz İli Türk Ağızları [Turkish dialects of Southern Bulgaria Burgas province]. PhD Thesis. Ankara. (In Turkish).
Hacı 2017 – Hacı, S. (2017). Ontological arguments for Bulgarian-Turkish homonyms. TOBIDER – International Journal of Social Sciences, 1(1), 25–35. https://doi.org/10.30830/tobider.sayi1.1
Hacı 2022 – Hacı, S. (2022). From interference in the Turkish literary language to a total ban (The language policy of communist Bulgaria). Orbis Linguarum, 20(2), 206–215. (In Bulgarian). https://doi.org/10.37708/ezs.swu.bg.v20i2.5
Hacı, Zafer 2021 – Hacı, S., & Zafer, Z. (2021). Modern Bulgarian literature and the Turkish loan words. On Dervish’ Karakondzhul (Evil Ghost) of Hasan Efraimov. Balkanistic Forum, 30(2), 320–334. (In Bulgarian). https://doi.org/10.37708/bf.swu.v30i2.19
Hammad 2022 – Hammad, M. (2022). Sémiotique de l’éspace : faire le point en 2022. Acta Semiotica, 2(4), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.23925/2763-700X.2022n4.60252 (In French).
Henzelmann 2021 – Henzelmann, M. (2021). The German academic periodical “Bulgarica”. Literary Thought, 3, 105–111. (In Bulgarian). URL: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=992612 (Accessed: 19.02.2025)
Henzelmann 2024a – Henzelmann, M. (2024a). Die linguistische Landschaft in Šumen (Bulgarien). [The linguistic landscape in Shumen (Bulgaria)]. In Otgovornost pred ezika. Kniga 10. Sbornik, posveten na 65-godishninata na prof. d-r Dimitar Popov [Responsibility to Language. Book 10. Volume dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Prof. Dr Dimitar Popov] (pp. 293–310). Universitetsko izdatelstvo “Episkop Konstantin Preslavski”. https://www.shu.bg/wp-content/uploads/file-manager-advanced/users/faculties/fhn/izdaniya/otgovornostta/otgovornostta-10.pdf#page=293 (In German).
Henzelmann 2024b – Henzelmann, M. (2024b). Language in post-Yugoslav Montenegro: an unstable complex of contested values. Zeitschrift für Slawistik. Journal of Slavic Studies, 69(2), 229–255. https://doi.org/10.1515/slaw-2024-0013
Ipshirli 2003 – Ipshirli, M. (2003). Osmanlı Dönemi [Ottoman Period]. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi [TDV Encyclopedia of Islam], 28, 323–327. (In Turkish). URL: https://cdn2.islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/dosya/28/C28023735.pdf (Accessed: 20.02.2025).
Karahasan-Chanar 2004 – Karahasan-Chanar, I. (2004). Etnicheskite maltsinstva v Balgariya. Istoriya, kultura, religiya, obreden calendar [Ethnic minorities in Bulgaria. History, culture, religion, ceremonial calendar]. LiK. (In Bulgarian).
Krasteva 2013 – Krasteva, V. (2013). Rechnik na turtsizmite v balgarskiya ezik [A dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian language]. Scorpio. (In Bulgarian).
Kreydlin, Krongauz 2022 – Kreydlin, G. E., & Krongauz, M. A. (2022). Semiotika, ili Azbuka obshcheniya [Semiotics or the Alphabet of Communication]. Flinta, Nauka. (In Russian).
Lisek, Putzier 2024 – Lisek, G., & Putzier, A. (2024). Wie kann schulischer Nachbarsprachenunterricht zum mehrsprachigen Lebens- und Erfahrungsraum werden? Umsetzungsbeispiele für den Polnischunterricht. Glottodidactica, 51(2), 57–76. (In German). https://doi.org/10.14746/gl.2024.51.2.3
Kolev 2017 – Kolev, A. H. (2017). Minorías y pluralismo cultural en Bulgaria. Dykinson, S.L. (In Spanish).
Lukin 2023 – Lukin, V. A. (2023). 100 zadach po semiotike teksta [100 Tasks in Text Semiotics]. Flinta. (In Russian).
Mısır, Işık Güler 2024 – Mısır, H., & Işık Güler, H. (2024). Translanguaging dynamics in the digital landscape: insights from a social media corpus. Language Awareness, 33(3), 468–487.https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2023.2285401
Nedeljković-Pravdić 2021 – Nedeljković-Pravdić, M. M. (2021). Jezički peјzaži podeljenog grada: Severna i јužna Mitrovica [Linguistic landscapes of a divided city: North and South Mitrovica].Doctoral Dissertation. Univerzitet u Beogradu. (In Serbian). URL: https://nardus.mpn.gov.rs/bitstream/id/146778/Disertacija_12701.pdf (Accessed: 02.02.2025).
Nekvapil, Sherman 2025 – Nekvapil, J., & Sherman, T. (2015). An introduction: language management theory in language policy and planning. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 232, 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2014-0039
Simyan 2022 – Simyan, T. S. (2022). Feodosia as a city and a visual text (Aivazovsky project). Slovo.ru: Baltic Accent, 13(4), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.5922/2225-5346-2022-4-4 (In Russian).
Simyan, Makaryan 2023 – Simyan, Т. S., & Makaryan, А. А. (2023). David of Sasun by Hovannes Tumanyan: from text to vizualization. Children’s Readings: Studies in Children’s Literature, 24(2), 211–235. https://doi.org/10.31860/2304-5817-2023-2-24-211-235 (In Russian).
Turan 1998 – Turan, Ö. (1998). The Turkish minority in Bulgaria (1878–1908). Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi.
Turan, İbrahimgil 2004 – Turan, Ö., & İbrahimgil, M. Z. (2004). Balkanlardaki Türk Mimarî Eserlerinden Örnekler [Examples of Turkish architectural works in the Balkans]. TBMM Kültür, Sanat ve Yayın Kurulu Yayınları. (In Turkish).
Yenisoy 1996 – Yenisoy, H. S. (1996). Bulgaristan Türklerinin Eğitim ve Kültürel Kalkınmasında Hizmetleri Geçen Azerbaycan Aydınları [Azerbaijani ıntellectuals who contributed to the education and cultural development of Bulgarian Turks]. Bilig, 3, 13–20. (In Turkish). https://bilig.yesevi.edu.tr/yonetim/icerik/makaleler/3643-published.pdf (Accessed: 16.01.2025).
Yordanova 2017 – Yordanova, M. (2017). Turkish language teaching at universities in Bulgaria – actual status and perspectives. Strategy in Policy for Science and Education, 25(2), 137–142.https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=550743 (Accessed: 10.02.2025). (In Bulgarian).
Zafer, Muratova 2022 – Zafer, Z., & Muratova, N. (2022). Turkology in exile: Mefküre Mollova. A biographical study. Neofit Rilski University Press. (In Bulgarian).
( 1.27 MB ) 
( 1.25 MB )
Issue: 2, 2025
Series of issue: Issue 2
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 105 — 132
Downloads: 32