Terminology Planning in Bulgaria: Current Рerspectives and Challenges

Prof. Svetla Koeva, DSc.  

Institute for Bulgarian Language,

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Bulgaria)

https://doi.org/10.53656/bel2026-2-1-S

Abstract. The article presents the historical background and the current state of terminology planning in Bulgarian in the context of language planning. The most important institutions involved in terminology planning are presented. Among them, the focus is on the Department of Terminology and Terminography at the Institute for Bulgarian Language which deals with the development of terminological theory with a special focus on Bulgarian, with the standardisation of terminology and with the compilation of speicialised dictionaries that summarise terminological practice in a particular field. The future prospects for terminology planning in Bulgaria in the context of modern technologies are outlined.

Keywords: terminology planning, language policy, terminology policy, new terms, Bulgarian, Bulgaria

 

Terminology planning as a conscious effort to improve communication in a specific area is placed in the context of language planning in Bulgaria as a conscious effort to improve communication in the language community as a whole.

It is known that the process of selecting, standardising and disseminating terminology is time-consuming and labour-intensive and requires special skills. The exact meaning of terms must be defined to ensure that users can understand and use them in a generally accepted way. English serves as the source language for current Bulgarian terminology in many specialised fields (such as economy, politics, information and communication technologies and many others) and thus effords are direccted towards the unification of means of adoptation of foreighn terms in the Bulgarian lexical and grammatical system. The aim of this paper is to present the main principleas of terminology policy in Bulgaria in the general context of language policy and to outline the models for the formation of new terms on a morphological, semantic and syntactic level as well as on levels combination.

 

1. Brief historical background

The most important contribution of St Cyril and Methodius and their disciples is the introduction of the first Slavic literary language – Old Bulgarian – which became the third classical language in mediaeval Europe alongside Greek and Latin, and the emergence of Old Bulgarian literature. In 886, the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius were received with honour in Pliska, the then capital of Bulgaria. Knyaz Boris I and his successors offered them excellent conditions for their literary work and teaching, as they were aware of the need to spread the Christian faith among the newly baptised Bulgarians in their mother tongue, and so he provided extensive funds for the creation of the necessary liturgical literature and the training of qualified clergy to replace Greek in the liturgy with Old Bulgarian. The mediaeval Bulgarian books were distributed throughout the Slavic world and were used and copied for centuries, and Old Bulgarian was adopted as the liturgical and literary language (Micheva, 2022, p. 49 – 50).

The modern Bulgarian literary language emerged during the Bulgarian Revival, a historical period that spanned the 18th and 19th centuries, during which the Bulgarian language was widely promoted through literature and education, periodicals appeared, various Bulgarian educational institutions were established, religious autonomy (Bulgarian Exarchate) was achieved and movements for independence from the Ottoman Empire led to armed uprisings that resulted in liberation. The beginnings of the modern Bulgarian literary language can be found in the Damascene language – manuscripts with religious and moral content that were translated into the vernacular in the 17th and 18th centuries. The handwritten Damascene books “build a bridge between the rich Old Bulgarian literature and the language of rebirth” (Velcheva, 2011, 60 – 61) and became an important factor in the formation of the early New Bulgarian literary language. The idea of national unification is associated with the “History of Slavic Bulgaria” by Paisiy Hilendarski (1762), and Father Paisii is considered the founder of the New Bulgarian literary language (Andreychin, 1955, pр. 308 – 309).

In addition to the vernacular foundations of the new Bulgarian literary language, there was the influence of the literary linguistic heritage with which the Renaissance writers were familiar in various ways: – the local tradition, which was taken directly from Old Bulgarian, and the Church Slavonic tradition, which was based on a partial edition of Old Bulgarian.

The second quarter of the 19th century can be regarded as a period in which the basic structural features of the modern literary language crystallised. The years preceding the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 were the time when the new literary language took full shape and enriched its functions. The final creation of a unified national language system took place in the last two decades of the 19th century, which coincided with the first decades of the work of the famous Bulgarian writer Ivan Vazov, whose works played a significant role in this final process (Andreychin, 1977, p. 22).

The construction of literary language begins above all in popular literature. The works in which this occurs are primarily textbooks for secular schools (beginning with the Primer with Various Instructions by Petar Beron, better known as the Fish Primer) or books of popular knowledge and textbooks for adults. In this literature, the essential structural features of the literary language and thus also the corresponding vocabulary and phraseology are gradually built up. The basic terminology play an important role in the various school subjects (grammar, arithmetic, geometry, physics, geography, history, zoology, botany and later others). Later, during the national liberation struggles, the artistic and journalistic style developed and after the liberation the administrative and scientific style.

The question of linguistic purity already preoccupied writers during the development of the New Bulgarian literary language in the 19th century. At that time, the concern for the purity of the language was expressed in the consistent endeavour to replace Turkish and Greek words with native ones or to restrict Church Slavonic and Russian, which led to a considerable cleansing of the language of foreign lexical units. Later, after liberation, a struggle began to replace words from Western European languages with native or newly created words. The extreme forms of systematic cleansing of the language of foreign words that had invaded it are known as purism, and their activists as purists (Boyadzhiev, 2008, pр. 2 – 3)

The purism of the Bulgarian Renaissance had a protective function: Bulgarian writers pursued a highly patriotic goal – the preservation of the Bulgarian language from existing or possible future foreign linguistic influences. Closely linked to this goal was the endeavour to educate the Bulgarians through the modern language, the pedagogical goal of Renaissance purism (Nikolova, 2015, p. 121).

The modern period in the development of the Bulgarian literaly language is considered to be from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. It is characterised above all by the completion, further development and enrichment of the modern Bulgarian literaly language (Ivanova, 2012, рp. 27 – 28). In the last decades, codification takes place within the framework of established and fixed grammatical, lexical, pronunciation, orthographic and punctuation norms. Democratism and uniformity are two of the most important principles of codification today, but they are already subordinated to a new kind of linguistic and social situation in which codification can be characterised mainly as norm-preserving (Aleksandrova&Tomov, 2019, р. 216).

 

2. Bulgarians, Bulgarian language and language policy in Bugaria

In Bulgarian is the official language of the Republic of Bulgaria. It is spoken by over eight million native speakers, most of whom live in Bulgaria. According to census data published by the National Statistical Institute, the population in 2023 was 6,519,789¹. According to a World Bank report based on the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs database on international migration, around 1.7 million Bulgarians were living abroad in 2020 (Garrote-Sanchez et al., 2021).

The Bulgarian Constitution² stipulates that Bulgarian is the official language of the Republic and states: “The study and use of the Bulgarian language shall be a right and an obligation of every Bulgarian citizen. Citizens whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian shall have the right to study and use their own language alongside the compulsory study of the Bulgarian language. The situations in which only the official language shall be used shall be established by law.” (art. 36).

There is no separate Bulgarian language law. Over 100 legal acts regulate issues related to the use and study of the Bulgarian language: the Pre-school and School Education Act; the Level of Education, General Education Minimum and Curriculum Act; Bulgarians Resident outside the Republic of Bulgaria Act; the Judical system Act, etc. For example, Article 13 of the Pre-school and School Education Act³ states that:

“(1) The official language in the pre-school and school education systems shall be the Bulgarian language.

(2) Pre-school and school education shall be conducted in the Bulgarian language, except for the cases laid down in this Act.

(3) At schools where a foreign language is studied intensively, some subjects may be taught in the foreign language in accordance with the state education standard for the syllabus”… Regulation No. 6 of 11 August 2016 on the acquisition of the Bulgarian literary language stipulates that the codified norms of the Bulgarian literary language shall be applied in the system of pre-school and school education in accordance with the current academic spelling dictionary of the Institute of Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Art. 2, para. 1). The existing regulations on the use of the official language cover economic, political, social and cultural life. Due to their official status, these legal acts regulate the use of the Bulgarian language in the relevant areas. The established strategy is to supplement and amend the existing legislation as necessary and after thorough examination (Koeva, 2023, p. 7).

The Institute for Bulgarian Language “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin”⁴ at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is the official institution authorised by a decree of the Council of Ministers to monitor the development of the Bulgarian language, to reflect relevant changes in both orthography and grammar and to set the literary norms.

The Institute for Bulgarian Language supports the language policy of the Bulgarian state by researching the current state, history and dialectal diversity of the Bulgarian language and its interaction with other languages, monitoring the changes in the written and spoken language, standardising spelling and publishing the official spelling dictionaries of the Bulgarian language, defining the rules for written communication in the public domain, researching and describing the lexical and grammatical structure of the Bulgarian language, publishing grammars and dictionaries and developing language resources.

In the last 50 years, a number of works on orthography, grammar and lexicography have been published. The most important codification document binding for the public is the latest edition of the Orthographic Dictionary of the Institute for Bulgarian Language, which also serves as a reference work for pronunciation and grammar (Aleksandrova &Tomov, 2019, p. 216).

Codification is supported by a variety of activities, such as language counselling by the Language Counselling Service of the Institute for Bulgarian Language⁵; the Bulgarian Language Resources Online platform⁶, which provides access to the most up-to-date orthographic dictionary and extends it to all word forms; the online resources of the Institute for Bulgarian Language such as the multi-volume Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language⁷, the seven-volume Bulgarian Etimological Dictiobary⁸, the Bulgarian WordNet, etc. the promotional activities under the umbrella of the project Written Word Remains. Write correctly!⁹.

 

3. Terminology policy in Bulgaria

            While language planning deals with general linguistic issues such as orthography, grammar, pronunciation and lexis, terminology planning focuses on the organisation of knowledge, the representation of concepts and the standardisation of terminology in a particular field. It can therefore be said that language planning is the conscious endeavour to improve communication in a language community as a whole, while terminology planning is the deliberate design to improve communication in a specific area (Galinski et al., 1999).

Following Úna Bhreathnach (2012, pp. 97 – 102), Bulgarian terminology policy and practise is presented and discussed here under the following aspects: Planning, research, standardisation, dissemination, evaluation, training, maintenance and modernisation.

3.1. Terminology planning

At the national level, terminology planning is associated with the establishment of units that provide both the theoretical basis for terminology development and the practical work on terminology standardisation. Three important institutions operate at national level, two of which are active and one of which has handed over its activities to an international organisation.

 

3.1.1. Department of Terminology and Terminography at the Institute for Bulgarian Language

            In 1993, the Department of Terminology and Terminography was founded at the Institute for Bulgarian Language. The Department of Terminology and Terminography works on projects dealing with theoretical issues of general and Bulgarian terminology and the history of Bulgarian terminology. The Department also compiles a series of terminological dictionaries of Bulgarian terminolohy used in various scientific fields: Social and Political Sciences, Humanities, Natural Sciences, Economics, Ecology, Arts.

The developments of the Department of Terminology and Terminography are subject to the main directions in the development of terminological science – study of the general terminological theory, identification of the peculiarities of Bulgarian terminology in cognitive-conceptual and linguistic aspect. The study of terminological theory forms the theoretical-methodological and applied basis for the creation and improvement of specialised terminology in scientific, socio-political and educational activities.

3.1.2. Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation

The then Ministry of Public Works in Bulgaria undertook the first attempts to standardise the plans and profiles of windows and doors as early as 1932, but not all manufacturers adhered to these standards. As a result of these attempts, the Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation was founded in April 1938 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has its headquarters at the Chamber in Sofia. Over the years, standardisation activity in Bulgaria has undergone various forms of administration and has been placed under the control of various state bodies. In 1964, with the adoption of the first Standardisation Act, the Committee for Standardization and Metrology was established as a state body for the administration of national standardisation. The National Standardisation Act of 1999 transferred the administration, coordination and organisation of standardisation work to the Directorate for Standardisation of the State Agency for Standardisation and Metrology. With the amending and supplementation of the National Standardization Act in 2002, the Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation (BDS) was established as the successor to the former Directorate as an independent legal entity based in Sofia and financed from the state budget. The activities of the current Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation¹⁰ were regulated in 2005 by the new National Standardization Act. As a national standardisation organisation, the Bulgarian Standards Institute is entitled to represent Bulgaria’s interests in international and European standardisation organisations. Bulgaria has been a member of the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) since 1955 and a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which develops standards in the field of electrical engineering, electronics and related technologies, since 1958.

An essential part of creating and updating standards is the use of consistent terminology to describe the product or material in question, both in the standard itself and within the standards of a particular standardisation area.

3.1.3. Translation and Revision Centre and Bulgarian Translation Units at the European Union

The Translation and Revision Centre is an administrative structure established in 2001 under the supervision of the Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform and is part of the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria. The Centre was obliged to produce a uniform translation of the terminology of the Acquis communautaire. Later, after Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union, the activities of the Translation and Revision Centre were taken over by the Bulgarian language units of the Language department for Bulgarian, Italian and Maltese in the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission; the Bulgarian translation unit in the Translation Directorate of the European Parliament and the Bulgarian translation unit at the European Economic and Social Committee. The Bulgarian translation units of the European Union create the IATE¹¹ (Interactive Terminology for Europe), a terminology database used by the EU institutions. There are about 50,000 IATE terms for the Bulgarian language, which are linked to their translation equivalents in other European languages for which the same terms have been developed. The identification numbers of the IATE terms also refer to the corresponding EuroVoc¹² domains and sub-domains).

The tasks of translators also includes the creation of terminology databases (bilingual or multilingual) for integration into computer-aided translation systems. According to a non-representative survey, around 30% of translators in Bulgaria use terminology databases, which are often not available as open sources (Petrova-Lyubenova, 2022, p. 56). Therefore, it is common among translators in Bulgaria to create several temporary terminology databases that can be kept separately for specific purposes: for a given translator, a particular company, a particular specialised area, etc.

To summarise, there are two institutions in Bulgaria that deal with terminology planning, The Department of Terminology and Terminography is a linguistic body whose members (five to six) are terminologists and which commissions external experts in specific fields to compile terminological dictionaries. The Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation develops standards that may include detailed technical specifications (characteristics and requirements for products), production procedures, test methods and conformity assessments, and thus inevitably include terminology, some of which had to be standardised or even developed.

The three types of institutions: Terminology, Standardisation and Translation, have many common areas of work, but their efforts are not coordinated, and, if there are some relationships, it is on a personal basis. As a result, terminological decisions remain vertical rather than horizontal and are unable to take into account the systemic links between terminological resources and scientific fields.

3.2. Terminology research

Terminology research is generally the study of a group of terms, the exploration of new working methods, the creation of dictionaries, guides and manuals or the evaluation of the acceptability of terms in communities (Bhreathnach, 2012, p. 99).

The developments within the various projects of the Department of Terminology and Teminography are subject to the development of terminology theory with a special focus on the Bulgarian language – the study of general terminology theory and the identification of the peculiarities of Bulgarian terminology in cognitive-conceptual and linguistic terms (Popova, 1995, 2012; Popova et al., 1999; Petkova, 2013; Simeonova, 2016; etc.). In Bulgarian terminology research, the so-called complex approach is followed, in which the term is considered as a unity of conceptual, logical, semantic and formal structure (Popova, 2012). The conceptual and logical structure belongs to the classification scheme of the respective scientific or specialised field; the semantic and formal structure – to the classification system of linguistics. The content of the concept is understood to be the totality of knowledge about the object, and the meaning of the concept is understood to be that small part of the content, i.e. the knowledge about the object, which represents its most essential characteristics and which is necessary and sufficient for its identification, recognition and understanding. The meaning of the term in an abbreviated and generalised form is described and reproduced in its definition. As in lexicography, the definition must contain at least two essential characteristics.The one is generalising, i.e. it relates the object to a certain class of concepts, the other is differentiating, i.e. it distinguishes the given object from others.

Research in the field of terminology theory forms the theoretical, methodological and applied basis for the creation and improvement of specialised languages in scientific, political and pedagogical activities for Bulgarian.

3.3. Terminology standardisation

Standardisation is a representative selection of recommended terms that are used in a specific area, e.g. in education. As is well known, the international rules for the formation of modern terminology are standardised and summarised in the document “Teminological entries in standards” (ISO 10241-2:2012). Specifically, the principles for the formation of terms are dealt with in the document “Terminology work – Principles and methods” (ISO 704:2022). This document defines the following principles:

(a) Transparency. A term is transparent if the concept it denotes can be at least partially guessed without a definition;

(b) Consistency. The terminology in each subject area should be a coherent terminological system that corresponds to the system of concepts;

(c) Appropriateness. The proposed term should adhere to known, established patterns of meaning in the respective linguistic community;

(d) Linguistic economy. The term should be as concise as possible;

(e) Derivability and combinability. Terms should allow new words to be formed with them;

(f) Linguistic correctness. The term should conform to the phonological, morphological and morphosyntactic norms of the target language.

All these principles are followed in Bulgarian terminographic practise, and standardisation is defined to mean all deliberate interventions in terminology in order to bring it into line with the requirements of a particular scientific field as well as with logical, linguistic and communicative requirements (Popova, 1994, pр. 4 – 6). In this context, two aspects can be distinguished: the standardisation of the terminology itself and the standardisation of its definition. The standardisation of the definition refers to the specification of the scientific concept designated by the term and the creation of the definition in accordance with recognised conventions. When standardising the term, it is necessary to find the most accurate linguistic unit and to normalise it in relation to the structural features, word formation laws and spelling rules of the standard Bulgarian language. Normalisation is particularly necessary when adapting foreign words to the structure of the Bulgarian language.

3.4. Terminology dissemination

The overall aim of dissemination is to enable language users to utilise terminology resources. The main activity of the Department of Terminology and Terminography is the production of terminological dictionaries that summarise terminological practise in a given field: Art, literature, socio-political sciences, etc. The following dictionaries have already been published: Dictionary of Natural Science Terms (Popova et al., 2006), Dictionary of Humanities Terms (Popova et al., 2007), Dictionary of Social and Political Science Terms (Popova et al., 2012) and Dictionary of Economic Terms (Popova et al., 2020).

At the same time, various institutions (public authorities, university professors, translation agencies, etc.) create and publish terminological dictionaries, term lists, ontologies, etc. for their needs (Stefanova et al., 2015; Gornenski & Marinova, 2022, etc.). Specialized dictionaries and terminology databases can be bilingual, usually with English as a second language (Tsakova, 2012; Yarullina, 2018; Kancheva, 2020 – 2021, etc.), but they can also contain information on terms in multiple languages, e.g. IATE, the multilingual terminological database used for translations within European institutions.

Terminological dictionaries contain one or more of the following components (Popova, 2016, p. 71): the scientific domain of the term; the term entry; lexical-grammatical information (i.e. part of speech); formal-linguistic information (grammatical features); formal-linguistic information (grammatical characteristics); function; etymological data; compatibility information; pragmatic parameters (features of use and degree of distribution); illustrative parameters; registration parameters (date of registration of the term in question); interpretation parameters; parameters of the conceptual-semantic system; parameters of the lexical-semantic system; temporal parameters; metadialectal parameters (terms of a particular scientific school); idiolectal parameters (terms of a particular scientist); territorial parameters; categorical parameters; information on sources.

Online dissemination of terminology is most effective and academic dictionaries are available electronically on demand, while other resources such as IATE are available online for users to search and download. It should be noted that not all online terminology resources are of the same quality. Professionals should therefore be advised to use academic dictionaries or sources with an authorship or institution that offers a guarantee of quality.

In addition to dictionaries, terminology databases and terminology lists, other dissemination options are also available. The Department of Terminology and Terminography offers advice on various terminological issues: Definition of terms, appropriate form, etc. This advice is given in the form of written answers to questions from institutions or individuals.

            The Institute for Bulgarian Language regularly includes a terminology section in the thematic focus of its annual international conference. As part of the “Translating Europe” seminar series, which has been running since 2014, several seminars are organised that deal with the challenges of the new Bulgarian language: Foreign words, translation, terminology and language practise.

3.5. Terminology evaluation

Work on terminology research can be measured against a list of success criteria. These criteria could include measures such as adherence to terminological standards, formal and methodological consistency, accuracy of information, correct mapping of terms and equivalents to concepts, and correct spelling and grammar (e.g. “Terminology work – Principles and methods” (ISO 704:2022); “Management of terminology resources – Data categories – Part 1: Specifications” (ISO 12620-1:2022); “Management of terminology resources – Data categories – Part 2: Repositories” (ISO 12620-2:2022), etc.). Terminology resources should also be assessed for quality by checking the databases for accuracy and consistency against defined performance indicators that ensure the quality and consistency of the data. For example, the dictionaries published by the Institute of Bulgarian Language are edited by a terminology professor and experts in the respective fields.

3.6. Training

Training includes the training of terminologists and may also include the training of professionals who (will) work closely with terminology. Training is important to improve the quality and utilisation of terminology resources and to promote understanding of the use and meaning of terminology. In the last ten years, for example, four PhD theses on terminology have been successfully defended at the Institute for Bulgarian Language and the PhD students concerned have linked their professional development with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the universities.

Terminology is one of the topics of the annual international conference of the Institute for Bulgarian Language, and both the Institute and the language departments of various universities organise workshops on terminological issues.

 

4. Relationships with other languages

In the last 30 years, Bulgarian has adopted new words and word senses, many of which come from English, but also many others from other European and non-European languages. In the dictionaries for new words in Bulgarian (Pernishka et al., 2010, Blagoeva et al., 2021), which record new words and terminology from the last 20 and 30 years respectively, around 7000 new lexical units have been registered. Around a quarter of these are borrowings from English.

The vocabulary borrowed from English can be found in various terminological areas such as: computer and internet (блокчейн [blockchain], пермалинк [permalink], хаштаг [hashtag]), economy and finance (кръгова икономика [circular economy], кръстосана продажба [cross-selling]), society and politics (кохезионна политика [cohesion policy], социално включване [social inclusion]), sport (дайвинг [diving], кросфит [crossfit]), hairdressing and cosmetics (екстеншън [hair extension], микроблейдинг [microblading]), technology (дрон [drone], круизконтрол [cruise control]), tourism (олинклузив [all inclusive], ултраолинклузив [ultraall inclusive]), etc.

A smaller number of new loanwords come from French (киш [quiche], тарт [tart]) or Italian (балсамико [balsamic], мoкачино [macacchino], чабата [ciabatta]). Individual loanwords also come from German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and some Eastern European languages (Blagoeva & Kolkovska, 2021, p. 137). The influx of English borrowings can also be seen in common words – e.g. тостер [toaster], стикер [sticker], бодигард [bodyguard], and in youth slang (Blagoeva et al., 2012, p. 53).

The dictionaries of new words also list new word senses, most of which were created under the influence of English. These are semantic calques, many of which fall into the field of computer terminology: мишка [mouse], папка [folder], гласова поща [voicemail], etc. The influence of English is not always obvious in these cases, as it usually concerns the meaning of the words and not their formal composition.

If we analyse the number of new words in the last three dictionaries of new words, the first of which dates back to 2001 (Pernishka, 2001), we can see that there is currently no trend towards the increased introduction of new words into our language. Some of the words are labelled as undesirable in the dictionaries because their use is not recommended. This is usually the case when there is already an established word in the language and the newly introduced word does not denote a new concept and its structure is considered to be outside the grammatical structure of the Bulgarian language. For example: шортлист [shortlist] instead of кратък списък [short list], съпорт [support] instead of подкрепа [support], etc.

 

5. Formation of new terms

In modern Bulgarian terminology, the models for the formation of new terms function on a morphological, semantic and syntactic level as well as in their combination. The formation of nouns and adjectives is the most widespread, and in most cases new words are formed using word formation mechanisms already exist in the language through suffixation and prefixation (Blagoeva & Kolkovska, 2021, p. 134–135): тръмпизъм [trumpism], детоксикатор [detoxifier], реинтелектуализация [re-intellectualisation], деглобализация [deglobalisation]. Affixoids (prefixoids and suffixoids), components that are not true affixes (Avramova, 2003, p. 33–34), but stand between the actual affixal morphemes and the word roots), are also used: контрасанкция [counter sanction], миниуебкамера [miniwebcam].

The formation of new compound words (mainly nouns and adjectives) by composition (combining two or more words into a single compound word with or without a linking morpheme): електроавтобус [electric bus], вятърно-соларен [wind-solar], екоадминистрация [eco-administration].

Language is a dynamic system in which concepts can constantly evolve, especially in scientific and professional fields. This linguistic development takes place through complex processes of semantic transfer and adaptation, in particular through the transformation of existing words into specialised terminology.

The process of terminologisation involves a semantic reinterpretation of existing words to meet the requirements of the scientific field (совалка [loom shuttle, space shuttle]), while reterminologisation involves the transfer of terms between scientific fields that are given new technical definitions (ракета [rocket, tennis racket]).

Many new meanings are directly influenced by English language models by modelling foreign linguistic structures with the internal resources of the language (semantic calques): облак [claud], големи данни [big data], хибриден [hybrid].

Multi-word terms are linguistic constructions that function on several levels: Structurally, they combine two or more words into coherent semantic units; the collective meaning is derived from the individual word meanings and their relationships to each other (in some cases idiosyncrasies may occur); and the whole expression functions as a technical term within a particular professional or scientific domain. Newly formed multi-word terms occur mainly as: Noun phrases with adjectival modifiers (безвъглеродна икономика [carbon-free economy], интерактивна дъска [interactive whiteboard], социално изключване [social exclusion]), noun phrases with noun modifiers (допинг контрол [doping contro], бизнес климат []); prepositional noun phrases (икономика на знанието [knowledge-based economy], интернет на нещата [internet of things]).

Domain experts and terminologists develop new terms in two ways: direct borrowing – adoption of complete, ready-made terms from other languages; adaptive adoption – modification of terms using various conversion techniques, including graphic adaptations; phonetic modifications; grammatical transformations; semantic reinterpretations.

 

Conclusion and future prospects for terminology planning

As technology continues to evolve and the number of new terms that need to be translated and adopted into different languages (including Bulgarian) explodes, maintaining terminological consistency is not only a matter of linguistic accuracy, but also a matter of ensuring that professionals have consistent systems of concepts linked to clear and consistent terminology. New terms are constantly emerging and existing terminology may be subject to changes in meaning or context, meaning that individual terms may have different meanings in different fields and existing terms may take on new meanings.

In this context, a terminology policy in Bulgaria must aim to complement the terminological work of terminology registration and standardisation with a common vision for a cross-domain terminology and shared holdings of multilingual terminology. In addition to coordinating terminology alignment and standardisation efforts, the future prospects for terminology planning in Bulgaria should be seen in the context of modern technologies (including artificial intelligence).

At the national level, there is no comprehensive terminological database that is regularly updated with new terms in a standardised way. With a large technological database, especially when new resources or terms are constantly being added, continuous maintenance and updating is required. The terms must be related to each other; contradictory terms must be harmonised in consultation with experts. Evidences of the actual use of terms may lead to certain cases being reopened. Such a database may also need to be updated, reorganised or redesigned to respond to requests from experts or users, or to keep pace with technological change.

Terminology management systems, translation memories and termonological databases are used in the translation industry. Terminology management systems are specialised databases designed for the consistent management of multilingual terminologies, consistently offering end-to-end standardisation, contextual clarity and a quickly auditable change history. Such tools need to be used in general when working with terminology to ensure standardisation and clear understanding of the same terms in different languages.

The main institutions dealing with terminology in Bulgaria work in isolation; the same applies to translation agencies and public administrations, which cannot be said to share translation memories and terminological data, even if they are public.

To summarise, the creation of an online and downloadable terminological database must be coordinated at national level to ensure the consistency of terminology and its regular updating with new terms. This terminological database(s) needs to be synchronised with databases such as IATE and other useful terminological resources that exist for the Bulgarian language.

 

NOTES

1. National Statistical I Available from: https://www.nsi.bg/en/. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
2. Bulgarian Constitution. Availabe from: https://www.parliament.bg/en/const. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
3. Pre-school and School Education Act. Availabe from: http://lll.mon.bg/uploaded_files/ZAKON_za_preducilisnoto_i_ucilisnoto_obrazovanie_EN.pdf. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
4. Institute for Bulgarian Language “ Lyubomir Andreychin”. Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
5. Language Counselling Service of the Institute for Bulgarian Language. Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg/en/informatsiya/uslugi/ezikovi_spravki_i_konsultatsii/. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
6. Bulgarian Language Resources Online Platform. Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
7. Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language. Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg/rbe/. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
8. Bulgarian Etimological Dictiobary. Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg/en/ber/. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
9. Written Word Remains. Write Correctly! Availabe from: https://ibl.bas.bg/napisanotoostava/. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
10. Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation. Availabe from: https://bds-bg.org. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
11. Interactive Terminology for Europe. Availabe from: https://iate.europa.eu. [Viewed 2025-11-20].
12. Availabe from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu. [Viewed 2025-11-20].

 

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Prof. Svetla Koeva, DSc.

ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5947-8736

WoS Researcher ID: FFE-8635-2022

Scopus Author ID: 23090522300

Institute for Bulgarian Language

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Sofia, Bulgaria

E-mail: svetla@dcl.bas.bg

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