Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 February 5

= February 5 =

What language is this?
I saw a headline using this language using a mix of Cyrillic, Latin, and other characters, but I have no idea what language it could be. Here's the text I encountered:

КАМЪНИТЕ В ДЕФИΛЕТО

Преnяmcmβuяma u peakųuume на βᴧacmma u cᴧyжбume

Note: there was a character that looked like a beta without the tail. Since I couldn't find a comparable character, I used beta. TheMrP (talk) 22:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Bulgarian, I'd say. The first word in the second line must be "препятстбнята" ("the obstacle"). The character that reminded you of a beta is the hard Cyrillic b; the one you transcribed as m is a (cursive?) t. The "-te", "-to" and "-ta" affixes on several words are a good giveaway for eastern South Slavic, as that's the enclitic definite article there. Within eastern South Slavic, Macedonian is excluded because it wouldn't use я, iirc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * So, the whole thing would be: "камъните в дефилето / препятстбнята и реакциите на блата властта и службите". Which Google translates renders as "the stones in the gorge / the obstacles and reactions of the swamps authorities and the services", for what it's worth. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)


 * (after edit conflict) It seems to be Bulgarian language. Closest I can make it from Google Translate is:


 * КАМЪНИТЕ В ДЕФИΛЕТО ДЕФИЛЕТО
 * THE STONES IN THE DEFICIENCY GORGE


 * Препяcтвиятa и peaкциитe на влacттa и cлyжбитe
 * Obstacles and reactions of the authorities and the services.


 * Make of that what you will. Interesting that Google gave different results for ДЕФИΛЕТО, depending on who was asking. FPatS got gorge, I got deficiency. Weird. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)


 * PS. I worked it out. I had asked about ДЕФИΛЕТО, which contains the upper-case Greek letter lambda (Λ). When I substituted the relevant Cyrillic letter Л (ДЕФИЛЕТО), I also got gorge. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:44, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, this is Bulgarian. Some of the letters may look unfamiliar because the text is using a certain typographic style dubbed "Bulgarian Cyrillic", which was developed in Bulgaria in the mid-20th century. That style, although not as mainstream as the "traditional" one, is fairly common in the country, and is actively promoted by some as being easier to read, more beautiful, and "more Bulgarian".

I couldn't find a way to input that style here, but you can see it used e.g. in the Dnevnik.bg and Capital.bg news websites. Indeed uppercase and lowercase л|Лл look like Λᴧ, lowercase п looks line n, lowercase т looks like m, lowercase в looks like a tailless β, lowercase и looks like u, and lowercase ц looks like u with a tail.

Check this image for a comparison of the two styles. In the "traditional" style some letters have different shapes for regular and italic type, and in fact the regular letters of the "Bulgarian" style are for the most part non-slanted versions of the italic letters of the "traditional" style. The slanted versions of the two styles are barely distinguishable.


 * КАМЪНИТЕ В ДЕФИЛЕТО
 * КАМĂNITE V DEFILETO
 * The rocks/stones in the defile/gorge


 * Препятствията и реакциите на властта и службите
 * Prepyatstviyata i reaktsiite na vlastta i sluzhbite
 * The obstacles and the reactions of the authorities and the services/institutions

As correctly noted above, the "-te", "-to" and "-ta" endings are postfixed definite articles, corresponding to English the. --Theurgist (talk) 02:42, 6 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Our article Bulgarian alphabet also has an image with the modern non-slanted style, side to side with the cursive script. --Lambiam 09:32, 6 February 2021 (UTC)