The Turks in Bulgaria are descendants of Turkic settlers who came from Anatolia across the narrows of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule.

[8][9] Other Other minority languages spoken are Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Tatar, Greek, Romanian and Aromanian (the latter two often collectively referred to as "Vlach" in Bulgaria).

According to a Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2024, English was the most commonly known foreign language in Bulgaria (29% claimed workable knowledge of it), followed by Russian (14%), and German (5%).

[11] This is because many of the people who learned Russian at school are from an older generation and some are now deceased or as time has elapsed, have forgotten how to speak the language.

When asked which two languages, other than their mother tongue, would be the most useful for children to learn in their future, an overwhelming majority of respondents said English (81%), with German coming second (20%), and Russian and Spanish jointly third (7% each).