Genetics of Bulgaria

Bulgarian genetic make-up consists of the following haplogroups:

E1b: 26,0%, Pre-slavic Balkan population (Thracians, Illyrians, Macedonians)

I2a: 16,8%, Sclavenians (South Slavic)

J2: 16,0%, Mediteran; (Greeks, Romans…)  J2 can be found in many other Caucasian populations, including the Azeri (30%), the Georgians (27%), the Kumyks (25%), and the Armenians (22%); while Russian Tatars have 16.5 %. Nevertheless, it is very unlikely that J2 haplogroups originated in the Caucasus because of the low genetic diversity in the region. Bulgarian J2 is of the Balkan branch and it has been there since the Late Glacial and immediate postglacial periods, so it belongs to pre-Slavic Balkan people.

R1a: 14,5%, “North” Slavic. Most common among Lusatians Sorbs and Poles and other western or eastern Slavs. Among the South Slavic population, I2a is more common.

G2a: 8,4%. G is subdivided as G1 and G2. The haplogroup G1 is more common in Argyn and Madjar tribes of Kazakhs whereas G2a is more common in Tatar and Nogay tribes of Kazakhstan. On the other hand, G2a is also very often found in Caucasian ethnicities, many people connect it with Sarmatians or Celts. In Turkey, G has a frequency of 11% among Turkish males, whereas this percentage is around 18% in Azerbaijan. It probably came with Proto-Bulgarians, my assumption is that Volga Bulgarians were Sarmatian related people. Hungarians have 7,2% of this haplogroup, the rest of the Balkan doesn’t have that much G as Bulgaria or Hungary. I believe that it came with Proto-Bulgarians which were related to Magyar people and I will explain why as you continue reading.

R1b: M269 4.4%, Anatolian

I1: 3,8%, North European, Teutonic, Scandinavian

J1: 2,3%, Arab

R1b P312: 1.6%, Atlantic-Celtic

R1b U152: 1.6%, Italo-Celtic

H: 1,5%, Gipsy

Rb DF27: 0.8%. Celtic

R1b U106: 0.8%, Germanic

L: 0,8%, Southwest Asia, the Kalash people, found in Baluchistan, and among Pashtuns. 0,33 % of it can be found among Magyars.

T: 0,8%, Old Egyptians. 0,98% among Magyars, so I believe that it came with Proto-Bulgarians as well.

Bulgarians have haplogroups which are not so typical for other Balkan Slavic populations, but they are found among Magyars. It is likely that the Proto-Bulgarians were a similar group of people like Magyars (not Huns, but Magyars). Slavic haplogroups are the most common in the Sofia and Montana region (40%). Slavic markers are stronger among that part of the Bulgarian population which speaks the Shop dialect. Varna is another Slavic enclave where Slavic markers are at the 40% level. Central Bulgaria shows a very high percentage of E-V13 (pre-Slavic Balkan population): Razgrad 38%, Haskovo 29,3%, Loveč 24,2%. A percentage similar to that can be found among Albanians too.

The Razgrad area shows very little Slavic traits, so maybe we can find the Proto-Bulgarian haplogroup there. G2a-U1 is present among 9% of Razgrad people, and nowhere else in Europe except among Hungarians. The haplogroup is in high levels in the Caucasus area, especially among Balkars (28,9%), who could be connected to Proto-Bulgarians. In terms of history, the earliest people among the well-documented civilizations that inhabited present-day Bulgaria are the Thracians, whose cultural legacy is still evident in the country, especially in its southern part. Two other populations that played important roles in the Bulgarian ethnogenesis were the Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians, who arrived almost simultaneously in the Early Middle Ages, which means that the Bulgarian nation was based on a mix of Thracians, Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians.

Since R1a and I2a are common among all Slavic people, and E1b and J2 are common among non-Slavic Balkan people (Greeks, Albanians and Romanians), those haplogroups definitely came with pre-Slavic Balkan population and the third biggest group of Bulgarian haplogroups has come with Proto-Bulgarians. Those haplogroups are not common either among other Balkan Slavic countries or non-Slavic Balkan people, and they are visible only among Hungarians. This means that Proto-Bulgarians and Magyars share the same ancestry.

OLD NATIONS STRUCTURE:

Thracians and other pre-Slavic Balkan people: 46.4%
Slavic: 31,3%
Proto-Bulgarian: 10%
Celto-Germanic: 8.6%
Arab: 2,3%
Gipsy: 1,5%

SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER PEOPLE (RANDOMLY SELECTED):

Greeks: 78,7 %
Macedonians: 76,9 %
Romanians: 74,8%
Serbs: 69,4%
Hungarians: 66,59%
Russian Tatars: 55,4%
Russians: 45,8%
Poles: 45,7

Modern Bulgarians are more similar to non-Slavic Balkan people than to the Balkan Slavic people. If we take 50% of Serbian or Croatian genetics and mix it with 50% of Greek genetics, the result would most probably be similar to the result of an average Bulgarian. Genetics shows us that Bulgarians are a transitional Mediterran-east/central European people, just like North Greeks or North Italians.

BONUS
The Language of Proto-Bulgarians

The original homeland of the Proto-Bulgarians, called Balhara by Indians and Bactria by Greeks, was situated in the foothills of the Pamir and Hindu Kush Mountains. In antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Proto-Bulgarians founded three large and stable states in Europe: the first one was called Old Great Bulgaria (Η Παλαιά Μεγάλη Βουλγαρία) by the scholars of the Eastern Roman Empire and was situated in the area delimited by the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Dnieper River. Subsequently, and almost simultaneously, two other large states were established: Volga-Kama Bulgaria and Asparukh (Danubian) Bulgaria.

Novel analyses of Proto-Bulgarian epigraphic monuments, especially of the major historical inscription – “the List of the Bulgarian Khans” – have revealed that the Proto-Bulgarian language did not belong to the Turkic linguistic family. Therefore, leading Turkologists do not consider Proto-Bulgarians to be a Turkic people, which can also be attested by the adoption of distinctive calendar systems by the two groups. Another point of difference is that the grammatical features of the Proto-Bulgarian language gravitate towards the Pamir languages of the East Iranian group, which belong to the Indo-European branch. Despite its Slavic basis, the contemporary Bulgarian language contains many traces of the Proto-Bulgarian language such as the kinship terminology system, an abundance of doubles for the same notion, a series of names of body parts, objects of material culture, and a great number of verbs and adjectives that are not found in either Slavic or Turkic languages, but are widely present in the Pamir languages.