Czech language

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Czech
čeština, český jazyk
Native toCzech Republic
EthnicityCzechs
Native speakers
10.7 million (2015)[1]
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)
Language codes
ISO 639-1cs
ISO 639-2cze (B)
ces (T)
ISO 639-3ces
Glottologczec1258
Linguasphere53-AAA-da < 53-AAA-b...-d
(varieties: 53-AAA-daa to 53-AAA-dam)
IETFcs[4]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Czech (

Latin: lingua Bohemica), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script.[5] Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of high mutual intelligibility, as well as to Polish to a lesser degree.[7] Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German
.

The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the

interdialect throughout most of Bohemia. The dialects spoken in Moravia are considerably more varied than the dialects of Bohemia.[8] A popular misconception holds that eastern Moravian dialects are closer to Slovak than Czech, but this is incorrect; in fact, the opposite is true, and certain dialects in far western Slovakia exhibit features more akin to standard Czech than to standard Slovak.[8]

Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising ten

raised alveolar trill, which is known to occur as a phoneme in only a few other languages, represented by the grapheme ř
.

Classification

Language-tree graph
Classification of Czech within the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Czech and Slovak make up a "Czech–Slovak" subgroup.
Further information:
Czech-Slovak languages and West Slavic languages

Czech is a member of the

Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is the most closely related language to Czech, followed by Polish and Silesian.[9]

The West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by a more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below).[9]

History

Main article: History of the Czech language
See also: History of the Czech lands

Medieval/Old Czech

A Gothic-style book with ornate, flowery designs on the cover
The Bible of Kralice was the first complete translation of the Bible into the Czech language from the original languages. Its six volumes were first published between 1579 and 1593.

The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used. The function of the written language was initially performed by Old Slavonic written in Glagolitic, later by Latin written in Latin script.

Around the 7th century, the

Czech-Slovak group within West Slavic began around that time, marked among other things by its use of the voiced velar fricative consonant (/ɣ/)[10] and consistent stress on the first syllable.[11]

The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete Bible translation, the Leskovec-Dresden Bible, also dates to this period.[12] Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities.[13]

Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. Jan Hus contributed significantly to the standardization of Czech orthography, advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after the spoken language.[12]

Early Modern Czech

There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century. In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on Western Slovak dialects.[14][15]

The publication of the

Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries as it was used as a model for the standard language.[16]

In 1615, the Bohemian

Habsburgs in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years' War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among the upper classes.[17]

Modern Czech

In a detailed pencil sketch, a middle-aged man in a suit looks idly into the distance.
Josef Dobrovský, whose writing played a key role in reviving Czech as a written language
See also: Czech National Revival

The modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century.[18] By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period have no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty.[19] Sometime before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned a distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak.[20]

With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century, Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through the 17th centuries, rebelling against the

Latin languages).[21] Czech philologists studied sixteenth-century texts, advocating the return of the language to high culture.[22] This period is known as the Czech National Revival[23] (or Renaissance).[22]

During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian

descriptive, and did not think Czech had a realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, Josef Jungmann and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival.[23] Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, í in place of the former j and j in place of g), the use of t (rather than ti) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German).[20] These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak.[24] Modern scholars disagree about whether the conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use.[23]

Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread, informally used interdialectal variety), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of the language.[25]

Geographic distribution

Map of Vojvodina, a province of Serbia, with Czech in official use in one southeastern municipality
Official use of Czech in Vojvodina, Serbia (in light blue)

Czech is spoken by about 10 million residents of the Czech Republic.[17][26] A Eurobarometer survey conducted from January to March 2012 found that the first language of 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest proportion of a population in the European Union (behind Greece and Hungary).[27]

As the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of the European Union since 2004), Czech is one of the EU's official languages and the 2012 Eurobarometer survey found that Czech was the foreign language most often used in Slovakia.[27] Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012 European Day of Languages. The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were the Czech Republic (98.77 percent), Slovakia (24.86 percent), Portugal (1.93 percent), Poland (0.98 percent) and Germany (0.47 percent).[28]

Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it is a recognized minority language in Slovakia, Slovak citizens who speak only Czech may communicate with the government in their language to the extent that Slovak speakers in the Czech Republic may do so.[29]

United States

See also:
Czech Texan
Praha, Texas

Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is a

language spoken at home (besides English) in Valley, Butler and Saunders Counties, Nebraska and Republic County, Kansas. With the exception of Spanish (the non-English language most commonly spoken at home nationwide), Czech was the most common home language in more than a dozen additional counties in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, North Dakota and Minnesota.[31] As of 2009, 70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, after Turkish and before Swedish).[32]

Phonology

Main article: Czech phonology
Spoken Czech

Vowels

A Czech vowel chart

Standard Czech contains ten basic vowel phonemes, and three diphthongs. The vowels are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/, and their long counterparts /aː/, /ɛː/, /iː/, /oː/ and /uː/. The diphthongs are /ou̯/, /au̯/ and /ɛu̯/; the last two are found only in loanwords such as auto "car" and euro "euro".[33]

In Czech orthography, the vowels are spelled as follows:

  • Short: a, e/ě, i/y, o, u
  • Long: á, é, í/ý, ó, ú/ů
  • Diphthongs: ou, au, eu

The letter ⟨ě⟩ indicates that the previous consonant is palatalized (e.g. něco /ɲɛt͡so/). After a labial it represents /jɛ/ (e.g. běs /bjɛs/); but ⟨mě⟩ is pronounced /mɲɛ/, cf. měkký (/mɲɛkiː/).[34]

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Czech and their equivalent letters in Czech orthography are as follows:[35]

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m ⟨m⟩
n
 ⟨n⟩ 		ɲ ⟨ň⟩
Plosive
 voiceless p ⟨p⟩
t
 ⟨t⟩ 		c ⟨ť⟩ k ⟨k⟩
voiced b ⟨b⟩
d
 ⟨d⟩ 		ɟ ⟨ď⟩ (ɡ) ⟨g⟩
Affricate
 voiceless t͡s ⟨c⟩ t͡ʃ ⟨č⟩
voiced (d͡z) (d͡ʒ)
Fricative
 voiceless f ⟨f⟩ s ⟨s⟩ ʃ ⟨š⟩ x ⟨ch⟩
voiced v ⟨v⟩ z ⟨z⟩ ʒ ⟨ž⟩ ɦ ⟨h⟩
Trill plain
r
 ⟨r⟩
fricative
r̝
 ⟨ř⟩
Approximant
l
 ⟨l⟩ 		j ⟨j⟩

Czech consonants are categorized as "hard", "neutral", or "soft":

  • Hard: /d/, /ɡ/, /ɦ/, /k/, /n/, /r/, /t/, /x/
  • Neutral: /b/, /f/, /l/, /m/, /p/, /s/, /v/, /z/
  • Soft: /c/, /ɟ/, /j/, /ɲ/, /r̝/, /ʃ/, /t͡s/, /t͡ʃ/, /ʒ/

Hard consonants may not be followed by i or í in writing, or soft ones by y or ý (except in loanwords such as kilogram).[36] Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak".[37] This distinction is also relevant to the declension patterns of nouns, which vary according to whether the final consonant of the noun stem is hard or soft.[38]

voicing assimilation occurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/.[39]

The phoneme represented by the letter

Dvořák. In unvoiced environments, /r̝/ is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊], a sound somewhere between Czech r and š.[42]

The consonants /r/, /l/, and /m/ can be

syllable nuclei in place of a vowel. Strč prst skrz krk ("Stick [your] finger through [your] throat") is a well-known Czech tongue twister using syllabic consonants but no vowels.[43]

Stress

Each word has primary

enclitics (minor, monosyllabic, unstressed syllables). In all words of more than two syllables, every odd-numbered syllable receives secondary stress. Stress is unrelated to vowel length; both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed.[44] Vowels are never reduced in tone (e.g. to schwa sounds) when unstressed.[45] When a noun is preceded by a monosyllabic preposition, the stress usually moves to the preposition, e.g. do Prahy "to Prague".[46]

Grammar

Czech grammar, like that of other Slavic languages, is fusional; its nouns, verbs, and adjectives are inflected by phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and the easily separable affixes characteristic of agglutinative languages are limited.[47] Czech inflects for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect, mood, person and subject number and gender in verbs.[48]

Parts of speech include adjectives,

prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.[49] Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking the final ý or í of the base form and replacing it with e, ě, y, or o.[50] Negative statements are formed by adding the affix ne- to the main verb of a clause,[51] with one exception: je (he, she or it is) becomes není.[52]

Sentence and clause structure

See also: Czech word order
A Czech-language sign at the entrance to a children's playground
Czech pronouns, nominative case
Person Singular Plural
1. já my
2. ty
vy (formal) 		vy
3. on (masculine)
ona (feminine)
ono (neuter) 		oni (masculine animate)
ony (masculine inanimate, feminine)
ona (neuter)

Because Czech uses grammatical case to convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying on word order, as English does), its word order is flexible. As a pro-drop language, in Czech an intransitive sentence can consist of only a verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb.[53] Enclitics (primarily auxiliary verbs and pronouns) appear in the second syntactic slot of a sentence, after the first stressed unit. The first slot can contain a subject or object, a main form of a verb, an adverb, or a conjunction (except for the light conjunctions a, "and", i, "and even" or ale, "but").[54]

Czech syntax has a

subject–verb–object sentence structure. In practice, however, word order is flexible and used to distinguish topic and focus, with the topic or theme (known referents) preceding the focus or rheme (new information) in a sentence; Czech has therefore been described as a topic-prominent language.[55] Although Czech has a periphrastic passive construction (like English), in colloquial style, word-order changes frequently replace the passive voice. For example, to change "Peter killed Paul" to "Paul was killed by Peter" the order of subject and object is inverted: Petr zabil Pavla ("Peter killed Paul") becomes "Paul, Peter killed" (Pavla zabil Petr). Pavla is in the accusative case, the grammatical object of the verb.[56]

A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upward intonation indicates that the sentence is a question:[57]

  • Pes jí bagetu. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than eating something else).
  • Bagetu jí pes. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than someone else doing so).
  • Pes bagetu jí. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than doing something else to it).
  • Jí pes bagetu? – Does the dog eat the baguette? (emphasis ambiguous)

In parts of Bohemia (including Prague), questions such as Jí pes bagetu? without an interrogative word (such as co, "what" or kdo, "who") are intoned in a slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase.[58]

In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns,[59] with few exceptions.[60] Relative clauses are introduced by relativizers such as the adjective který, analogous to the English relative pronouns "which", "that" and "who"/"whom". As with other adjectives, it agrees with its associated noun in gender, number and case. Relative clauses follow the noun they modify. The following is a glossed example:[61]

Chc-i

want-1SG

navštív-it

visit-INF

universit-u,

university-SG.ACC,

na

on

kter-ou

which-SG.F.ACC

chod-í

attend-3SG

Jan.

John.SG.NOM

Chc-i navštív-it universit-u, na kter-ou chod-í Jan.

want-1SG visit-INF university-SG.ACC, on which-SG.F.ACC attend-3SG John.SG.NOM

I want to visit the university that John attends.

Declension

Main article: Czech declension

In Czech, nouns and adjectives are declined into one of seven grammatical cases which indicate their function in a sentence, two numbers (singular and plural) and three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). The masculine gender is further divided into animate and inanimate classes.

Case

A street named after Božena Němcová with her name declined in the genitive case (a sign probably from the time of the Protectorate).

A

prepositions and some verbs require their complements to be declined in a certain case.[62] The locative case is only used after prepositions.[65] An adjective's case agrees with that of the noun it modifies. When Czech children learn their language's declension patterns, the cases are referred to by number:[66]

Cases in Czech
No. Ordinal name (Czech) Full name (Czech) Case Main usage
1. první pád nominativ nominative Subjects
2. druhý pád genitiv genitive Noun adjuncts, possession, prepositions of motion, time and location
3. třetí pád dativ dative Indirect objects, prepositions of motion
4. čtvrtý pád akuzativ accusative Direct objects, prepositions of motion and time
5. pátý pád vokativ vocative Addressing someone
6. šestý pád lokál locative Prepositions of location, time and topic
7. sedmý pád instrumentál instrumental Passive agents, instruments, prepositions of location

Some prepositions require the nouns they modify to take a particular case. The cases assigned by each preposition are based on the physical (or metaphorical) direction, or location, conveyed by it. For example, od (from, away from) and z (out of, off) assign the genitive case. Other prepositions take one of several cases, with their meaning dependent on the case; na means "onto" or "for" with the accusative case, but "on" with the locative.[67]

This is a glossed example of a sentence using several cases:

Nes-l

carry-SG.M.PST

js-em

be-1.SG

krabic-i

box-SG.ACC

do

into

dom-u

house-SG.GEN

se

with

sv-ým

own-SG.INS

přítel-em.

friend-SG.INS

Nes-l js-em krabic-i do dom-u se sv-ým přítel-em.

carry-SG.M.PST be-1.SG box-SG.ACC into house-SG.GEN with own-SG.INS friend-SG.INS

I carried the box into the house with my friend.

Gender

Czech distinguishes three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter—and the masculine gender is subdivided into animate and inanimate. With few exceptions, feminine nouns in the nominative case end in -a, -e, or a consonant; neuter nouns in -o, -e, or -í, and masculine nouns in a consonant.[68] Adjectives, participles, most pronouns, and the numbers "one" and "two" are marked for gender and agree with the gender of the noun they modify or refer to.[69] Past tense verbs are also marked for gender, agreeing with the gender of the subject, e.g. dělal (he did, or made); dělala (she did, or made) and dělalo (it did, or made).[70] Gender also plays a semantic role; most nouns that describe people and animals, including personal names, have separate masculine and feminine forms which are normally formed by adding a suffix to the stem, for example Čech (Czech man) has the feminine form Češka (Czech woman).[71]

Nouns of different genders follow different declension patterns. Examples of declension patterns for noun phrases of various genders follow:

Case Noun/adjective
Big dog (m. anim. sg.) Black backpack (m. inanim. sg.) Small cat (f. sg.) Hard wood (n. sg.)
Nom. velký pes
(big dog) 		černý batoh
(black backpack) 		malá kočka
(small cat) 		tvrdé dřevo
(hard wood)
Gen. bez velkého psa
(without the big dog) 		bez černého batohu
(without the black backpack) 		bez malé kočky
(without the small cat) 		bez tvrdého dřeva
(without the hard wood)
Dat. k velkému psovi
(to the big dog) 		k černému batohu
(to the black backpack) 		k malé kočce
(to the small cat) 		ke tvrdému dřevu
(to the hard wood)
Acc. vidím velkého psa
(I see the big dog) 		vidím černý batoh
(I see the black backpack) 		vidím malou kočku
(I see the small cat) 		vidím tvrdé dřevo
(I see the hard wood)
Voc. velký pse!
(big dog!) 		černý batohu!
(black backpack!) 		malá kočko!
(small cat!) 		tvrdé dřevo!
(hard wood!)
Loc. o velkém psovi
(about the big dog) 		o černém batohu
(about the black backpack) 		o malé kočce
(about the small cat) 		o tvrdém dřevě
(about the hard wood)
Inst. s velkým psem
(with the big dog) 		s černým batohem
(with the black backpack) 		s malou kočkou
(with the small cat) 		s tvrdým dřevem
(with the hard wood)

Number

Nouns are also inflected for number, distinguishing between singular and plural. Typical of a Slavic language, Czech cardinal numbers one through four allow the nouns and adjectives they modify to take any case, but numbers over five require subject and direct object noun phrases to be declined in the genitive plural instead of the nominative or accusative, and when used as subjects these phrases take singular verbs. For example:[72]

English Czech
one Czech crown was... jedna koruna česká byla...
two Czech crowns were... dvě koruny české byly...
three Czech crowns were... tři koruny české byly...
four Czech crowns were... čtyři koruny české byly...
five Czech crowns were... pět korun českých bylo...

Numbers decline for case, and the numbers one and two are also inflected for gender. Numbers one through five are shown below as examples. The number one has declension patterns identical to those of the

demonstrative pronoun ten.[73][74]

1 2 3 4 5
Nominative jeden (masc)
jedna (fem)
jedno (neut) 		dva (masc)
dvě (fem, neut) 		tři čtyři pět
Genitive jednoho (masc)
jedné (fem)
jednoho (neut) 		dvou tří or třech čtyř or čtyřech pěti
Dative jednomu (masc)
jedné (fem)
jednomu (neut) 		dvěma třem čtyřem pěti
Accusative jednoho (masc an.)
jeden (masc in.)
jednu (fem)
jedno (neut) 		dva (masc)
dvě (fem, neut) 		tři čtyři pět
Locative jednom (masc)
jedné (fem)
jednom (neut) 		dvou třech čtyřech pěti
Instrumental jedním (masc)
jednou (fem)
jedním (neut) 		dvěma třemi čtyřmi pěti

Although Czech's grammatical numbers are singular and plural, several residuals of dual forms remain, such as the words dva ("two") and oba ("both"), which decline the same way. Some nouns for paired body parts use a historical dual form to express plural in some cases: ruka (hand)—ruce (nominative); noha (leg)—nohama (instrumental), nohou (genitive/locative); oko (eye)—oči, and ucho (ear)—uši. While two of these nouns are neuter in their singular forms, all plural forms are considered feminine; their gender is relevant to their associated adjectives and verbs.[75] These forms are plural semantically, used for any non-singular count, as in mezi čtyřma očima (face to face, lit. among four eyes). The plural number paradigms of these nouns are a mixture of historical dual and plural forms. For example, nohy (legs; nominative/accusative) is a standard plural form of this type of noun.[76]

Verb conjugation

Main article: Czech conjugation

Czech verbs agree with their subjects in

indicative, imperative or conditional). For example, the conjugated verb mluvíme (we speak) is in the present tense and first-person plural; it is distinguished from other conjugations of the infinitive mluvit by its ending, -íme.[77] The infinitive form of Czech verbs ends in -t (archaically, -ti or -ci). It is the form found in dictionaries and the form that follows auxiliary verbs (for example, můžu tě slyšet—"I can hear you").[78]

Aspect

See also: Grammatical aspect in Slavic languages

Typical of Slavic languages, Czech marks its verbs for one of two grammatical aspects: perfective and imperfective. Most verbs are part of inflected aspect pairs—for example, koupit (perfective) and kupovat (imperfective). Although the verbs' meaning is similar, in perfective verbs the action is completed and in imperfective verbs it is ongoing or repeated. This is distinct from past and present tense.[79] Any verb of either aspect can be conjugated into either the past or present tense,[77] but the future tense is only used with imperfective verbs.[80] Aspect describes the state of the action at the time specified by the tense.[79]

The verbs of most aspect pairs differ in one of two ways: by prefix or by suffix. In prefix pairs, the perfective verb has an added prefix—for example, the imperfective psát (to write, to be writing) compared with the perfective napsat (to write down). The most common prefixes are na-, o-, po-, s-, u-, vy-, z- and za-.[81] In suffix pairs, a different infinitive ending is added to the perfective stem; for example, the perfective verbs koupit (to buy) and prodat (to sell) have the imperfective forms kupovat and prodávat.[82] Imperfective verbs may undergo further morphology to make other imperfective verbs (iterative and frequentative forms), denoting repeated or regular action. The verb jít (to go) has the iterative form chodit (to go regularly) and the frequentative form chodívat (to go occasionally; to tend to go).[83]

Many verbs have only one aspect, and verbs describing continual states of being—být (to be), chtít (to want), moct (to be able to), ležet (to lie down, to be lying down)—have no perfective form. Conversely, verbs describing immediate states of change—for example, otěhotnět (to become pregnant) and nadchnout se (to become enthusiastic)—have no imperfective aspect.[84]

Tense

Conjugation of být in future tense
Person Singular Plural
1. budu budeme
2. budeš budete
3. bude budou

The present tense in Czech is formed by adding an ending that agrees with the person and number of the subject at the end of the verb stem. As Czech is a null-subject language, the subject pronoun can be omitted unless it is needed for clarity.[85] The past tense is formed using a participle which ends in -l and a further ending which agrees with the gender and number of the subject. For the first and second persons, the auxiliary verb být conjugated in the present tense is added.[86]

In some contexts, the present tense of perfective verbs (which differs from the English present perfect) implies future action; in others, it connotes habitual action.[87] The perfective present is used to refer to completion of actions in the future and is distinguished from the imperfective future tense, which refers to actions that will be ongoing in the future. The future tense is regularly formed using the future conjugation of být (as shown in the table on the left) and the infinitive of an imperfective verb, for example, budu jíst—"I will eat" or "I will be eating".[80] Where budu has a noun or adjective complement it means "I will be", for example, budu šťastný (I will be happy).[80] Some verbs of movement form their future tense by adding the prefix po- to the present tense forms instead, e.g. jedu ("I go") > pojedu ("I will go").[88]

Mood

Conditional form of koupit (to buy)
Person Singular Plural
1. koupil/a bych koupili/y bychom
2. koupil/a bys koupili/y byste
3. koupil/a/o by koupili/y/a by

Czech verbs have three

indicative, imperative and conditional.[89] The imperative mood is formed by adding specific endings for each of three person–number categories: -Ø/-i/-ej for second-person singular, -te/-ete/-ejte for second-person plural and -me/-eme/-ejme for first-person plural.[90] Imperatives are usually expressed using perfective verbs if positive and imperfective verbs if negative.[91] The conditional mood is formed with a conditional auxiliary verb after the participle ending in -l which is used to form the past tense. This mood indicates hypothetical events and can also be used to express wishes.[92]

Verb classes

Main article: Morphological classification of Czech verbs

Most Czech verbs fall into one of five classes, which determine their conjugation patterns. The future tense of být would be classified as a Class I verb because of its endings. Examples of the present tense of each class and some common irregular verbs follow in the tables below:[93]

Orthography

The handwritten Czech alphabet, without a Q, W and X
Main article: Czech orthography
See also: Czech Braille

Czech has one of the most

transliteration of Cyrillic.[98]

Czech orthography reflects vowel length; long vowels are indicated by an acute accent or, in the case of the character ů, a ring. Long u is usually written ú at the beginning of a word or morpheme (úroda, neúrodný) and ů elsewhere,[99] except for loanwords (skútr) or onomatopoeia (bú).[100] Long vowels and ě are not considered separate letters in the alphabetical order.[101] The character ó exists only in loanwords and onomatopoeia.[102]

Czech typographical features not associated with phonetics generally resemble those of most European languages that use the Latin script, including English. Proper nouns, honorifics, and the first letters of quotations are capitalized, and punctuation is typical of other Latin European languages. Ordinal numbers (1st) use a point, as in German (1.). The Czech language uses a decimal comma instead of a decimal point. When writing a long number, spaces between every three digits, including those in decimal places, may be used for better orientation in handwritten texts. The number 1,234,567.89101 may be written as 1234567,89101 or 1 234 567,891 01.[103] In proper noun phrases (except personal and settlement names), only the first word and proper nouns inside such phrases are capitalized (Pražský hrad, Prague Castle).[104][105]

Varieties

Further information: Czech–Slovak languages
Josef Jungmann, whose Czech–German dictionary laid the foundations for modern Standard Czech

The modern literary standard and prestige variety, known as "Standard Czech" (spisovná čeština) is based on the standardization during the

Czech Language Institute, who publish occasional reforms to the codification. The most recent reform took place in 1993.[108] The term hovorová čeština (lit. "Colloquial Czech") is sometimes used to refer to the spoken variety of standard Czech.[109]

The most widely spoken vernacular form of the language is called "Common Czech" (obecná čeština), an

interdialect influenced by spoken Standard Czech and the Central Bohemian dialects of the Prague region. Other Bohemian regional dialects have become marginalized, while Moravian dialects
remain more widespread and diverse, with a political movement for Moravian linguistic revival active since the 1990s.

These varieties of the language (Standard Czech, spoken/colloquial Standard Czech, Common Czech, and regional dialects) form a stylistic continuum, in which contact between varieties of a similar prestige influences change within them.[110]

Common Czech

Cieszyn Silesian
spoken in the Czech Republic. The border areas, where German was formerly spoken, are now mixed.

The main Czech vernacular, spoken primarily in Bohemia including the capital Prague, is known as Common Czech (obecná čeština). This is an academic distinction; most Czechs are unaware of the term or associate it with deformed or "incorrect" Czech.[111] Compared to Standard Czech, Common Czech is characterized by simpler inflection patterns and differences in sound distribution.[112]

Common Czech is distinguished from spoken/colloquial Standard Czech (hovorová čeština), which is a stylistic variety within standard Czech.[113][114] Tomasz Kamusella defines the spoken variety of Standard Czech as a compromise between Common Czech and the written standard,[115] while Miroslav Komárek calls Common Czech an intersection of spoken Standard Czech and regional dialects.[116]

Common Czech has become ubiquitous in most parts of the Czech Republic since the later 20th century. It is usually defined as an

interdialect used in common speech in Bohemia and western parts of Moravia (by about two thirds of all inhabitants of the Czech Republic). Common Czech is not codified, but some of its elements have become adopted in the written standard. Since the second half of the 20th century, Common Czech elements have also been spreading to regions previously unaffected, as a consequence of media influence. Standard Czech is still the norm for politicians, businesspeople and other Czechs in formal situations, but Common Czech is gaining ground in journalism and the mass media.[112] The colloquial form of Standard Czech finds limited use in daily communication due to the expansion of the Common Czech interdialect.[113] It is sometimes defined as a theoretical construct rather than an actual tool of colloquial communication, since in casual contexts, the non-standard interdialect is preferred.[113]

Common Czech phonology is based on that of the Central Bohemian dialect group, which has a slightly different set of vowel phonemes to Standard Czech.[116] The phoneme /ɛː/ is peripheral and usually merges with /iː/, e.g. in malý město (small town), plamínek (little flame) and lítat (to fly), and a second native diphthong /ɛɪ̯/ occurs, usually in places where Standard Czech has /iː/, e.g. malej dům (small house), mlejn (mill), plejtvat (to waste), bejt (to be).[117] In addition, a prothetic v- is added to most words beginning o-, such as votevřít vokno (to open the window).[118]

Non-standard morphological features that are more or less common among all Common Czech speakers include:[118]

Examples of declension (Standard Czech is added in italics for comparison):

    Masculine
animate 		Masculine
inanimate 		Feminine Neuter
Sg. Nominative mladej člověk
mladý člověk 		mladej stát
mladý stát 		mladá žena
mladá žena 		mladý zvíře
mladé zvíře
Genitive mladýho člověka
mladého člověka 		mladýho státu
mladého státu 		mladý ženy
mladé ženy 		mladýho zvířete
mladého zvířete
Dative mladýmu člověkovi
mladému člověku 		mladýmu státu
mladému státu 		mladý ženě
mladé ženě 		mladýmu zvířeti
mladému zvířeti
Accusative mladýho člověka
mladého člověka 		mladej stát
mladý stát 		mladou ženu
mladou ženu 		mladý zvíře
mladé zvíře
Vocative mladej člověče!
mladý člověče! 		mladej státe!
mladý státe! 		mladá ženo!
mladá ženo! 		mladý zvíře!
mladé zvíře!
Locative mladým člověkovi
mladém člověkovi 		mladým státě
mladém státě 		mladý ženě
mladé ženě 		mladým zvířeti
mladém zvířeti
Instrumental mladym člověkem
mladým člověkem 		mladym státem
mladým státem 		mladou ženou
mladou ženou 		mladym zvířetem
mladým zvířetem
Pl. Nominative mladý lidi
mladí lidé 		mladý státy
mladé státy 		mladý ženy
mladé ženy 		mladý zvířata
mladá zvířata
Genitive mladejch lidí
mladých lidí 		mladejch států
mladých států 		mladejch žen
mladých žen 		mladejch zvířat
mladých zvířat
Dative mladejm lidem
mladým lidem 		mladejm státům
mladým státům 		mladejm ženám
mladým ženám 		mladejm zvířatům
mladým zvířatům
Accusative mladý lidi
mladé lidi 		mladý státy
mladé státy 		mladý ženy
mladé ženy 		mladý zvířata
mladá zvířata
Vocative mladý lidi!
mladí lidé! 		mladý státy!
mladé státy! 		mladý ženy!
mladé ženy! 		mladý zvířata!
mladá zvířata!
Locative mladejch lidech
mladých lidech 		mladejch státech
mladých státech 		mladejch ženách
mladých ženách 		mladejch zvířatech
mladých zvířatech
Instrumental mladejma lidma
mladými lidmi 		mladejma státama
mladými státy 		mladejma ženama
mladými ženami 		mladejma zvířatama
mladými zvířaty

mladý člověk – young man/person, mladí lidé – young people, mladý stát – young state, mladá žena – young woman, mladé zvíře – young animal

Bohemian dialects

A headstone in Český Krumlov from 1591. The inscription features the distinctive Bohemian diphthong   /ɛɪ̯/, spelled ⟨ey⟩.
Further information: Chod dialect

Apart from the Common Czech vernacular, there remain a variety of other Bohemian dialects, mostly in marginal rural areas. Dialect use began to weaken in the second half of the 20th century, and by the early 1990s regional dialect use was stigmatized, associated with the shrinking lower class and used in literature or other media for comedic effect. Increased travel and media availability to dialect-speaking populations has encouraged them to shift to (or add to their own dialect) Standard Czech.[121]

The Czech Statistical Office in 2003 recognized the following Bohemian dialects:[122]

  • Nářečí středočeská (Central Bohemian dialects)
  • Nářečí jihozápadočeská (Southwestern Bohemian dialects)
  • Podskupina chodská (Chod subgroup)
  • Podskupina doudlebská (Doudleby subgroup)
  • Nářečí severovýchodočeská (Northeastern Bohemian dialects)
  • Podskupina podkrknošská (
    Krkonoše
    subgroup)

Moravian dialects

Main article: Moravian dialects
See also: Lach dialects and Cieszyn Silesian dialect
Cieszyn Silesian
, Orange: Bohemian–Moravian transitional dialects, Purple: Mixed areas

The Czech dialects spoken in

Austro-Hungarian Empire, "Bohemian-Moravian-Slovak" was a language citizens could register as speaking (with German, Polish and several others).[123] In the 2011 census, where respondents could optionally specify up to two first languages,[124] 62,908 Czech citizens specified Moravian as their first language and 45,561 specified both Moravian and Czech.[125]

Beginning in the sixteenth century, some varieties of Czech resembled Slovak;[14] the southeastern Moravian dialects, in particular, are sometimes considered dialects of Slovak rather than Czech. These dialects form a continuum between the Czech and Slovak languages,[126] using the same declension patterns for nouns and pronouns and the same verb conjugations as Slovak.[127]

The Czech Statistical Office in 2003 recognized the following Moravian dialects:[122]

  • Nářečí českomoravská (Bohemian–Moravian dialects)
  • Nářečí středomoravská (Central Moravian dialects)
  • Podskupina tišnovská (Tišnov subgroup)
  • Nářečí východomoravská (Eastern Moravian dialects)
  • Nářečí slezská (Silesian dialects)

Sample

In a 1964 textbook on Czech dialectology, Břetislav Koudela used the following sentence to highlight phonetic differences between dialects:[128]

Standard Czech: Dej mouku ze mlýna na vozík.
Common Czech: Dej mouku ze mlejna na vozejk.
Central Moravian: Dé móko ze mléna na vozék.
Eastern Moravian: Daj múku ze młýna na vozík.
Silesian: Daj muku ze młyna na vozik.
Slovak: Daj múku z mlyna na vozík.
English: Put the flour from the mill into the cart.

Mutual intelligibility with Slovak

Czech and Slovak have been considered mutually intelligible; speakers of either language can communicate with greater ease than those of any other pair of West Slavic languages.[129] Following the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia, mutual intelligibility declined for younger speakers, probably because Czech speakers began to experience less exposure to Slovak and vice versa.[130] A 2015 study involving participants with a mean age of around 23 nonetheless concluded that there remained a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages.[129] Grammatically, both languages share a common syntax.[14]

One study showed that Czech and Slovak lexicons differed by 80 percent, but this high percentage was found to stem primarily from differing orthographies and slight inconsistencies in morphological formation;[131] Slovak morphology is more regular (when changing from the nominative to the locative case, Praha becomes Praze in Czech and Prahe in Slovak). The two lexicons are generally considered similar, with most differences found in colloquial vocabulary and some scientific terminology. Slovak has slightly more borrowed words than Czech.[14]

The similarities between Czech and Slovak led to the languages being considered a single language by a group of 19th-century scholars who called themselves "Czechoslavs" (Čechoslované), believing that the peoples were connected in a way which excluded

Hungarians and other Slavs.[132] During the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), although "Czechoslovak" was designated as the republic's official language, both Czech and Slovak written standards were used. Standard written Slovak was partially modeled on literary Czech, and Czech was preferred for some official functions in the Slovak half of the republic. Czech influence on Slovak was protested by Slovak scholars, and when Slovakia broke off from Czechoslovakia in 1938 as the Slovak State (which then aligned with Nazi Germany in World War II), literary Slovak was deliberately distanced from Czech. When the Axis powers lost the war and Czechoslovakia reformed, Slovak developed somewhat on its own (with Czech influence); during the Prague Spring of 1968, Slovak gained independence from (and equality with) Czech,[14] due to the transformation of Czechoslovakia from a unitary state to a federation. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, "Czechoslovak" has referred to improvised pidgins of the languages which have arisen from the decrease in mutual intelligibility.[133]

Vocabulary

See also: List of English words of Czech origin

Czech vocabulary derives primarily from Slavic, Baltic and other Indo-European roots. Although most verbs have Balto-Slavic origins, pronouns, prepositions and some verbs have wider, Indo-European roots.[134] Some loanwords have been restructured by folk etymology to resemble native Czech words (e.g. hřbitov, "graveyard" and listina, "list").[135]

Most Czech loanwords originated in one of two time periods. Earlier loanwords, primarily from German,

Arabic and Persian. Many Russian loanwords, principally animal names and naval terms, also exist in Czech.[138]

Although older German loanwords were colloquial, recent borrowings from other languages are associated with high culture.[136] During the nineteenth century, words with Greek and Latin roots were rejected in favor of those based on older Czech words and common Slavic roots; "music" is muzyka in Polish and музыка (muzyka) in Russian, but in Czech it is hudba.[137] Some Czech words have been borrowed as loanwords into English and other languages—for example, robot (from robota, "labor")[139] and polka (from polka, "Polish woman" or from "půlka" "half").[140]

Example text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Czech:

Všichni lidé rodí se svobodní a sobě rovní co do důstojnosti a práv. Jsou nadáni rozumem a svědomím a mají spolu jednat v duchu bratrství.[141]

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[142]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Czech at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c d e "Full list". Council of Europe.
  3. ^ Ministry of Interior of Poland: Act of 6 January 2005 on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional languages
  4. ^ IANA language subtag registry, retrieved October 15, 2018
  5. ^ a b "Czech language". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  6. ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
  7. OCLC 50064627
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-80-7422-799-8
    .
  9. ^ a b Sussex & Cubberley 2011, pp. 54–56
  10. ^ Liberman & Trubetskoi 2001, p. 112
  11. ^ Liberman & Trubetskoi 2001, p. 153
  12. ^ a b Sussex & Cubberley 2011, pp. 98–99
  13. ^ Piotrowski 2012, p. 95
  14. ^ a b c d e Berger, Tilman. "Slovaks in Czechia – Czechs in Slovakia" (PDF). University of Tübingen. Retrieved 2014-08-09.
  15. ^ Kamusella, Tomasz (2008). The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. Springer. pp. 134–135.
  16. ^ Michálek, Emanuel. "O jazyce Kralické bible". Naše řeč (in Czech). Czech Language Institute. Retrieved 2021-11-02.
  17. ^ a b Cerna & Machalek 2007, p. 26
  18. ^ Chloupek & Nekvapil 1993, p. 92
  19. ^ Chloupek & Nekvapil 1993, p. 95
  20. ^ a b Maxwell 2009, p. 106
  21. ^ Agnew 1994, p. 250
  22. ^ a b Agnew 1994, pp. 251–252
  23. ^ a b c Wilson 2009, p. 18
  24. ^ Chloupek & Nekvapil 1993, p. 96
  25. ^ Chloupek & Nekvapil 1993, pp. 93–95
  26. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 2
  27. ^ a b "Europeans and Their Languages" (PDF). Eurobarometer. June 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-06-22. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  28. ^ van Parys, Jonathan (2012). "Language knowledge in the European Union". Language Knowledge. Retrieved July 23, 2014.
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  32. U.S. English. Archived from the original
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  34. ^ Campbell, George L.; Gareth King (1984). Compendium of the world's languages. Routledge.
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  39. ^ Dankovičová 1999, p. 73
  40. ^ Nichols, Joanna (2018). Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. p. 1607.
  41. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 6
  42. ^ Dankovičová 1999, p. 71
  43. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 5
  44. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 12
  45. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 9
  46. ^ "Sound Patterns of Czech". Charles University Institute of Phonetics. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  47. ^ Qualls 2012, pp. 6–8
  48. ^ Qualls 2012, p. 5
  49. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. v–viii
  50. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 61–63
  51. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 212
  52. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 134
  53. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 74
  54. ^ Short 2009, p. 324.
  55. ^ Anderman, Gunilla M.; Rogers, Margaret (2008). Incorporating Corpora: The Linguist and the Translator. Multilingual Matters. pp. 135–136.
  56. ^ Short 2009, p. 325.
  57. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 10–11
  58. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 10
  59. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 48
  60. ^ Uhlířová, Ludmila. "SLOVOSLED NOMINÁLNÍ SKUPINY". Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny. Retrieved 2017-10-18.
  61. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 271
  62. ^ a b Naughton 2005, p. 196
  63. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 201
  64. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 197–199
  65. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 199
  66. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 25
  67. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 201–205
  68. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 22–24
  69. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 51
  70. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 141
  71. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 238
  72. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 114
  73. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 83
  74. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 117
  75. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 40
  76. ^ Komárek 2012, p. 238
  77. ^ a b Naughton 2005, p. 131
  78. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 7
  79. ^ a b Naughton 2005, p. 146
  80. ^ a b c Naughton 2005, p. 151
  81. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 147
  82. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 147–148
  83. ^ Lukeš, Dominik (2001). "Gramatická terminologie ve vyučování – Terminologie a platonický svět gramatických idejí". DominikLukeš.net. Archived from the original on September 23, 2011. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
  84. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 149
  85. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 134
  86. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 140–142
  87. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 150
  88. ^ Karlík, Petr; Migdalski, Krzysztof. "FUTURUM (budoucí čas)". Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  89. ^ Rothstein & Thieroff 2010, p. 359
  90. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 157
  91. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 159
  92. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 152–154
  93. ^ Naughton 2005, pp. 136–140
  94. ^ Neustupný, J.V.; Nekvápil, Jiří. Kaplan, Robert B.; Baldauf, Richard B. Jr. (eds.). Language Planning and Policy in Europe. pp. 78–79.
  95. ^ Pansofia 1993, p. 11
  96. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 1
  97. ^ Harkins 1952, pp. 6–8
  98. ^ Berger, Tilman. "Religion and diacritics: The case of Czech orthography". In Baddeley, Susan; Voeste, Anja (eds.). Orthographies in Early Modern Europe. p. 255.
  99. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 7
  100. ^ Pansofia 1993, p. 26
  101. ^ Hajičová 1986, p. 31
  102. ^ Harkins 1952, p. 8
  103. ^ Členění čísel, Internetová jazyková příručka, ÚJČ AVČR
  104. ^ Naughton 2005, p. 11
  105. ^ Pansofia 1993, p. 34
  106. ^ Naughton, James. "CZECH LITERATURE, 1774 TO 1918". Oxford University. Archived from the original on 12 June 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
  107. ^ Tahal 2010, p. 245
  108. ^ Tahal 2010, p. 252
  109. ^ Hoffmanová, Jana. "HOVOROVÝ STYL". Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  110. ^ Koudela 1964, p. 136
  111. ^ Wilson 2009, p. 21
  112. ^
    Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
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  113. ^
    ISSN 1642-9893. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 2019-05-05.
  114. ISSN 1642-9893. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 2019-05-10.
  115. ISBN 9780230583474
    .
  116. ^ a b Komárek 2012, p. 117
  117. ^ Komárek 2012, p. 116
  118. ^ a b Tahal 2010, pp. 245–253
  119. ^ Komárek 2012, pp. 179–180
  120. JSTOR 24599659
    .
  121. ^ Eckert 1993, pp. 143–144
  122. ^ a b "Map of Czech Dialects". Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office). 2003. Archived from the original on December 1, 2012. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  123. ^ Kortmann & van der Auwera 2011, p. 714
  124. ^ Zvoníček, Jiří (30 March 2021). "Sčítání lidu a moravská národnost. Přihlásíte se k ní?". Kroměřížský Deník. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  125. ^ "Tab. 614b Obyvatelstvo podle věku, mateřského jazyka a pohlaví (Population by Age, Mother Tongue, and Gender)" (in Czech). Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office). March 26, 2011. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  126. ^ Kortmann & van der Auwera 2011, p. 516
  127. ^ Šustek, Zbyšek (1998). "Otázka kodifikace spisovného moravského jazyka (The question of codifying a written Moravian language)" (in Czech). University of Tartu. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  128. ^ Koudela 1964, p. 173
  129. ^
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  130. ^ Short 2009, p. 306.
  131. ^ Esposito 2011, p. 82
  132. ^ Maxwell 2009, pp. 101–105
  133. ^ Nábělková, Mira (January 2007). "Closely-related languages in contact: Czech, Slovak, "Czechoslovak"". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
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  135. ^ Mann 1957, p. 160
  136. ^ a b c Mathesius 2013, p. 20
  137. ^ a b Sussex & Cubberley 2011, p. 101
  138. ^ Mann 1957, pp. 159–160
  139. ^ Harper, Douglas. "robot (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  140. ^ Harper, Douglas. "polka (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  141. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". unicode.org.
  142. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". un.org.

References

External links

Czech edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Czech.
For a list of words relating to Czech language, see the Czech language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Czech
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Czech language.
New International Encyclopedia article "Czech language
".


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