The Paulician dialect is a Bulgarian dialect of the Rhodopean group of the Rup dialects. The Paulician dialect is spoken by some 40,000 people, nearly all of them Catholic Bulgarians, in the region of Rakovski in southern Bulgaria and Svishtov in northern Bulgaria. The language of the Banat Bulgarians, late 17th centuryBulgarian Catholic migrants to Banat, is phonologically and morphologically identical to the Paulician dialect. However, as a result of its three-century separation from Standard Bulgarian and its close interaction with German and Hungarian, Banat Bulgarian has adopted a number of loanwords not present in Standard Bulgarian and a Croatian-based Latin alphabet and is therefore now considered to be one of the three literary forms of Modern Bulgarian. The Paulician dialect is almost entirely surrounded by the Central Balkan dialect. It keeps many archaic characteristics and thus represents an older stage of development of the Rhodopean dialects. Other ex-Paulicians - the "Lovech Pomaks" in northern Bulgaria speak the Galata dialect, which covers the regiolects of the villages: Galata, Gradeshnitsa, Bulgarski Izvor, Kirchevo, Dobrevtsi, and Rumyantsevo.In the past, this dialect had covered areas of the Pleven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina, and Teteven regions.
Phonological and morphological characteristics
Broad e for Old Church Slavonicyat in all positions and irrespective of the character of the following syllable : бл/бли vs. formal Bulgarian бял/бели. However, the broad e has started giving way to, as in the formal language
Merger of Old Church Slavonic big yusѫ, little yus ѧ, ь and ъ into ъ in a stressed syllable and into a slightly reduced a in an unstressed syllable: къшта, кл҄ътва vs. formal Bulgarian клетва, гл҄ъдам vs. formal Bulgarian гледам
Reduction of stressed broad vowels ' and ' into their narrow counterparts ' and ', i.e. a development which is exactly opposite to the vowel reduction in the Balkan dialects: тибе vs. Standard Bulgarian тебе, жина vs. Standard Bulgarian жена
Traces of Old Bulgarian ы ': сын vs. formal Bulgarian син. An archaic trait, as is considered to be the original pronunciation of Old Church Slavonic ы
Individual cases of transition of stressed ' or ' into ' or ': объчай vs. Standard Bulgarian обичай
Transition of unstressed ' into : шъроко vs. Standard Bulgarian широко
More consonant depalatalizations than in the rest of the Rup dialects and even Standard Bulgarian: молъ vs. Standard Bulgarian мол҄ъ
Transition of х before a consonant and at the end of the word into the semivowel й : тейно vs. Standard Bulgarian техно
Single definite article: -ът, -та, -то, -те
For other phonological and morphological characteristics typical for all Rup or Rhodopean dialects, cf. Rup dialects.
