Съпоставителният анализ на белоруския и българския език в рамките на родствените отношения между двата езика

Contrastive analysis is becoming increasingly popular, although it has been used in the past, especially in combination with the comparative-historical approach. Byelorussian and Bulgarian have received little attention in this respect. The article raises some general problems of the comparison between the two genetically related languages. Byelorussian is a typical inflecting North Slavic language while Bulgarian is predominantly analytical. The first has been subject to bilingual contacts and convergence to the east and west, while the second, to multilingual Balkan influences. For the first, phonetic contact and syntactic separation have been more important, versus Bulgarian grammatical isolation. The differentiation of the two languages is largely based on socio-linguistic factors. Some tentative forecasts for future developments are also offered.