Language on English Bulgaria /categories/language/ Recent content in Language on English Bulgaria Hugo -- gohugo.io Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Wed, 24 Feb 2016 11:37:16 +0000 Beautiful Ligatures in Serbian Cyrillic /2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-serbian-cyrillic/ Wed, 24 Feb 2016 11:37:16 +0000 /2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-serbian-cyrillic/ <p>Ligatures for &ldquo;ль&rdquo; and &ldquo;нь&rdquo; are unique to the Cyrillic alphabets of several Slavic languages in Southeastern Europe. We don&rsquo;t have them in Bulgarian, so I can remember being confused the first time I saw them in Serbia. My confusion turned into fascination once I realized that their construction fused two characters that I knew how to use into one that we simply don&rsquo;t have. You can see љ (<em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lje">Lje</a></em>) on this road sign for Жељуша in Serbia (with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaj%27s_Latin_alphabet">Serbo-Croatian Latin</a> representation below it):</p> <figure> <img sizes="(min-width: 35em) 1200px, 100vw" srcset=' ' src="/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-serbian-cyrillic/2016-02-10_hu548ce2ededffa3eb0b61879a11636bba_229110_800x0_resize_q75_box.jpg" alt="Road sign for Жељуша town in Serbia showing the Cyrillic ligature for &amp;ldquo;ль&amp;rdquo;"/> <figcaption> <p>Road sign for Жељуша town in Serbia showing the Cyrillic ligature for &ldquo;ль&rdquo;</p> </figcaption> </figure> Beautiful Ligatures in Macedonian Cyrillic /2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/ Mon, 08 Feb 2016 09:14:15 +0000 /2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/ <p>Macedonian is a Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian. My untrained ear can&rsquo;t tell the difference between the two, but my eyes spot differences immediately. In addition to minor variations in spelling and grammar, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_alphabet">Macedonian&rsquo;s Cyrillic alphabet</a> uses a handful of characters not present in Bulgarian&rsquo;s, for example the beautiful ligatures for &ldquo;ль&rdquo; and &ldquo;нь&rdquo;: љ and њ, respectively.</p> <figure> <img sizes="(min-width: 35em) 1200px, 100vw" srcset=' ' src="/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/macedonian-ligatures_hu0e4397e87b34a5a00372b36345cb0b06_9925_800x0_resize_box_2.png" alt="Ligatures for upper and lowercase &amp;ldquo;Lje&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;Nje&amp;rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)"/> <figcaption> <p>Ligatures for upper and lowercase &ldquo;Lje&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nje&rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)</p> </figcaption> </figure>