Czech language

Czech
čeština,český jazyk
Native to	Czech Republic
Ethnicity	Czechs
Native speakers	10.6 million (2015)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Czech–Slovak Czech
Dialects	Bohemian Central Moravian Eastern Moravian Lach
Writing system	Latin script(Czech Alpha bet) Czech Braille
Official status
Official language in	Czech Republic European Union
Recognised minority language in	Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Poland Romania Slovakia
Regulated by	Institute of the Czech Language (of theAcademy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	cs
ISO 639-2	cze(B) ces(T)
ISO 639-3	ces
Glottolog	czec1258
Linguasphere	53-AAA-da <53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-daa to 53-AAA-dam)
IETF	cs

Czech(/tʃɛk/CHEK;endonym:čeština[ˈtʃɛʃcɪna]), historically also known asBohemian(/boʊˈhiːmiən,bə-/boh-HEE-mee-ən, bə-;Latin:lingua Bohemica), is aWest Slavic languageof theCzech–Slovak group,written inLatin script.Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of theCzech Republic.Czech is closely related toSlovak,to the point of highmutual intelligibility,as well as toPolishto a lesser degree.Czech is afusional languagewith a rich system ofmorphologyand relatively flexibleword order.Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced byLatinandGerman.

The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in thehigh medievalperiod, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of theCzech National Revival.The most widely spokennon-standard variety,known as Common Czech, is based on thevernacularofPrague,but is now spoken as aninterdialectthroughout most ofBohemia.TheMoravian dialectsspoken inMoraviaandCzech Silesiaare considerably more varied than the dialects of Bohemia.

Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising tenmonophthongs,threediphthongsand 25 consonants (divided into "hard", "neutral" and "soft" categories). Words may contain complicated consonant clusters or lack vowels altogether. Czech has araised alveolar trill,which is known to occur as aphonemein only a few other languages, represented by thegraphemeř.

Classification

Classification of Czech within theBalto-Slavicbranch of the Indo-European language family. Czech and Slovak make up a "Czech–Slovak" subgroup.

Further information:Czech-Slovak languagesandWest Slavic languages

Czech is a member of theWest Slavicsub-branch of theSlavicbranch of theIndo-Europeanlanguage family. This branch includesPolish,Kashubian,UpperandLower SorbianandSlovak.Slovak is the most closely related language to Czech, followed by Polish andSilesian.

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 (seePhonologybelow).

History

Main article:History of the Czech language

See also:History of the Czech lands

Medieval/Old Czech

TheBible of Kralicewas the first completetranslation of the Bible into the Czech languagefrom 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 byOld Slavonicwritten inGlagolitic,later byLatinwritten inLatin script.

Around the 7th century, theSlavic expansionreached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of theFrankish Empire.The West Slavic polity ofGreat Moraviaformed by the 9th century. TheChristianization of Bohemiatook place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of theCzech-Slovakgroup withinWest Slavicbegan around that time, marked among other things by its use of thevoiced velar fricativeconsonant (/ɣ/)and consistent stress on the first syllable.

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 completeBible translation,theLeskovec-Dresden Bible,also dates to this period.Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities.

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

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.

The publication of theKralice Biblebetween 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.

In 1615, the Bohemiandiettried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After theBohemian Revolt(of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which was defeated by theHabsburgsin 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of theThirty Years' Warhad 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.

Modern Czech

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.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.Sometime before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned a distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak.

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 theCounter-Reformation(the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non-Latinlanguages).Czechphilologistsstudied sixteenth-century texts, advocating the return of the language tohigh culture.This period is known as the Czech National Revival(or Renaissance).

During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historianJosef Dobrovskýreleased a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitledAusführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache('Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language'). Dobrovský had intended his book to bedescriptive,and did not think Czech had a realistic chance of returning as a major language. However,Josef Jungmannand other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival.Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably,íin place of the formerjandjin place ofg), the use oft(rather thanti) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German).These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak.Modern scholars disagree about whether the conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use.

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.

Geographic distribution

Official use of Czech inVojvodina,Serbia(in light blue)

Czech is spoken by about 10 million residents of theCzech Republic.AEurobarometersurvey conducted from January to March 2012 found that thefirst languageof 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest proportion of a population in theEuropean Union(behindGreeceandHungary).

As the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of theEuropean Unionsince 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.Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012European Day of Languages.The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were theCzech Republic(98.77 percent),Slovakia(24.86 percent),Portugal(1.93 percent),Poland(0.98 percent) andGermany(0.47 percent).

Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it is a recognizedminority languagein 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.

United States

See also:Czech AmericanandCzech Texan

Praha, Texas

Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is aLess Commonly Taught Languagein U.S. schools, and is taught at Czech heritage centers. Large communities ofCzech Americanslive in the states ofTexas,NebraskaandWisconsin.In the2000 United States Census,Czech was reported as the commonestlanguage spoken at home(besidesEnglish) inValley,ButlerandSaundersCounties,Nebraska andRepublic County, Kansas.With the exception ofSpanish(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 DakotaandMinnesota.As of 2009,70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, afterTurkishand beforeSwedish).

Phonology

Main article:Czech phonology

Spoken Czech

Vowels

A Czech vowel chart

Standard Czech contains ten basicvowelphonemes,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 asauto"car" andeuro"euro".

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/).

Consonants

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

		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 byioríin writing, or soft ones byyorý(except in loanwords such askilogram).Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak".This distinction is also relevant to thedeclensionpatterns of nouns, which vary according to whether the final consonant of the noun stem is hard or soft.

Voicedconsonantswith unvoiced counterparts are unvoiced at the end of a word before a pause, and inconsonant clustersvoicing assimilationoccurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/.

The phoneme represented by the letterř(capitalŘ) is very rare among languages and often claimed to be unique to Czech, though it also occurs in some dialects ofKashubian,and formerly occurred in Polish.It represents theraised alveolar non-sonorant trill(IPA:[r̝]), a sound somewhere between Czechrandž(example:),and is present inDvořák.In unvoiced environments, /r̝/ is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊], a sound somewhere between Czechrandš.

The consonants/r/,/l/,and/m/can besyllabic,acting assyllable nucleiin place of a vowel.Strč prst skrz krk( "Stick [your] finger through [your] throat" ) is a well-known Czechtongue twisterusing syllabic consonants but no vowels.

Stress

Each word has primarystresson its firstsyllable,except forenclitics(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.Vowels are never reduced in tone (e.g. toschwasounds) when unstressed.When a noun is preceded by a monosyllabic preposition, the stress usually moves to the preposition, e.g.doPrahy"to Prague".

Grammar

Czech grammar, like that of other Slavic languages, isfusional;its nouns, verbs, and adjectives areinflectedby phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and the easily separableaffixescharacteristic ofagglutinativelanguages are limited. Czech inflects for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect,mood,person and subject number and gender in verbs.

Parts of speech include adjectives,adverbs,numbers,interrogative words,prepositions,conjunctionsandinterjections.Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking the finalýoríof the base form and replacing it withe,ě,y,oro.Negative statements are formed by adding the affixne-to the main verb of a clause,with one exception:je(he, she or it is) becomesnení.

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 usesgrammatical caseto convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying onword order,as English does), its word order is flexible. As apro-drop language,in Czech anintransitivesentence can consist of only a verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb.Enclitics (primarilyauxiliary verbsand 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 conjunctionsa,"and",i,"and even" orale,"but" ).

Czech syntax has asubject–verb–objectsentence structure. In practice, however, word order is flexible and used to distinguishtopic 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 atopic-prominent language.Although Czech has aperiphrasticpassiveconstruction (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).Pavlais in theaccusative case,the grammatical object of the verb.

A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upwardintonationindicates that the sentence is a question:

• 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 ofBohemia(includingPrague), questions such asJí pes bagetu?without an interrogative word (such asco,"what" orkdo,"who" ) areintonedin a slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase.

In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns,with few exceptions.Relative clausesare introduced byrelativizerssuch as the adjectivekterý,analogous to the Englishrelative pronouns"which", "that" and "who" / "whom". As with other adjectives, itagreeswith its associated noun in gender, number and case. Relative clauses follow the noun they modify. The following is aglossedexample:

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 sevengrammatical caseswhich indicate their function in a sentence, twonumbers(singular and plural) and threegenders(masculine, feminine and neuter). The masculine gender is further divided intoanimate and inanimateclasses.

Case

A street sign in German (top) and Czech (bottom) for a street named afterBožena Němcováwith her name declined in the genitive case in Czech (a sign probably from the time of theProtectorate).

Anominative–accusative language,Czech marks subject nouns of transitive and intransitive verbs in the nominative case, which is the form found in dictionaries, anddirect objectsof transitive verbs are declined in the accusative case.The vocative case is used to address people.The remaining cases (genitive, dative, locative and instrumental) indicate semantic relationships, such asnoun adjuncts(genitive),indirect objects(dative), or agents in passive constructions (instrumental).Additionallyprepositionsand some verbs require their complements to be declined in a certain case.The locative case is only used after prepositions.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:

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) andz(out of, off) assign the genitive case. Other prepositions take one of several cases, with their meaning dependent on the case;nameans "onto" or "for" with the accusative case, but "on" with the locative.

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 threegenders—masculine, feminine, and neuter—and the masculine gender is subdivided intoanimateand 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.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.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) anddělalo(it did, or made).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 exampleČech(Czech man) has the feminine formČeška(Czech woman).

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 fornumber,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:

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 thedemonstrative pronounten.

	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	tříortřech	čtyřorčtyřech	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'sgrammatical numbersare singular andplural,several residuals ofdualforms remain, such as the wordsdva( "two" ) andoba( "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,anducho(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.These forms are plural semantically, used for any non-singular count, as inmezi 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.

Verb conjugation

Main article:Czech conjugation

Czech verbs agree with their subjects inperson(first, second or third),number(singular or plural), and in constructions involvingparticiples,which includes the past tense, also ingender.They are conjugated for tense (past, present orfuture) and mood (indicative,imperativeorconditional). For example, the conjugated verbmluvíme(we speak) is in the present tense and first-person plural; it is distinguished from other conjugations of theinfinitivemluvitby its ending,-íme.The infinitive form of Czech verbs ends in-t(archaically,-tior-ci). It is the form found in dictionaries and the form that follows auxiliary verbs (for example,můžu tě slyšet— "I canhearyou ").

Aspect

See also:Grammatical aspect in Slavic languages

Typical of Slavic languages, Czech marks its verbs for one of twogrammatical aspects:perfectiveandimperfective.Most verbs are part of inflected aspect pairs—for example,koupit(perfective) andkupovat(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 frompastandpresent tense.Any verb of either aspect can be conjugated into either the past or present tense,but the future tense is only used with imperfective verbs.Aspect describes the state of the action at the time specified by the tense.

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 imperfectivepsát(to write, to be writing) compared with the perfectivenapsat(to write down). The most common prefixes arena-,o-,po-,s-,u-,vy-,z-andza-.In suffix pairs, a different infinitive ending is added to the perfective stem; for example, the perfective verbskoupit(to buy) andprodat(to sell) have the imperfective formskupovatandprodávat.Imperfective verbs may undergo further morphology to make other imperfective verbs (iterative andfrequentativeforms), denoting repeated or regular action. The verbjít(to go) has the iterative formchodit(to go regularly) and the frequentative formchodívat(to go occasionally; to tend to go).

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) andnadchnout se(to become enthusiastic)—have no imperfective aspect.

Tense

Conjugation ofbýtin 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 anull-subject language,the subject pronoun can be omitted unless it is needed for clarity.The past tense is formed using aparticiplewhich ends in-land a further ending which agrees with the gender and number of the subject. For the first and second persons, the auxiliary verbbýtconjugated in the present tense is added.

In some contexts, the present tense of perfective verbs (which differs from the Englishpresent perfect) implies future action; in others, it connotes habitual action.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 ofbýt(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".Wherebuduhas a noun or adjective complement it means "I will be", for example,budu šťastný(I will be happy).Some verbs of movement form their future tense by adding the prefixpo-to the present tense forms instead, e.g.jedu( "I go" ) >pojedu( "I will go" ).

Mood

Conditional form ofkoupit(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 threegrammatical moods:indicative,imperativeandconditional.The imperative mood is formed by adding specific endings for each of three person–number categories:-Ø/-i/-ejfor second-person singular,-te/-ete/-ejtefor second-person plural and-me/-eme/-ejmefor first-person plural.Imperatives are usually expressed using perfective verbs if positive and imperfective verbs if negative.The conditional mood is formed with a conditionalauxiliary verbafter 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.

Verb classes

Main article:Morphological classification of Czech verbs

Most Czech verbs fall into one of fiveclasses,which determine their conjugation patterns. The future tense ofbýtwould 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:

	Class I	Class II	Class III	Class IV	Class V
Definition	to carry	to print	to wander	to suffer	to do, to make
Infinitive	nést	tisknout	putovat	trpět	dělat
1st p. sg.	nesu	tisknu	putuji	trpím	dělám
2nd p. sg.	neseš	tiskneš	putuješ	trpíš	děláš
3rd p. sg.	nese	tiskne	putuje	trpí	dělá
1st p. pl.	neseme	tiskneme	putujeme	trpíme	děláme
2nd p. pl.	nesete	tisknete	putujete	trpíte	děláte
3rd p. pl.	nesou	tisknou	putují	trpí	dělají

Irregular verbs

Definition	to be	to want	to eat	to know
Infinitive	být	chtít	jíst	vědět
1st p. sg.	jsem	chci	jím	vím
2nd p. sg.	jsi	chceš	jíš	víš
3rd p. sg.	je	chce	jí	ví
1st p. pl.	jsme	chceme	jíme	víme
2nd p. pl.	jste	chcete	jíte	víte
3rd p. pl.	jsou	chtějí	jedí	vědí

Orthography

The handwritten Czech Alpha bet, without a Q, W and X

Main article:Czech orthography

See also:Czech Braille

Czech has one of the mostphonemic orthographiesof all European languages. Its Alpha bet contains 42graphemes,most of which correspond to individualphonemes,and only contains only onedigraph:ch,which followshin the Alpha bet.The charactersq,wandxappear only in foreign words.Theháček(ˇ) is used with certain letters to form new characters:š,ž,andč,as well asň,ě,ř,ť,andď(the latter five uncommon outside Czech). The last two letters are sometimes written with a comma above (ʼ, an abbreviated háček) because of their height.Czech orthography has influenced the orthographies of other Balto-Slavic languages and some of its characters have been adopted fortransliteration of Cyrillic.

Czech orthography reflectsvowel length;long vowels are indicated by anacute accentor, in the case of the characterů,aring.Longuis usually writtenúat the beginning of a word or morpheme (úroda,neúrodný) andůelsewhere,except for loanwords (skútr) or onomatopoeia (bú).Long vowels anděare not considered separate letters in the Alpha betical order.The characteróexists only in loanwords andonomatopoeia.

Czechtypographicalfeatures not associated with phonetics generally resemble those of most European languages that use theLatin script,including English.Proper nouns,honorifics,and the first letters of quotations arecapitalized,andpunctuationis 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.Inproper nounphrases (except personal and settlement names), only the first word and proper nouns inside such phrases are capitalized (Pražský hrad,Prague Castle).

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 theCzech National Revivalin the 1830s, significantly influenced byJosef Jungmann's Czech–German dictionary published during 1834–1839. Jungmann used vocabulary of theBible of Kralice(1579–1613) period and of the language used by his contemporaries. He borrowed words not present in Czech from other Slavic languages or created neologisms.Standard Czech is the formal register of the language which is used in official documents, formal literature, newspaper articles, education and occasionally public speeches.It is codified by theCzech Language Institute,who publish occasional reforms to the codification. The most recent reform took place in 1993.The termhovorová čeština(lit. "Colloquial Czech" ) is sometimes used to refer to the spoken variety of standard Czech.

The most widely spoken vernacular form of the language is called "Common Czech" (obecná čeština), aninterdialectinfluenced by spoken Standard Czech and the Central Bohemian dialects of thePragueregion. Other Bohemian regional dialects have become marginalized, whileMoravian dialectsremain 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 astylistic continuum,in which contact between varieties of a similar prestige influences change within them.

Common Czech

Dialects of Czech,Moravian,Lach,andCieszyn Silesianspoken in the Czech Republic. The border areas, where German was formerly spoken, are now mixed.

The main Czech vernacular, spoken primarily inBohemiaincluding the capitalPrague,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.Compared to Standard Czech, Common Czech is characterized by simpler inflection patterns and differences in sound distribution.

Common Czech is distinguished from spoken/colloquial Standard Czech (hovorová čeština), which is astylistic varietywithin standard Czech.Tomasz Kamuselladefines the spoken variety of Standard Czech as a compromise between Common Czech and the written standard,whileMiroslav Komárekcalls Common Czech an intersection of spoken Standard Czech and regional dialects.

Common Czech has become ubiquitous in most parts of the Czech Republic since the later 20th century. It is usually defined as aninterdialectused in common speech inBohemiaand western parts ofMoravia(by about two thirds of all inhabitants of theCzech Republic). Common Czech is notcodified,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.The colloquial form of Standard Czech finds limited use in daily communication due to the expansion of the Common Czech interdialect.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.

Common Czechphonologyis based on that of the Central Bohemian dialect group, which has a slightly different set of vowel phonemes to Standard Czech.The phoneme /ɛː/ is peripheral and usually merges with /iː/, e.g. inmalýměsto(small town),plamínek(little flame) andlítat(to fly), and a second native diphthong /ɛɪ̯/ occurs, usually in places where Standard Czech has /iː/, e.g.malejdům(small house),mlejn(mill),plejtvat(to waste),bejt(to be).In addition, a protheticv-is added to most words beginningo-,such asvotevřítvokno(to open the window).

Non-standardmorphologicalfeatures that are more or less common among all Common Czech speakers include:

• unifiedpluralendingsofadjectives:malýlidi(small people),malýženy(small women),malýměsta(small towns) – standard:malí lidé, malé ženy, malá města;
• unifiedinstrumentalending-mainplural:s těmadobrejmalidma,ženama,chlapama,městama(with the good people, women, guys, towns) – standard:s těmi dobrými lidmi, ženami, chlapy, městy.In essence, this form resembles the form of thedual,which was once a productive form, but now is almost extinct and retained in a lexically specific set of words. In Common Czech the ending became productive again around the 17th century, but used as a substitute for a regular plural form.
• omission of the syllabic-lin the masculine ending of past tense verbs:řek(he said),moh(he could),pích(he pricked) – standard:řekl, mohl, píchl.
• tendency of merging the locative singular masculine/neuter for adjectives with the instrumental by changing the locative ending-émto-ýmand then shortening the vowel:mladém(standard locative),mladým(standard instrumental) >mladým(Common Czech locative),mladym(Common Czech instrumental) >mladym(Common Czech locative/instrumental with shortening).

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

		Masculine animate	Masculine inanimate	Feminine	Neuter
Sg.	Nominative	mladejčlověk mladý člověk	mladejstát mladý stát	mladá žena mladá žena	mladýzvíře mladé zvíře
	Genitive	mladýhočlověka mladého člověka	mladýhostátu mladého státu	mladýženy mladé ženy	mladýhozvířete mladého zvířete
	Dative	mladýmučlověkovi mladému člověku	mladýmustátu mladému státu	mladýženě mladé ženě	mladýmuzvířeti mladému zvířeti
	Accusative	mladýhočlověka mladého člověka	mladejstát mladý stát	mladou ženu mladou ženu	mladýzvíře mladé zvíře
	Vocative	mladejčlověče! mladý člověče!	mladejstáte! mladý státe!	mladá ženo! mladá ženo!	mladýzvíře! mladé zvíře!
	Locative	mladýmčlověkovi mladém člověkovi	mladýmstátě mladém státě	mladýženě mladé ženě	mladýmzvířeti mladém zvířeti
	Instrumental	mladymčlověkem mladým člověkem	mladymstátem mladým státem	mladou ženou mladou ženou	mladymzvířetem mladým zvířetem
Pl.	Nominative	mladýlidi mladí lidé	mladýstáty mladé státy	mladýženy mladé ženy	mladýzvířata mladá zvířata
	Genitive	mladejchlidí mladých lidí	mladejchstátů mladých států	mladejchžen mladých žen	mladejchzvířat mladých zvířat
	Dative	mladejmlidem mladým lidem	mladejmstátům mladým státům	mladejmženám mladým ženám	mladejmzvířatům mladým zvířatům
	Accusative	mladýlidi mladé lidi	mladýstáty mladé státy	mladýženy mladé ženy	mladýzvířata mladá zvířata
	Vocative	mladýlidi! mladí lidé!	mladýstáty! mladé státy!	mladýženy! mladé ženy!	mladýzvířata! mladá zvířata!
	Locative	mladejchlidech mladých lidech	mladejchstátech mladých státech	mladejchženách mladých ženách	mladejchzvířatech mladých zvířatech
	Instrumental	mladejmalidma mladými lidmi	mladejmastátama mladými státy	mladejmaženama mladými ženami	mladejmazvířatama 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 inČeský Krumlovfrom 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.

TheCzech Statistical Officein 2003 recognized the following Bohemian dialects:

• Nářečí středočeská(Central Bohemian dialects)
• Nářečí jihozápadočeská(Southwestern Bohemian dialects)

• Podskupina chodská(Chodsubgroup)
• Podskupina doudlebská(Doudlebysubgroup)

• Nářečí severovýchodočeská(Northeastern Bohemian dialects)

• Podskupina podkrknošská(Krkonošesubgroup)

Moravian dialects

Main article:Moravian dialects

See also:Lach dialectsandCieszyn Silesian dialect

Traditional territory of the main dialect groups of Moravia and Czech Silesia. Green: Central Moravian, Red: East Moravian, Yellow:Lach (Silesian),Pink:Cieszyn Silesian,Orange: Bohemian–Moravian transitional dialects, Purple: Mixed areas

The Czech dialects spoken inMoraviaandSilesiaare known asMoravian(moravština). In theAustro-Hungarian Empire,"Bohemian-Moravian-Slovak" was a language citizens could register as speaking (with German, Polish and several others).In the 2011 census, where respondents could optionally specify up to two first languages,62,908 Czech citizens specified Moravian as their first language and 45,561 specified both Moravian and Czech.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, some varieties of Czech resembled Slovak;the southeastern Moravian dialects form a continuum between the Czech and Slovak languages,using the same declension patterns for nouns and pronouns and the same verb conjugations as Slovak.

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.

TheCzech Statistical Officein 2003 recognized the following Moravian dialects:

• Nářečí českomoravská(Bohemian–Moravian dialects)
• Nářečí středomoravská(Central Moravian dialects)

• Podskupina tišnovská(Tišnovsubgroup)

• Nářečí východomoravská(Eastern Moravian dialects)

• Podskupina slovácká(Moravian Slovaksubgroup)
• Podskupina valašská(Moravian Wallachiansubgroup)

• Nářečí slezská(Silesian dialects)

Sample

In a 1964 textbook on Czechdialectology,Břetislav Koudela used the following sentence to highlight phonetic differences between dialects:

Standard Czech:	Dejmoukuzemlýna na vozík.
Common Czech:	Dejmoukuzemlejna na vozejk.
Central Moravian:	Démókozemléna na vozék.
Eastern Moravian:	Dajmúkuzemłýna na vozík.
Silesian:	Dajmukuzemłyna na vozik.
Slovak:	Dajmúkuz mlyna na vozík.
English:	Put the flour from the mill into the cart.

Mutual intelligibility with Slovak

Czech and Slovak have been consideredmutually intelligible;speakers of either language can communicate with greater ease than those of any other pair of West Slavic languages.Following the 1993dissolution of Czechoslovakia,mutual intelligibility declined for younger speakers, probably because Czech speakers began to experience less exposure to Slovak and vice versa.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.Grammatically, both languages share a common syntax.

One study showed that Czech and Slovaklexiconsdiffered by 80 percent, but this high percentage was found to stem primarily from differing orthographies and slight inconsistencies in morphological formation;Slovak morphology is more regular (when changing from thenominativeto thelocative case,PrahabecomesPrazein Czech andPrahein 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.

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 excludedGerman Bohemiansand (to a lesser extent)Hungariansand other Slavs.During theFirst 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 theSlovak State(which then aligned withNazi GermanyinWorld War II), literary Slovak was deliberately distanced from Czech. When theAxis powerslost the war and Czechoslovakia reformed, Slovak developed somewhat on its own (with Czech influence); during thePrague Springof 1968, Slovak gained independence from (and equality with) Czech,due to the transformation of Czechoslovakia from a unitary state to a federation. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, "Czechoslovak" has referred to improvisedpidginsof the languages which have arisen from the decrease in mutual intelligibility.

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.Some loanwords have been restructured byfolk etymologyto resemble native Czech words (e.g.hřbitov,"graveyard" andlistina,"list" ).

Most Czech loanwords originated in one of two time periods. Earlier loanwords, primarily from German,Greekand Latin,arrived before the Czech National Revival. More recent loanwords derive primarily from English andFrench,and also fromHebrew,ArabicandPersian.Many Russian loanwords, principally animal names and naval terms, also exist in Czech.

Although older German loanwords were colloquial, recent borrowings from other languages are associated with high culture.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" ismuzykain Polish andмузыка(muzyka) in Russian, but in Czech it ishudba.Some Czech words have been borrowed as loanwords intoEnglishand other languages—for example,robot(fromrobota,"labor" )andpolka(frompolka,"Polishwoman "or from" půlka "" half ").

Example text

Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin 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.

Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin 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.

See also

• Czech Centers
• Czech name
• Czech Sign Language
• Swadesh list of Slavic words

References

• Agnew, Hugh LeCaine (1994).Origins of the Czech National Renascence.University of PittsburghPress.ISBN978-0-8229-8549-5.
• Dankovičová, Jana (1999). "Czech".Handbook of the International Phonetic Association(9th ed.). International Phonetic Association/Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-63751-0.
• Cerna, Iva; Machalek, Jolana (2007).Beginner's Czech.Hippocrene Books.ISBN978-0-7818-1156-9.
• Chloupek, Jan; Nekvapil, Jiří (1993).Studies in Functional Stylistics.John Benjamins Publishing Company.ISBN978-90-272-1545-1.
• Eckert, Eva (1993).Varieties of Czech: Studies in Czech Sociolinguistics.Editions Rodopi.ISBN978-90-5183-490-1.
• Esposito, Anna (2011).Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and Enactment: The Processing Issues.Springer Press.ISBN978-3-642-25774-2.
• Hajičová, Eva (1986).Prague Studies in Mathematical Linguistics(9th ed.). John Benjamins Publishing.ISBN978-90-272-1527-7.
• Harkins, William Edward (1952).A Modern Czech Grammar.King's Crown Press (Columbia University).ISBN978-0-231-09937-0.
• Komárek, Miroslav (2012).Dějiny českého jazyka(in Czech). Brno: Host.ISBN978-80-7294-591-7.
• Kortmann, Bernd; van der Auwera, Johan (2011).The Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide (World of Linguistics).Mouton De Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-022025-4.
• Koudela, Břetislav; et al. (1964).Vývoj českého jazyka a dialektologie(in Czech). Československé státní pedagogické nakladatelství.
• Liberman, Anatoly; Trubetskoi, Nikolai S. (2001).N.S. Trubetzkoy: Studies in General Linguistics and Language Structure.Duke UniversityPress.ISBN978-0-8223-2299-3.
• Mann, Stuart Edward (1957).Czech Historical Grammar.Helmut Buske Verlag.ISBN978-3-87118-261-7.
• Mathesius, Vilém (2013).A Functional Analysis of Present Day English on a General Linguistic Basis.De Gruyter.ISBN978-90-279-3077-4.
• Maxwell, Alexander (2009).Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language and Accidental Nationalism.Tauris Academic Studies.ISBN978-1-84885-074-3.
• Naughton, James (2005).Czech: An Essential Grammar.Routledge Press.ISBN978-0-415-28785-2.
• Pansofia (1993).Pravidla českého pravopisu(in Czech). Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR.ISBN978-80-901373-6-3.
• Piotrowski, Michael (2012).Natural Language Processing for Historical Texts.Morgan & Claypool Publishers.ISBN978-1-60845-946-9.
• Qualls, Eduard J. (2012).The Qualls Concise English Grammar.Danaan Press.ISBN978-1-890000-09-7.
• Rothstein, Björn; Thieroff, Rolf (2010).Mood in the Languages of Europe.John Benjamins Publishing Company.ISBN978-90-272-0587-2.
• Short, David (2009). "Czech and Slovak". In Bernard Comrie (ed.).The World's Major Languages(2nd ed.). Routledge. pp. 305–330.
• Scheer, Tobias (2004).A Lateral Theory of Phonology: What is CVCV, and why Should it Be?, Part 1.Walter De Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-017871-5.
• Stankiewicz, Edward (1986).The Slavic Languages: Unity in Diversity.Mouton De Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-009904-1.
• Sussex, Rolan; Cubberley, Paul (2011).The Slavic Languages.Cambridge Language Surveys.ISBN978-0-521-29448-5.
• Tahal, Karel (2010).A grammar of Czech as a foreign language.Factum.
• Wilson, James (2009).Moravians in Prague: A Sociolinguistic Study of Dialect Contact in the Czech.Peter Lang International Academic Publishers.ISBN978-3-631-58694-5.

External links

• Ústav pro jazyk český–Czech Language Institute,the regulatory body for the Czech language(in Czech)
• Czech National Corpus
• Czech Monolingual Online Dictionary
• Online Translation Dictionaries
• Czech Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words(from Wiktionary'sSwadesh-list appendix)
• Online Czech Grammar and Exercises