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( Bulgarians)
over 9 million The Bulgarians (Bulgarian ???????, balgari) are a South Slavic people generally associated with the Republic of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian language. Emigration has resulted in Bulgarian minorities or immigrant communities in a number of other countries. Geographically Bulgaria is situated on the bridgehead between Europe and Asia. The Bulgarian DNA data suggest that a human demographic expansion occurred sequentially in the Middle East, through Anatolia, to the rest of Europe (Bulgaria included). The rate estimates date of this expansion in times ranging around 50,000 years ago, corresponding to the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe. [43] From a historical angle, Bulgarians have descended from three main ethnic groups which mixed on the Balkans during the 6th - 10th century local tribes, including the Thracians; Slavic invaders, who gave their language to the modern Bulgarians; and the ancient Bulgars, from whom the ethnonym and the early statehood were inherited. In physical appearance, the Bulgarian population is characterized by the features of the southern European anthropological type[44] with some additional influences. Genetically, modern Bulgarians are more closely related to other Balkan populations (Macedonians, Greeks, Romanians) than to the rest of the Europeans.[45][46] The Bulgarians also have some similarities with other Mediterranean populations such as Armenians, Italians, Anatolians, Cretans and Sardinians.[47][48] The ethnic contribution of the indigenous Thracian and Daco-Getic population, who had lived on the territory of modern Bulgaria and established here the Odrysian kingdom has been long debated among the scientists during the 20th century. Some recent genetic studies reveal that these peoples have indeed made a significant contribution to the genes of the modern Bulgarian population, which is however comparable, or even less than, to the contribution to other Balkan (Albanians, Greeks, Romanians) and Italian groups.[49] The ancient languages of the local people had already gone extinct before the arrival of the Slavs, and their cultural influence was highly reduced due to the repeated barbaric invasions on the Balkans during the early Middle Ages by Goths, Celts, Huns, and Sarmatians, accompanied by persistent hellenization, romanisation and later slavicisation. The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries in 3rd century BC. They had established a state on part of the territory of modern Bulgaria with capital Tylis, which they ruled for over a century.
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