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'Bulgar' (also 'Bolğar' and 'Proto-Bulgarian') was the language of the Bulgars, now extinct. The classification of Bulgar is unclear. There are various suppositions about its origins. The linguistic theory is that it was a Turkic language. Some Bulgarian historians have recently linked it to the Pamiri languages of the Iranian language group instead, though the inscriptions show the language to be Turkic and clearly related to Chuvash. Bulgar is assumed to have been used in Great Bulgaria, later in Volga Bulgaria, and in Danubian Bulgaria. The language became extinct in Danubian Bulgaria in the 9th century as the Bulgar nobility became gradually Slavicized through intermarriages with the Slavic majority there.
The population of Volga Bulgaria spoke a Turkic language, known as Bulgar, which is a variety of the language of the Danubian Bulgarians. [1] That language persisted until the 13th or the 14th century. It adopted a number of words and constructions from the Kypchak language and ultimately gave rise to the Chuvash language. Chuvash is classified as the only surviving member of a separate "Bulgar" branch of the Turkic languages, characterized by sound correspondences such as Bulgar ''r'' versus Common Turkic ''z'' and Bulgar ''l'' versus Common Turkic ''š''. Likewise, the Old Tatar language, despite not belonging to the same branch as Chuvash and Bulgar, is believed to have absorbed elements of the Bulgar language; thus, the language spoken by the present-day Volga Tatars would represent a mixture of Kypchak and Bulgar.
Inscriptions in Bulgar (Proto-Bulgarian) are found in Pliska, the first capital of Danube Bulgaria and in the rock churches near the village of Murfatlar, Romania. Some of these inscriptions are written with Greek characters, others with runes similar to the Orkhon script. Most of them have private character--oaths, dedications, grave stones and some were court inventories. Although attempts at decipherment have been made, none of them has gained wide acceptance. These inscriptions are found along with other official ones written in Greek language. The rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire preserved Greek as the official state language until the 9th century when it was replaced by Old Slavonic. Likewise, there are a number of surviving grave inscriptions etc. from Volga Bulgaria; they are written with Arabic characters (along with the continuing use of Turkic runes), and are largely decipherable.

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★ Britannica Online - The article describes the position of Bulgar and Chuvash in the classification of the Turkic languages.

★ Мудрак, О.А. Заметки о языке и культуре дунайских булгар. 2005, М., РГГУ, Аспекты компаративистики, в. 1 (a Turkologist's take on Danube Bulgar inscriptions and the Bulgar calendar, in Russian). The article contains a tentative decipherment of inscriptions based on the Turkic hypothesis.

★ Rashev, Rasho. 1992. On the origin of the Proto-Bulgarians. p. 23-33 in: Studia protobulgarica et mediaevalia europensia. In honour of Prof. V. Beshevliev, Veliko Tarnovo, 1992. (A Bulgarian archeologist's proposal). The author concedes that the ruling elite of the Bulgars was Turkic-speaking as evidenced by the inscriptions etc., but stipulates that the bulk of the population was Iranian.

★ Inscriptions and Alphabet of the Proto-Bulgarians, by Bulgarian economic historian Peter Dobrev An attempt to decipher the inscriptions. The author, who is not a professional linguist, seeks to prove that the Bulgar language was Iranian/Palmirian, although he also believes to find Sumerian, Assyrian and Sanskrit words in it.

★ The language of the Asparukh and Kuber Bulgars, Vocabulary and grammar by Peter Dobrev. An attempt to reconstruct the language by the same author.