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Czech
čeština, český jazyk
Spoken in: Czech Republic and as a minority language also in the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany and Slovakia 
Region: Central Europe
Total speakers: 12 million 
Ranking: 66
Language family: Indo-European
 Slavic
  West Slavic
   Czech-Slovak
    Czech 
Official status
Official language in: Flag of the Czech Republic Czech Republic
Flag of Europe European Union
Regulated by: Czech Language Institute
Language codes
ISO 639-1: cs
ISO 639-2: cze (B)  ces (T)
ISO 639-3: ces
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Czech Language Institute, Ústav pro jazyk český, abbr ÚJČ, is the regulatory body of the Czech language. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Czech (pronounced /ˈʧɛk/; čeština IPA: [ˈʧɛʃcɪna] in Czech) is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs all over the world. The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Czechs (Češi ˈt͡ʃɛʃɪ archaic Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic Czech is quite similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser degree, to Polish or Sorbian in eastern Germany. The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. The Sorbian languages are classified under the Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

Contents

Official status

Czech is widely spoken by most inhabitants of the Czech Republic, however, there is no special "language" law for its use. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, As given by appropriate laws, courts and authorities act and make out documents and executions in the Czech language (financial authorities also in the Slovak language). The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" People who do not speak Czech have the right to get an interpreter. Instructions for use in Czech must be added to all marketed goods.

The right to one's own language is guaranteed by the Constitution for all national and ethnic minorities. The current Constitution of the Czech Republic (Ústava České republiky was adopted on December 16, 1992.

Czech is also one of the 23 official languages in the European Union (since May 2004). The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in

Mutual intelligibility

Speakers of Czech and Slovak usually understand the other language pretty well both in its written and spoken form, and together they constitute a language diasystem, though some dialects or heavily accented speech in either language might present difficulties to speakers of the other (in particular, geographically most distant Eastern Slovak dialects to Czech speakers). In Linguistics, in the field of structural Dialectology, a diasystem is a single genetic Language which has two or more standard forms Younger generations of Czechs who grew up after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, and therefore tend to be a little less familiar with Slovak, might also have some problems with a certain amount of words and expressions which differ considerably in the two languages, and with false friends. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on January 1 1993, saw Czechoslovakia split into two separate countries the Czech Republic False friends (or faux amis) are pairs of Words in two Languages or Dialects (or letters in two alphabets that look and/or sound similar but differ Nevertheless, these differences do not impede mutual intelligibility significantly. In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand

Name

The name "čeština", Czech, is derived from a Slavic tribe of Czechs ("Čech", pl. Czechs (Češi ˈt͡ʃɛʃɪ archaic Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic "Češi") that inhabited Central Bohemia and united neighbouring Slavic tribes under the reign of the Přemyslid dynasty ("Přemyslovci"). The Přemyslids ( Czech: Přemyslovci, Polish: Przemyślidzi, German: Premysliden) were a Czech royal dynasty which The etymology is unclear. Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time According to a legend, it is derived from the Forefather Čech, who brought the tribe of Czechs into its land. According to an old legend Lech Čech and Rus were Eponymous brothers who founded the three Slavic nations Poland (poetically

History

Main article: History of the Czech language

The Czech language developed from the Proto-Slavic language at the close of the 1st millennium. The Czech language developed at the close of the 1st millennium from the Proto-Slavic language. Proto-Slavic is the Proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged The first millennium is a period of time that commenced on January 1, 1, and ended on December 31, 1000, of the Julian calendar.

Phonology

Main article: Czech phonology

The phonology of Czech may also be very difficult for speakers of other languages. Czech phonology describes functions and pronunciation of individual phonemes used in the Czech language. Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning For example, some words do not appear to have vowels: zmrzl (froze solid), ztvrdl (hardened), scvrkl (shrunk), čtvrthrst (quarter-handful), blb (fool), vlk (wolf), or smrt (death). In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract A popular example of this is the phrase "strč prst skrz krk" meaning "stick a finger through your throat" or "Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh. Strč prst skrz krk ( is a Czech and Slovak Tongue-twister meaning "stick your finger through your neck" " meaning "Morel full of spots dampened from fogs". The consonants l and r can function as the nucleus of a syllable in Czech, since they are sonorant consonants. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. A similar phenomenon also occurs in American English, where the reduced syllables at the ends of "butter" and "bottle" are pronounced [bʌ. ɾɹ] and [bɑ. ɾl], with syllabic consonants as syllable nuclei. It also features the consonant ř, a phoneme that is said to be unique to Czech and quite difficult for foreigners to pronounce. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU To a foreign ear, it sounds very similar to zh, though a better approximation could be rolled (trilled) r combined with zh, which was incidentally sometimes used as an orthography for this sound (rž) for example in the royal charter of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1609. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Rudolf II ( July 18, 1552, Vienna, Austria - January 20, 1612, Prague, Bohemia, now part of The phonetic description of the sound is "a raised alveolar non-sonorant vibrant" which can be either voiceless (terminally or next to a voiceless consonant) or voiced (elsewhere), the IPA transcription being [ r̝ ], however this is contested as not representing the ř sound properly.

Vowels

There are 10 vowels in Czech which are regarded as individual phonemes. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU There are 5 short and 5 long vowels.

Image:Czech vowel chart.png

Long vowels are indicated by an acute accent or a ring. History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. A ring Diacritic may appear above or below letters It may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in various contexts

/iː/ is represented by letters í and ý
/uː/ is represented by letters ú and ů
/ɛː/ is represented by letter é
/aː/ is represented by letter á
/oː/ is represented by letter ó

Short vowels

/ɪ/ is represented by letters i and y
/u/ is represented by letter u
/ɛ/ is represented by letter e (and sometimes ě)
/a/ (actually an open central unrounded vowel [ä]) is represented by letter a
/o/ (actually a mid back rounded vowel [o̞]) is represented by letter o

There have been some disputes as to whether there are really ten or only five vowels in Czech. These can however be settled by a simple list of minimal pairs:

sad [sat] ~ sát [saːt]
bal [bal] ~ bál [baːl]
kaž [kaʃ] ~ káš [kaːʃ]
lek [lɛk] ~ lék [lɛːk]
len [lɛn] ~ lén [lɛːn]
sled [slɛt] ~ slét' [slɛːt]
bor [bɔr] ~ bór [bɔːr]
chor [xɔr] ~ chór [xɔːr]
mot [mɔt] ~ mód [mɔːt]
sir [sɪr] ~ sýr [siːr]
Žid [ʒɪt] ~ žít [ʒiːt]
kil [kɪl] ~ kýl [kiːl]
dul [dul] ~ důl [duːl]
nuž [nuʃ] ~ nůž [nuːʃ]
ruš [ruʃ] ~ růž [ruːʃ]

Note that ě is not a separate vowel. The Grapheme Ě, ě ( E with Háček) is used in the Czech alphabet. Analogous to y, ý and ů, it is a grapheme kept for historical reasons (see Czech orthography). A ring Diacritic may appear above or below letters It may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in various contexts In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. Czech orthography is a system of rules for correct writing ( Orthography) in the Czech language.

/r/ and /l/ (and sometimes also /m/ and /n/) can be syllabic, i. A syllabic consonant is a Consonant which either forms a Syllable of its own or is the nucleus of a syllable e. they can take the vowel's role as the nucleus of a syllable, e. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds g. vlk (wolf).

Diphthongs

There are three diphthongs in Czech:

/aʊ̯/ represented by au (almost exclusively in words of foreign origin)
/eʊ̯/ represented by eu (in words of foreign origin only)
/oʊ̯/ represented by ou

When these groups come together at morpheme boundaries, they do not form diphthongs in standard Czech; for instance naučit, neučit, poučit ([-au-, -eu-, -ou-] or [-aʔu-, -eʔu-, -oʔu-]). In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with Vowel groups ia, ie, ii, io, and iu in foreign words are likewise not regarded as diphthongs; they may also pronounced with /j/ between the vowels [ɪja, ɪjɛ, ɪjɪ, ɪjo, ɪju].

Consonants

Place of articulation → Labial Coronal Dorsal (none)
Manner of articulation ↓ Bi­la­bial La­bio‐
den­tal		 Al­veo­lar Post‐
al­veo­lar		 Pa­la­tal Ve­lar Glot­tal
Nasal    m    (ɱ)    n     ɲ    (ŋ)  
Plosive p b   t d c ɟ k ɡ (ʔ)
Fricative   f v s z ʃ ʒ   x (ɣ) (h) ɦ
Approx­imant                j    
Trill        r r̝*
Lateral Approx­imant    l        

* [r̝] is a specific raised alveolar non-sonorant trill which can be pronounced both voiced and voiceless (regarded as two allophones of one phoneme). In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the Tongue. Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the Tongue (the dorsum Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. In Linguistics ( Articulatory phonetics) manner of articulation describes how the tongue lips and other speech organs are involved in making a sound make In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the The bilabial nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in almost all spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this The labiodental nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The alveolar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in numerous spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The palatal nasal is a type of Consonant, used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The voiceless palatal plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The voiced palatal plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The voiceless velar plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced velar plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiceless alveolar fricatives are Consonantal sounds The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a The voiced alveolar fricatives are Consonantal sounds The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a Sibilant The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative ( IPA) is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol The voiceless velar fricative, informally known as the hard ch, is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the The voiced velar fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in various spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a " fricative " is a type of sound used in some spoken Languages which often behaves like a The breathy-voiced glottal transition, commonly called a voiced glottal fricative, is a type of sound used in some spoken Languages which often behaves like Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants The palatal approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. The alveolar trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both The alveolar lateral approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents In descriptions of Phonetics and Phonology, the manner and place of articulation of a speech sound may be specified relative to some point of

Consonants in the parentheses are regarded as allophones of other consonants:

[ɱ] is an allophone of /m/ preceding labiodental consonants (/f/ and /v/). In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth.
[ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ preceding velar consonants(/k/ and /g/).
[ɣ] is a voiced allophone of /x/ preceding a voiced consonant
[h] is an allophone of /ɦ/ preceding a voiceless consonant

Glottal stop is not regarded as an individual phoneme. This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU

There are also 4 affricates:

t͡s voiceless alveolar affricate
ʣ voiced alveolar affricate
ʧ voiceless postalveolar affricate
ʤ voiced postalveolar affricate
/ʃ/ is represented by letter š
/ʒ/ is represented by letter ž
/ɲ/ is represented by letter ň
/c/ is represented by letter ť
/ɟ/ is represented by letter ď
/ɦ/ is represented by letter h
/x/ is represented by digraph ch
/ts/ is represented by letter c
/dz/ is represented by digraph dz
/tʃ/ is represented by letter č
/dʒ/ is represented by digraph dž
/r̝/ is represented by letter ř

Other consonants are represented by the same characters (letters) as in the IPA. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced alveolar affricate is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages It is The voiced palato-alveolar affricate, also described as voiced domed postalveolar affricate, is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The Grapheme Š, š (Latin S with Háček) is used in various contexts usually denoting the Voiceless postalveolar fricative, including The grapheme Ž ( minuscule: ž) is formed from Latin Z with the addition of Háček. Names Usage differs as to the name of this diacritic In the field of typography the term "caron" seems to be more popular Names Usage differs as to the name of this diacritic In the field of typography the term "caron" seems to be more popular Ğ, or ğ, is a letter known as g- Breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Berber, Crimean C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cee or occasionally ce (siː The grapheme Č (Latin C with Háček) is used in various contexts usually denoting the Voiceless postalveolar affricate Consonant not unlike Dž ( titlecase form all- capitals form DŽ, lowercase dž) is the seventh letter of the Croatian and Bosnian Names Usage differs as to the name of this diacritic In the field of typography the term "caron" seems to be more popular

(See also: Czech alphabet)

Stress

The primary stress is always fixed to the first syllable of a stressed unit, which is usually identical to a word. The Czech alphabet is a version of the Latin alphabet, used when writing Czech In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds The exceptions are:

Long words have secondary stress, which is usually placed on every odd syllable, e. g. ˈnej. krás. ˌněj. ší (the most beautiful).

Stress in Czech denotes boundaries between words, but does not distinguish word meanings. It also has no influence on the quality or quantity of vowels. Vowels are not reduced in unstressed syllables and both long and short vowels can occur in either stressed or unstressed syllables.

Basic phrases

Morphology

As in most Slavic languages, many words (especially nouns, verbs and adjectives) have many forms (inflections). In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In this regard, Czech and the Slavic languages are closer to their Indo-European origins than other languages in the same family that have lost much inflection. Moreover, in Czech the rules of morphology are extremely irregular and many forms have official, colloquial and sometimes semi-official variants. A colloquialism is an expression not used in formal speech, writing or Paralinguistics.

Word order

The word order in Czech serves similar function as emphasis and articles in English. Often all the permutations of words in a clause are possible. In several fields of Mathematics the term permutation is used with different but closely related meanings In Grammar, a clause is a word or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some Languages and some types of While the permutations mostly share the same meaning, they differ in the topic-focus articulation. Topic-focus articulation is a field of study in Linguistics. It is concerned with the means of marking the old and new Information in a Clause.

For example: Češi udělali revoluci (The Czechs made a revolution), Revoluci udělali Češi (It was the Czechs who made the revolution), and Češi revoluci udělali (The Czechs did make a revolution).

Parts of speech

Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers are declined (7 cases over a number of declension models) and verbs are conjugated; the other parts of speech are not inflected (with the exception of comparative formation in adverbs). In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore An interjection is a Part of speech that usually has no connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses Emotion on the part of the speaker

Dialects

In the Czech Republic two distinct variants or interdialects of spoken Czech can be found, both corresponding more or less to geographic areas within the country. The first, and most widely used, is "Common Czech", spoken especially in Bohemia. Common Bohemian is a colloquial variant of the Czech language. Bohemia (Čechy; Bohemia Czechy is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the It has some grammatical differences from "standard" Czech, along with some differences in pronunciation. The most common pronunciation changes include -ý becoming -ej in some circumstances, -é becoming -ý- in some circumstances (-ej- in others). Also, noun declension is changed, most notably the instrumental case. Instead of having various endings (depending on gender) in the instrumental, Bohemians will just put -ama or -ma at the end of all plural instrumental declensions. Currently, these forms are very common throughout the entire Czech republic, including Moravia and Silesia. Moravia (Morava; Morawy Moravie Moravia is a historical region in central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. Etymology One theory claims that the name Silesia is derived from the Silingi, who were most likely a Vandalic (East Germanic people Also pronunciation changes slightly, as the Bohemians tend to have more open vowels than Moravians. This is said to be especially prevalent among people from Prague.

The second major variant is spoken in Moravia and Silesia. Moravia (Morava; Morawy Moravie Moravia is a historical region in central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. Etymology One theory claims that the name Silesia is derived from the Silingi, who were most likely a Vandalic (East Germanic people Nowadays it is very close to the Bohemian form of Common Czech. This variant has some words different from its standard Czech equivalents. For example in Brno, tramvaj (streetcar or tram) is šalina (originating from German "ElektriSCHELINIE"). Unlike in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia tend to have more local dialects varying from place to place, however just as in Bohemia, most have been already heavily influenced and mostly replaced by Common Czech. Everyday spoken form in Moravia and Silesia would be a mixture of remnants of old local dialect, some Standard Czech forms and especially Common Czech. The most notable difference is a shift in used prepositions and case of noun, for example k jídlu (to eat - dative) (as in German zum Essen) becomes na jídlo (accusative), as it is in Slovak na jedlo. It is a common misconception that the use of Standard Czech in everyday situations is more frequent than in Bohemia. The Standard Czech became de-facto standardized with a new translation of the Bible (Bible of Kralice) using an older variant of the then-current language (for example, preferring -ý- to -ej-). The Bible of Kralice (Bible kralická was the first complete translation of the Bible from the original languages into the Czech language. These Standard forms are still common in spoken language both in Moravia and Silesia. Some Moravians and Silesians therefore tend to say that they use "proper" language, unlike their Bohemian compatriots.

A special case is the Cieszyn Silesian dialect, spoken in the microregion of Cieszyn Silesia. Cieszyn Silesian dialect (gwara cieszyńska or dialekt cieszyński; těšínské nářečí locals using this dialect say they speak "po naszymu" is one of the It is spoken generally by the ethnic Polish minority. The Polish people, or Poles, (Polacy) are a Western Slavic Ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. The dialect itself is a dialect of Polish but with strong Czech and German influences. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

It should be noted that some south Moravian dialects are also sometimes, although rarely, considered (also by Czech linguists in the 90's or later, e. g. Václav Machek in his "Etymologický slovník jazyka českého", 1997, ISBN 80-7106-242-1, p. 8, who speaks about a "Moravian-Slovak" dialect from the region of Moravian "Slovácko") to be actually dialects of the Slovak language, which has its roots in the Moravian empire when Slovaks and Moravians were one nation (without Bohemians) with one language. Those dialects still have the same suffixes (for inflected substantives and pronouns and for conjugated verbs) as Slovak.

The minor dialect spoken in Pilsen and parts of Western Bohemia and in wester parts of former Prachens region differs, among other things, by intonation of questions: all the words except for the last word of a sentence have a high pitch. Officially Provincia Prachinensis or Prachens in English and German an autonomous region in the southwest of the present Bohemia created in the late 13th century and abolished This is the reason why the people from Pilsen are said to be "singing". Words that start questions are often given an additional "-pa": "Kolipa je hodin?" (regular Czech: "Kolik je hodin?"; English: "What time is it?"). The words like "this" (regular Czech: "tento/tato/toto") are often replaced by "tuten/tuta/tuto"); some examples: "What is this? or "What's happening?" is "Copato?" instead of "Co se stalo? / Co je to?" or "Why?" is "Pročpa?" instead of "Proč?". Region of Chodsko is home of very special Czech-Polish dialect of Chods people who were displaced about 10th century from Silesia because of protection of western border of Bohemia. Chodové ( Walkers) was a group of people in Bohemia, mainly in the surroundings of Domažlice, Tachov and Přimda. Bohemia (Čechy; Bohemia Czechy is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the

Declension

Main article: Czech declension

The noun cases are typically referred to by number, and learned by means of the question to which they are the answer. Czech declension describes the Declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications in Nouns Adjectives Pronouns and Numerals When learning a new word, children recite the cases using a set of example phrases, shown as follows:

1. kdo/co? (who/what?) nominative
2. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other bez koho/čeho? (without whom/what?) genitive
3. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another komu/čemu? (to whom/what?) dative
4. The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given vidím koho/co? (I see whom/what?) accusative
5. The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive oslovujeme/voláme (we address/call) vocative
6. The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc o kom/čem? (about whom/what?) locative
7. Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location s kým/čím? (with whom/what?) instrumental

The case used depends on a number of variables, and for foreigners can be very confusing. The instrumental case (also called the eighth case) is a Grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the

Prepositions with certain cases

The simplest of the rules governing noun declension is the use of prepositions (předložky). In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. Excepting expressions and common phrases, each preposition is matched with a certain noun declension case depending on use. The following are basic examples of common prepositions and their corresponding noun cases (note: these examples represent only one circumstance. Often each preposition can be used with two or more noun cases depending on the sentence).

Many of the above prepositions are used in different circumstances. For instance, when motion or a change of position is expressed, prepositions like nad, mezi, na, pod, etc. are used with the accusative case.

The second factor affecting noun declension is the verb used. In Czech grammar, the accusative case serves as the direct object, and the dative case serves as the indirect object. An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. Some verbs require the genitive case to be used. For example, the verb "zeptat se" (to ask) requires that the person being asked the question be in the genitive case (Zeptat se koho/čeho), and that the thing being asked about follow the preposition "na" and be in the accusative case (Zeptat se koho/čeho na koho/co).

Counting and declension

The third factor affecting noun declension is number. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" The Czech language has a very complex counting system, explained as follows with the example masculine animate noun muž (man):

That's in colloquial use. In literary use, there is an additional rule: the above system is based only on the last word of the number. Thus a number like 101 uses the singular (sto jeden muž) and 102 uses the ordinary plural (sto dva muži). For numbers which can be read in two ways, such as 21, the grammar may depend on which one is chosen (dvacet jeden muž or jednadvacet mužů). This system is becoming less common and is not used in every day speech, as well as becoming harder to find in modern literature.

Numbers also have declension patterns in Czech. The number two, for instance, declines as follows:

Nominative dva/dvě
Genitive dvou
Dative dvěma
Accusative dva/dvě
Vocative dva/dvě
Locative (o) dvou
Instrumental dvěma

The numbers are singular (jednotné číslo), plural (množné číslo), and remains of dual. Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. The number two, as declined above, is an example of the now-diminished dual number. The dual number is used for only several parts of the human body, of which each person has two: hands, shoulders, eyes, ears, knees, legs, breasts. In all but two of the above body parts (eyes and ears) the dual number is only vestigial and affects very few aspects of declension (mostly the genitive and prepositional cases). However, in Bohemian Czech it has become a common part of slang to use the dual ending of the instrumental case for ALL plural instrumental declensions, for example, "s kluky" (with the boys) becomes "s klukama", and so on for all nouns.

Gender

The three genders are masculine, feminine, and neuter, with masculine further subdivided into animate and inanimate. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Words for individuals with biological gender usually have the corresponding grammatical gender, with only a few exceptions; similarly, among the masculine nouns, the distinction between animate and inanimate also follows meaning. Other words have arbitrary grammatical genders. Thus, for instance, pes (dog) is masculine animate, stůl (table) is masculine inanimate, kočka (cat) and židle (chair) are feminine, and morče (guinea-pig) and světlo (light) are neuter.

Tenses and conditionals

Compared to Romance languages, Czech has a very simple set of tenses. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all They are present, past, and future. Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. PAST (short for Polska Akcyjna Spółka Telefoniczna, Polish Telephone Joint-stock Company) was a Polish telephone operator in the period between World War I The future is commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur

Past is used in almost all instances of past action, and replaces every past tense in English (past perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, etc. ). The past tense is usually formed by affixing an -l- on the end of the verb, sometimes with a minor (rarely significant) stem change. After adding the -l-, letters are added in order to agree with the subject (-a for feminine, -i or -y for plural).

The present tense is precisely the same as in English. It is also used in cases where one would say, for instance, "I have been doing this for three hours". In Czech, the present indicative is used and is directly translated as "I do this for three hours".

There are also sometimes second forms of certain verbs (like to go, to do, etc. ) that indicate a habitual or repeated action. These are known as iterative forms. For instance, the verb jít (to go by foot) has the iterative form chodit (to go regularly).

There is also no tense shifting (as in reported speech). E. g. "He loves her" -> "He said he loved her", the time is shifted from present to past. In Czech it is "Má ji rád" -> "Řekl, že ji má rád". The "má rád" implies present tense in both cases.

The conditional is something of an oddity, with no real indication of time. It is the same regardless of whether the action discussed is a future, present, or past action. The conditional is formed by using the auxiliary "conditional marker" and the past tense of the root verb. The condition marker appears as follows:

So, "I would have gone" would be translated as "Já bych šel" (or, more usually, "Šel bych").

The future tense is another fickle part of Czech grammar. Often, verbs that appear to be present tense are actually future tense. For instance, the verb "vyhodit" (throw out) appears like a normal present tense, but actually indicates a future action. This form of the verb has no present tense — it indicates a completed action (perfective aspect), so a present tense wouldn't make sense: either the action is already completed (past) or yet to be completed (future). In Grammar, the perfective aspect is an aspect that exists in many languages A different form, "vyhazovat", indicates an ongoing action (imperfective aspect) and has all three tenses. The imperfective aspect is a Grammatical aspect. It refers to an action that is viewed from a particular viewpoint as ongoing habitual repeated or generally containing internal

See also

External links


The Czech alphabet is a version of the Latin alphabet, used when writing Czech Czech declension describes the Declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications in Nouns Adjectives Pronouns and Numerals Czech orthography is a system of rules for correct writing ( Orthography) in the Czech language. Czech phonetic trancription describes the methods of graphic recording of spoken languages which are used in the Czech linguistic literature Czech phonology describes functions and pronunciation of individual phonemes used in the Czech language. Czech verbs describes the Conjugations or system of grammatically-determined modifications in Verbs in the Czech language. The Czech word order is relatively free However the Czech language belongs to the SVO type Names Usage differs as to the name of this diacritic In the field of typography the term "caron" seems to be more popular Czech names are composed of Given names and Surnames. Surnames used by women differ from the corresponding male surnames The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directory
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