What is the difference between Bulgar and Bulgarian?

Answer 1

Simple Answer:

Bulgars are a Turkic Tribe that conquered and ruled Bulgaria. The Bulgarians are the Slavic and Thracian Roman peoples who lived in the area and remained the most populous population. Eventually the Bulgars were absorbed into the general Bulgarian population and lost any non-Slavic distinctiveness.

Complex Answer:

There are numerous non-homogenous ethnicities (see below for a discussion of a non-homogenous ethnicity). This usually happens when a conquering tribe overtakes the land of sedentary people and rules over them. Usually, the conquerors impose or impart their "ethnic qualities" on the conquered people. In Bulgaria, the reverse happened and the conquerors became a part of the indigenous peoples.

The Bulgars were a Turkic/Scythian/Sarmatian mix of a tribe that lived in what is now southern Ukraine. Under the leadership of Khan Asparukh in 680 CE, between 30,000-50,000 Bulgars moved out of "Ukraine" and into the southern Balkans and created the First Bulgarian Empire in what is now Bulgaria and Romania. The Byzantine Empire recognized this new empire in 681 CE.

The Bulgars were outnumbered by the Slavic and Thracian Roman peoples who were indigenous to the land and who began to identify themselves by the name of the Empire: Bulgarians. Over the next three centuries, the Bulgar conquerors began to take on Slavic characteristics like Slavic language (as opposed to Turkic or Scythian Language) and Byzantine Rite Christianity (the forerunner to Orthodox Christianity). Eventually, the Bulgars became indistinguishable from the Bulgarians they had conquered.

Non-Homogenous Ethnic Groups

Arabs and numerous other ethnic groups are not actually homogenous. They are composed of two historical groups that intermarried and created a unified culture. In the Arab case, Arab nomads from Arabia conquered the Levant region and brought it under their rule. During that period, those Levantines who converted to Islam began to take on the same mannerisms as the foreign Arabs who had conquered them. They began to speak the same language, dress in the same clothes, and believe in the same general ideologies. This process is well-documented by Arabs and is called Arabization or Ta3arib (تعريب). This is why the Jews and the Christians of the Upper Middle East (the Levant and Mesopotamia) often do not consider themselves Arabs. Unlike their Levantine brothers whose conversion to Islam made them more susceptible to Arabization, they retained their pre-Arabized ethnic sensibility. Therefore, although Levantines call themselves Arabs, the majority do not and should not have lineages that go back to Arabia, but to pre-Arab ancestors in the Levant region, likely Jews, Christians, and Pagans in the Byzantine Empire.