The Bulgarian term народ (people) is ambiguous. It can mean the population of a country. Or it can oppose the populace to the elite. Or it can signify a human community that differs from its neighboring communities in a number of ways. Language boundaries are often different from cultural ones; cultures do not coincide with anthropological characteristics etc. Peoples are united in ethnic communities through the idea of common origin, be it real or imagined. The article argues that every nation represents a unique distinctive combination of genes, culture and language and none of these components per se determines the national identity.
Key words: Sino-Caucasian languages, vigesimal numeral system, haplogroup G (Y-DNA), national identity, language shift.
