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Czech language
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Czech (; ceština ) is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian.
h is widely spoken by most inhabitants of the Czech Republic. 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).
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Encyclopedia
Czech (; ceština ) is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian.
Official status
Czech is widely spoken by most inhabitants of the Czech Republic. 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). 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.
Czech is also one of the 23 official languages in the European Union (since May 2004).
Mutual intelligibility
Speakers of Czech and Slovak usually understand both languages in their written and spoken form, thus constituting a language diasystem, though some dialects or heavily accented speech in either language might present difficulties to speakers of the other (in particular, Eastern Slovak dialects to Czech speakers are seen as difficult to comprehend). Younger generations of Czechs living after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 (therefore generally less familiar with Slovak) might also have some problems with a certain number of words and expressions which differ considerably in the two languages, and with false friends. Nevertheless, these differences do not impede mutual intelligibility significantly.
Name
The name "ceština", Czech, is derived from a Slavic tribe of Czechs ("Cech", pl. "Ceši") that inhabited Central Bohemia and united neighbouring Slavic tribes under the reign of the Premyslid dynasty ("Premyslovci"). The etymology is unclear. According to a legend, it is derived from the Forefather Cech, who brought the tribe of Czechs into its land.
History
The Czech language developed from the Proto-Slavic language at the close of the 1st millennium.
Phonology
The phonology of Czech may also be very difficult for speakers of other languages. For example, some words do not appear to have vowels: zmrzl (frozen solid), ztvrdl (hardened), scvrkl (shrunk), ctvrthrst (quarter-handful), blb (fool), vlk (wolf), or smrt (death). A popular example of this is the phrase "strc prst skrz krk" meaning "stick a finger through your throat" or "Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh." 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. A similar phenomenon also occurs in American English, where the reduced syllables at the ends of "butter" and "bottle" are pronounced and , with syllabic consonants as syllable nuclei. It also features the consonant r, a phoneme that is said to be unique to Czech. 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 phonetic description of the sound is a raised alveolar non-sonorant trill which can be either voiceless (terminally or next to a voiceless consonant) or voiced (elsewhere), the IPA transcription being [ ], however this is contested as not representing the r sound properly.
Vowels
There are 10 vowels in Czech which are regarded as individual phonemes. There are 5 short and 5 long vowels.
Long vowels are indicated by an acute accent or a ring.
- is represented by letters í and ý
- is represented by letters ú and u
- is represented by letter é
- is represented by letter á
- is represented by letter ó
Short vowels
- is represented by letters i and y
- is represented by letter u
- is represented by letter e (and sometimes e)
- (actually an open central unrounded vowel ) is represented by letter a
- (actually a mid back rounded vowel ) 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 ~ sát
- bal ~ bál
- kaž ~ káš
- lek ~ lék
- len ~ lén
- sled ~ slét'
- bor ~ bór
- chor ~ chór
- mot ~ mód
- sir ~ sýr
- Žid ~ žít
- kil ~ kýl
- dul ~ dul
- nuž ~ nuž
- ruš ~ ruž
Note that e is not a separate vowel. Analogous to y, ý and u, it is a grapheme kept for historical reasons (see Czech orthography).
and (and sometimes also and ) can be syllabic, i.e. they can take the vowel's role as the nucleus of a syllable, e.g. vlk (wolf).
Diphthongs
There are three diphthongs in Czech:
- represented by au (almost exclusively in words of foreign origin)
- represented by eu (in words of foreign origin only)
- represented by ou
When these groups come together at morpheme boundaries, they do not form diphthongs in standard Czech; for instance naucit, neucit, poucit ( or ). Vowel groups ia, ie, ii, io, and iu in foreign words are likewise not regarded as diphthongs; they may also pronounced with between the vowels .
Consonants
* [] is a specific raised alveolar non-sonorant trill which can be pronounced both voiced and voiceless (regarded as two allophones of one phoneme).
Consonants in the parentheses are regarded as allophones of other consonants:
- is an allophone of preceding labiodental consonants ( and ).
- is an allophone of preceding velar consonants( and ).
- is a voiced allophone of preceding a voiced consonant
- is an allophone of preceding a voiceless consonant
Glottal stop is not regarded as an individual phoneme.
There are also 4 affricates:
| | voiceless alveolar affricate | | | voiced alveolar affricate | | | voiceless postalveolar affricate | | | voiced postalveolar affricate |
- is represented by letter š
- is represented by letter ž
- is represented by letter n
- is represented by letter t
- is represented by letter d
- is represented by letter h
- is represented by digraph ch
- is represented by letter c
- is represented by digraph dz
- is represented by letter c
- is represented by digraph dž
- is represented by letter r
Other consonants are represented by the same characters (letters) as in the IPA.
(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 exceptions are:
- Monosyllabic prepositions form a unit with following words (if the following word is not longer than three syllables). The stress is placed on the preposition: e.g. Praha (Prague) --> do Prahy (to Prague). This does not apply to long words, e.g. na kolonáde (on the (spa) walk).
- Some monosyllabic words (e.g. mi (me), ti ((to) you), to (it), se, si (oneself), jsem (am), jsi (are), etc.) are clitics — they are not stressed and form a unit with preceding words. A clitic cannot be the first word in a sentence, because it requires a preceding word to form a unit with. Example: Napsal jsem ti ten dopis, I have written the letter to you.
Long words have secondary stress, which is usually placed on every odd syllable, e.g. nej.krás.nej.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
- Dobrý den – Good day, general salutation, widely used
- Dobré ráno – Good morning (used only during the early morning)
- Dobrý vecer – Good evening
- Dobrou noc – Good night
- Na shledanou – Goodbye / See you later (formal)
- Ahoj – Hello / Bye (informal; used amongst friends, colleagues or after clarification - improper when addressing people in the street, shop, etc.)
- Cau / Nazdar - Hello / Bye (even more informal)
- Dekuji – Thank you (formal)
- Díky - Thanks (informal)
- Prosím - Please / You're welcome
- Vítejte – Welcome (formal; plural)
- Jak se máš? – How are you? (familiar singular)
- Jak se máte? - How are you? (formal or familiar plural)
- Mám se dobre. – I'm fine.
- Jak se jmenuješ / jmenujete? - What's your name? (informal singular / formal or familiar plural)
- Jmenuji se... - My name is...
Syntax and Morphology
As in most Slavic languages, many words (especially nouns, verbs and adjectives) have many forms (inflections). 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.
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. While the permutations mostly share the same meaning, they differ in the topic-focus articulation.
For example: Ceši udelali revoluci (The Czechs made a revolution), Revoluci udelali Ceši (It was the Czechs who made the revolution), and Ceši revoluci udelali (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).
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. 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. 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. 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 standardized by the Czech national revivalists in the 19th century, based on an already two hundred years old translation of the Bible (Bible of Kralice) using an older variant of the then-current language (for example, preferring -ý- to -ej-). 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. It is spoken generally by the ethnic Polish minority. The dialect itself is a dialect of Polish but with strong Czech and German influences.
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 ceského", 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. 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 "Procpa?" instead of "Proc?".
The region of Chodsko is the home of a very special Czech-Polish dialect of the Chods people who were displaced in about the 10th century from Silesia owing to the protection of the western border of Bohemia.
Declension
The noun cases are typically referred to by number, and learned by means of the question to which they are the answer. When learning a new word, children recite the cases using a set of example phrases, shown as follows:
The case used depends on a number of variables, and for foreigners can be very confusing.
Prepositions with certain cases
The simplest of the rules governing noun declension is the use of prepositions (predložky). 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).
- Genitive: behem (during), podle/dle (according to/along), vedle (beside), kolem (around), okolo (around), do (into), od(e) (away from), z(e) (out of/from), bez(e) (without), místo (instead of).
- Dative: k(e) (towards), proti (against), díky (thanks to), naproti (opposite).
- Accusative: skrz(e) (through), pro (for), na (to/for).
- Locative/Prepositional: o (around, about), na (on), pri (into, in, around), v (in), po (after, around).
- Instrumental: za (behind), pred (in front of), mezi (between), pod(e) (below), s(e) (with), nad(e) (above).
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. 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/ceho), and that the thing being asked about follow the preposition "na" and be in the accusative case (Zeptat se koho/ceho na koho/co).
Counting and declension
The third factor affecting noun declension is number. The Czech language has a very complex counting system, explained as follows with the example masculine animate noun muž (man):
- For the number one, the singular number is used: jeden muž.
- For the numbers 2, 3, and 4, any case may be used, depending on the function of the noun in the sentence: dva muži (nominative). "Vidím dva muže" (accusative).
- For all numbers from 5 on, the genitive plural is used when the noun would normally be in the nominative, accusative or vocative case: pet mužu. "Pet mužu je tam." Five men are over there. "Vidím pet mužu." I see five men. For other cases, however, the noun is not placed in the genitive. "Nad peti muži." Above the five men (instrumental).
The example above shows 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 that can be read in two ways, such as 21, the grammar may depend on which one is chosen (dvacet jeden muž or jednadvacet mužu). This system is becoming less common and is not used in everyday speech, as well as becoming harder to find in modern literature.
Numbers have declension patterns in Czech. The number two, for instance, declines as follows:
| Nominative | dva/dve | | Genitive | dvou | | Dative | dvema | | Accusative | dva/dve | | Vocative | dva/dve | | Locative | (o) dvou | | Instrumental | dvema |
The numbers are singular (jednotné císlo), plural (množné císlo), and remains of dual. The number two, as declined above, is an example of the now-diminished dual number. The dual number is used for only certain human body parts: hands, shoulders, eyes, ears, knees, legs, and 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. 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, stul (table) is masculine inanimate, kocka (cat) and židle (chair) are feminine, and morce (guinea-pig) and svetlo (light) are neuter.
Tenses and conditionals
Compared to English or Romance languages, Czech has a rather simple set of tenses. They are present, past, and future.
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" -> "Rekl, 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:
- I would have: bych
- you would have: bys
- he would have: by
- she would have: by
- we would have: bychom
- you (plural) would have: byste
- they would have: by
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). A different form, "vyhazovat", indicates an ongoing action (imperfective aspect) and has all three tenses.
Maps
See also
External links
- - Official Website of the Czech Republic
- , Resource website for Czech language and culture, including reference grammar and learning materials
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- , written by Laura Janda and Charles Townsend
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