Banat Bulgarians

The Banat Bulgarians (Banat Bulgarian: palćene or banátsći balgare; common Bulgarian: банатски българи, banatski balgari) are a distinct Bulgarian minority group which settled in the 18th century in the region of the Banat, which was then ruled by the Habsburgs and after World War I was divided between Romania, Serbia, and Hungary. Unlike most other Bulgarians, they are Roman Catholic by confession and stem from groups of Paulicians and Roman Catholics from modern northern and northwestern Bulgaria.

Banat Bulgarians speak a distinctive codified form of the Eastern Bulgarian vernacular with much lexical influence from the other languages of the Banat. Although strongly acculturated to the Central European region, they have preserved their Bulgarian identity. Since the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878, many have returned to Bulgaria and founded separate villages there.