Bulgarian language is filled with various phrases and sayings that might completely confuse a new learner. From horses flying into rivers to camels and camel drivers, our language is full of bizarre sayings that at first will make you question whether you heard right, and then will result in a cultural or a historic lecture. That’s something we greatly cherish at Kristina Progress – that our lessons are more than grammar and vocabulary – our teachers are always ready to dive deep into cultural learnings as well.
As many of you might know, Bulgaria historically saw so many different cultures and civilisations change, that we often refer to it as a melting pot. Each major civilisation throughout the centuries has left its mark on our culture, cuisine and language. Not only that, but also the very lifestyle the commonfolk used to lead affected and shaped the specific phrases we use in everyday speech. Rural life, Ottoman-era vocabulary, Balkan habits and way of life, preserved old imagery that gets delivered in a modern setting.
Vivid, memorable and culturally specific, in English many of them sound more or less absurd, but in Bulgarian they feel absolutely natural and deliver precisely the feeling and meaning they are supposed to. Here’s the thing – a lot of them come directly from old proverb culture, where concrete images – animals, roads, rivers, tools, food and village life were used to explain abstract situations in a way everyone would understand.
And the very linguistic layers – Church Slavonic, Greek, Turkish, Russian, French and later English, they have all been absorbed within modern Bulgarian and that helped shape both vocabulary and idiomatic styles. Ottoman-era influence in particular left a deep mark on everyday speech and phraseology which is why we referred earlier to some of them feeling distinctly Balkan in their imagery.
Also – the joy of having some sayings survive centuries upon centuries! Some of them are so emotionally efficient in their expressiveness, compressing advice, sarcasm, morals, resignation or just humour, they transcend their original time periods. That’s why sayings like “The caravan keeps going” work even nowadays – they are charged with irony and humour that has built up in our folklore for centuries, despite the fact that nowadays there are no caravans going around here anymore, and the rural context is nowhere near as present as before.
Now, let’s dig into the six bizarre Bulgarian phrases we at Kristina Progress have picked for you today:
- Отиде коня у реката – The horse went into the river.
This one is a favourite of us all – it means that something major went wrong in a plan, which usually results in it failing and degenerating unexpectedly. It really makes the rural and equestrian imagery shine. A horse falling down the river, maybe even taking its rider or the entire carriage and its contents down, was never a good thing for the medieval person. Furthermore retrieving the animal from the waters was costly and difficult. Another expression that sealed a similar sentiment is an old curse saying – “Да ти умре коня” – “May your horse die”. If you are in a really really bad conflict with someone from your village, then you can use this phrase as an ultimate insult. We do not recommend, nor do we condone any forms of verbal abuse, though!
- Я камилата, я камиларя – Either the camel, or the camel driver.
This one means that it’s very hard to say who is to blame or who benefits from a certain situation. A clear reference to Ottoman history, although camels were not local animals, trading routes back in the day that passed through our country introducing us to images of caravans and camels, thus bringing them to everyday speech. Furthermore, the pairing of animal and handler is an old Balkan rhetorical device to indicate inseparable partners.
2. Кучетата лаят, керванът си върви – The dogs bark, but the caravan keeps going.
Once again we are brought back to the charming images of oriental trade and silk road merchants travelling through our lands. The meaning of this one is – Ignore noisy critics, business or life continues regardless of complaints. Just as the caravans always continued their long journeys despite dangers and difficulties (and believe us, they had many), so hardship never stops a person resolved to reach their goals.
3. Храни куче да те лае – Feed a dog, and it will bark at you.
That is a classic saying charged with a small dose of cynicism. It refers to the situations in which you do someone a favor, and they repay you with ingratitude and hostility. Coming from old folk observations about ingratitude, this saying appears across many cultures in different forms. And of course in Bulgarian rural life a dog could both be your best helper, or a great nuisance, mostly based on whether or not the dog in question is yours…
4. Пусна ми фитилите – He/She lit my fuses.
This one – used when someone provokes or angers you, leading to you losing your temper, is linked to old technology that worked with fuses – mostly lamps and explosives.
5. От трън, та на глог – From thorn to hawthorn.
That is one that has a very nice equivalent in English – “Out of the frying pan, and into the fire” – one expression I personally encountered first while reading “The Hobbit” as a kid. Just like in its English counterpart, the meaning here is going from one difficulty into another or escaping one problem, only to fall into a different one. Its proverb structure is classical – from X to Y, using thorny plants as pain metaphors, and using botanical imagery, common in agrarian proverb traditions.
As we definitely will come back to these topics, for now we are going to let all that new information sink in. We strongly encourage you to be brave and use these in everyday speech – Bulgarians just love it when they hear a foreigner try and speak our language, and whether you are a beginner, intermediate or a pro in Bulgarian, using a phrase like that will always give you bonus points. Or result in a funny situation – both cases are a win! And don’t forget – when learning a new language always try to push yourself to speak as much as possible. The worst case scenario is not when you make a mistake, but when you never even try! Of course if you want to take your Bulgarian to PRO levels, you can always check out our courses, and let us guide you through our language!
‘Till next time, and please… don’t let those horses anywhere near the river!