History of the Czech language

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The Czech language developed at the close of the 1st millennium from common West Slavic. Until the early 20th century, it was known as Bohemian.

Early West Slavic

Among the innovations in common West Slavic is the palatalization of velar ch > š (vьšь 'all'), while s (vьsь) developed in the East and South Slavic dialects.

Within West Slavic, Czech and Slovak separated from Polish around the 10th to 12th centuries. Some other changes took place during roughly the 10th century:

• the disappearance and vocalization of yers according to Havlík’s Yer Law (bъzъ > bez, bъza > bza (gen.), later bezu 'elder, lilac');
• the contraction of groups vowel + j + vowel (dobriji > dobr’í, dobroje > dobré 'good');
• the denasalization of nasal ę [ẽ] > ä and ǫ [õ] > u.

The disappearance of the odd yers strengthened the phonological contrast of palatalized (softened) and unpalatalized consonants, and resulted in alterations of epenthetic e and ∅ (null-phoneme). The contrast of the vowel quantity (length) was also strengthened. The depalatalization of consonants preceding e and ä took place later, thus the frequency of occurrence of palatalized consonants was lowered, but it strengthened the palatalization contrast at the same time. The change of ’ä > ě and ä > a took place at the end of the 12th century.

The vowels were front (ä, e, i, ě) and back (a, o, u), and the front ones had their back variants (allophones), and vice versa.^{[clarification needed]} The consonants were divided into hard (b, p, v, m, t, d, r, l, n, c, z, s, k, g, ch) and soft – palatal or palatalized (t’, d’, ř, l’, n’, c’, s’, z’, č, š, ž, j, ň). This division was cardinal for the later development.

The spirantisation of Slavic /g/ to /h/ is an areal feature shared by Ukrainian (and some southern Russian dialects), Belarusian, Slovak, Czech, Sorbian (but not Polish) and minority of Slovene dialects. This innovation appears to have travelled from east to west, and is sometimes attributed to contact with Scytho-Sarmatian.^[1] It is approximately dated to the 12th century in Slovak, the 12th to 13th century in Czech and the 14th century in Upper Sorbian.^[2]

In the nominal

: singular, dual and plural.

The dual is also applied in verb conjugations. The past is expressed by

ending

-t formally continues the supine.

Old Czech

Earliest records

The earliest written records of Czech date to the 12th to 13th century, in the form of personal names, glosses and short notes.

The oldest known complete Czech sentence is a note on the foundation charter of the Litoměřice chapter at the beginning of the 13th century:

Pauel dal geſt ploſcoucih zemu / Wlah dalgeſt dolaſ zemu iſuiatemu ſcepanu ſeduema duſnicoma bogucea aſedlatu

(in transcription: Pavel dal jest Ploškovcích zem’u. Vlach dal jest Dolás zem’u i sv’atému Ščepánu se dvěma dušníkoma Bogučeja a Sedlatu.)^{[citation needed]}

The earliest texts were written in primitive orthography, which used the letters of the Latin alphabet without any diacritics, resulting in ambiguities, such as in the letter c representing the k /k/, c /ts/ and č /tʃ/ phonemes. Later during the 13th century, the digraph orthography begins to appear, although not systematically. Combinations of letters (digraphs) are used for recording Czech sounds, e.g. rs for ř.

Large changes take place in Czech phonology in the 12th and 13th centuries. Front and back variants of vowels are removed, e.g. ’ä > ě (ie) and ’a > ě (v’a̋ce > viece 'more', p’äkný > pěkný 'nice'). In the morphology, these changes deepened the differences between hard and soft noun types (sedláka 'farmer (gen.)' ↔ oráčě 'ploughman (gen.)'; města 'towns' ↔ mor’ě 'seas'; žena 'woman' ↔ dušě 'soul') as well as verbs (volati 'to call' ↔ sázěti 'to plant out'). The hard syllabic l changed to lu (Chlmec > Chlumec, dĺgý > dlúhý 'long'), as opposite to soft l’. The change of g to [ɣ], and later to [ɦ], had been in progress since the 12th century. Later assibilation of palatalized alveolars (t’ > c’, d’ > dz’ and r’ > rs’) occurred. However, c’ and dz’ disappeared later, but the change of r’ > rs’ > ř became permanent.

14th century

In the 14th century, Czech began to penetrate various literary styles. Official documents in Czech exist at the end of the century. The digraph orthography is applied. The older digraph orthography: ch = ch; chz = č; cz = c; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = ž or š; w = v; v = u; zz = s; z = z; ie, ye = ě; the graphemes i and y are interchangeable. The vowel length is not usually denoted, doubled letters are used rarely. Obligatory regulations did not exist. This is why the system was not always applied precisely. After 1340, the later digraph orthography was applied: ch = ch; cz = c or č; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = s or š; ss = s or š; w = v; v = u; z = z or ž, syllable-final y = j; ie, ye = ě. The graphemes i and y remain interchangeable. The punctuation mark is sometimes used in various shapes. Its function is to denote pauses.

The changes of ’u > i (kl’úč > klíč 'key') and ’o > ě (koňóm > koniem '(to) horses') took place. The so-called main historical depalatalization, initiated in the 13th century, was finished. Palatalized (softened) consonants either merged with their hard counterparts or became

to ie (chtieti 'to want', čieše 'goblet', piesek 'sand'). At the same time, the long ó was diphthongized to uo (sól > suol 'salt'). In pronunciation, regressive assimilation of voice was enforced (with the exception of h, ř and v). The voicedness became the main contrastive feature of consonants after the disappearance of palatalization. The original pronunciation of v was probably bilabial (as preserved in some Eastern-Bohemian dialects in syllable-final positions: diwnej 'peculiar', stowka 'a hundred'), but in the 14th century, the articulation was adapted to the unvoiced labiodental f. Prothetic v- has been added to all words beginning with o- (voko instead of oko 'eye') in the Bohemian dialects since this period.

In morphology, the future tense of imperfective verbs was fixed. The type budu volati 'I will call' became preferred to other types (chc’u volati 'I want to call', jmám volati 'I have to call', and budu volal 'I will have called'). The contrastive feature of imperfectiveness was also stabilized. The perfectivization function of

is formed.

Hussite period

The period of the 15th century from the beginning of Jan Hus's preaching activity to the beginning of Czech humanism. The number of literary language users enlarges. Czech fully penetrates the administration.

Around 1406, a reform of the orthography was suggested in

orthography. For recording of soft consonants, digraphs are replaced by a dot above letters. The acute is used to denote the vowel length. The digraph ch and the grapheme w are preserved. The interchangeability of the graphemes i and y is cancelled. The suggestion is a work of an individual person, therefore this graphic system was accepted slowly, the digraph orthography was still in use.

As a consequence of the loss of palatalization, the pronunciation of y and i merged. This change resulted in the diphthongization of ý > ej in

Common Czech

(the widespread Bohemian interdialect). There are also some other changes in this period: the diphthongization of ú > ou (written au, the pronunciation was probably different than today), the monophthongization of ie > í (miera > míra 'measure') and uo > ú. The diphthong uo was sometimes recorded as o in the form of a ring above the letter u, which resulted in the grapheme ů (kuoň > kůň). The ring has been regarded as a diacritic mark denoting the length since the change in pronunciation.

The contrast of animateness in masculine inflection is not still fully set, as it is not yet applied to animals (vidím pána 'I see a lord'; vidím pes 'I see a dog'). Aorist and imperfect have disappeared from literary styles before the end of the 15th century.

Middle Czech

Humanistic period

The period of the mature literary language from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century. The orthography in written texts is not still unified, digraphs are used predominantly in various forms. After the invention of book-printing, the so-called Brethren orthography stabilized in printed documents. The

are used. The first grammars are published for typographers' purposes.

In the pronunciation, the change of ý > ej was established, but it occurred in lesser prestige style text only. The diphthongization of ú > ou was also stabilized (but au still remained in graphics). In initial positions, it was used in lesser prestige or specialized styles only. Written mě [mje] starts to be pronounced as [mɲe]. The change of tautosyllabic aj > ej (daj > dej 'give (2. sg. imperative)', vajce > vejce 'egg') took place, but it was not applied in heterosyllabic aj (dají 'they will give', vajec 'egg (gen. pl.)').

In morphology, the differentiation of animate and inanimate masculines was completed (vidím psa rather than the earlier vidím pes).

Baroque period

The period from the second half of the 17th century to the second third of the 18th century was marked by confiscations and emigration of the Czech intelligentsia after the Battle of White Mountain. The function of the literary language was limited; it left the scientific field first, the discerning literature later, and the administration finally. Under the rule of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, who also reigned as king of Bohemia, the use of Czech was discouraged due to its association with Protestantism, and relegated to a spoken peasant tongue.^[3] However, puppeteers continued to use Czech for public marionette shows, and popular legend has it that this preserved the Czech language from extinction at home.^[4]

Meanwhile, prestigious literary styles were cultivated by Czech expatriates abroad. The zenith and, simultaneously, the end of the florescence of prestigious literary styles are represented by the works of

. The changes in the phonology and the morphology of the literary language ended in the previous period. Only the spoken language continued its development in the country. As a consequence of strong isolation, the differences between dialects were deepened. Especially, the Moravian and Silesian dialects developed divergently from Common Czech.

Printed documents used the same orthography as in the previous period. Only the two kinds of l are not differentiated any more. The

. Digraphs with irregular elements of diacritics are still used in hand-written texts.

The first ideas of the National Revival were in so-called defences of the Czech language. The most likely first such work is Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica praecipue Bohemica ("The defence of the Slavic language, of Czech in particular"), written in Latin by Bohuslav Balbín.

Early Modern Czech