Thracian Myth in Bulgaria

The fact that ‘Thracologists’, who have controlled the academic institutions in Bulgaria since the 1970’s, continue to insist that there was never a Celtic presence on the territory of today’s Bulgaria, despite extensive archaeological, historical and numismatic evidence to the contrary, has led to a ‘domino effect’ in other disciplines, including linguistics. The continuing insistence that the area of modern Bulgaria was inhabited by a ‘pure Thracian population’ in the pre-Roman period has meant that linguists in the region have automatically presumed all ‘native’ personal names to be Thracian. However, it is perfectly clear that studies into the Thracian (/Dacian) language in Bulgaria (and Romania) since the 1950’s have systematically included not only Thracian personal names, but also those of Thracian Celts. The fact that the pool of data used by linguists to draw conclusions on the language of the Thracians has included a large amount of Celtic anthroponymic (and topographic) elements has logically contaminated all such research, thus rendering all conclusions based on this data, including the Indo-European nature of the Thracian language, invalid.