National scholarly centre for comprehensive study of the Bulgarian dialects spoken on the territory of Bulgaria and outside the country's borders at all language levels.
     Through the methods of linguistic geography and areal linguistics, the big variety and richness of dialects are presented as well as the archaic peculiarities preserved in them. The exploration gives the possibility to reveal a number of specific features of Bulgarian as a basis for the national identity of the Bulgarian people.
      The research projects in the Department are subjected to its strategy - a thorough and deep study of Bulgarian at the dialectal level based on a rich and authentic material of the folk speech alive in the whole language territory and consistent with the newest achievements in the field of linguistics. The research on the dialects outside the country is closely connected with the problems of their Bulgarian character and the unity of the Bulgarian language in modern and historical aspects.