Phonological and Morphological Characteristics
- Pronunciation of Old Church Slavonic ѣ (yat) as я/е (ʲa/ɛ) – бял/бели (as in Standard Bulgarian)
- щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd) for Proto-Slavic *tʲ/*dʲ (as in Standard Bulgarian) - нощ, между (night, between)
- ъ (ə) for Old Church Slavonic ѫ (yus) and ъ (ə) (as in Standard Bulgarian) - мъж, сън (man, sleep)
- Strong reduction of unstressed broad vowels /a/, /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, which are usually transformed into ə, /i/ and /u/. In contrast, Standard Bulgarian allows only moderate reduction of /a/ and /ɔ/ and does not allow any reduction /ɛ/, i.e. the formal norm is a compromise between Eastern and Western Bulgarian (Macedonian)
- Full mutation of a into e after a soft (palatal) consonant and ж /ʒ/, ш /ʃ/, ч /t͡ʃ/ and дж /d͡ʒ/, before a soft syllable: жаба-жеби (frog-frogs), чаша-чеши (cup-cups), пиян-пиени (drunk sing. - drunk pl.). This is not accepted in Standard Bulgarian, which has instead adopted Western Bulgarian жаба-жаби, чаша-чаши, пиян-пияни
For the phonological and morphological characteristics of the individual dialects included in the Balkan dialects, cf. individual articles.
Read more about this topic: Balkan Dialects Of Bulgarian