Greeks in Bulgaria constitute the eighth-largest ethnic minority in Bulgaria. They number 1,356 according to the 2011 census. They are estimated at around 25,000 by Greek organizations and around 28,500 by the Greek government. These larger estimates include the Sarakatsani community, the descendants of the post-WWII Greek emigrants, and other Greek citizens living in Bulgaria as students, businessmen, consorts etc. Today, Greeks mostly live in the large urban centres like Sofia and Plovdiv, but also in the coastal zone.
Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George in Sofia, Bulgaria
A Greek tombstone from 1775 (Burgas Archaeological Museum)
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.
Idealised portrayal of the author Homer
Greek inscription in Cypriot syllabic script