Short view of czech language
Czech languageThe Czech language belongs to the group of West Slavic languages. From another perspective, Czech is an inflectional language, which means that the words inflect (their endings change). The meaning a given word has in a sentence is primarily determined according to this inflection. Czech is very similar with slovak and polish language. Understandableness czech and slovak language is 90% - 95%. It is possible make understood too in Poland. Who speaks Czech and where is it spoken?Many Czech-speaking people are to be found in Austria (particularly in Vienna), Poland, Germany, Ukraine (the Volhynian Czechs), Croatia (especially around Daruvar), and in western Romania (Banat). Several tens of thousands of Czechs live in Slovakia, where they have remained since the break-up of the Czechoslovak Republic (in 1992).Czech is also spoken outside of Europe in Australia, Canada, and particularly in the United States, where the greatest number of Czechs reside outside of the Czech Republic. The largest communities are in New York City, Chicago and Cleveland, but they are also to be found in agricultural regions of Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska. Altogether, more than 90,000 Czechs live in the United States (according to the census in 1990).What is spoken in the Czech Republic?Czech is the only official language of the Czech Republic, and it is spoken by about 96% of the population. Besides this, other languages can be heard here, particularly Slovak, German, Polish and Romany.Literary language and dialectsEveryone who speaks Czech can understand each other without difficulty. At the same time, as regards the state of the Czech language, there is a relatively large characteristic difference between traditional standard written Czech and the language that is commonly spoken. The non-standard speech of the population is differentiated on a regional basis. In Bohemia, an interdialect (a transdialectal division) predominates, which is called common Czech. This has evolved on the basis of the main characteristics of the Central Bohemian dialectal group. In Moravia, we can observe more pronounced dialectal differences. This concerns three distinct dialectal regions: the Haná (central Moravian) region, the Moravian-Slovak region (or the east Moravian region, including Moravian Wallachia) and the Lassko (Silesian) region.A good demonstration of the phonetic differences can be found in the following sentence: Standard written Czech: Dej mouku ze mlýna na vozík (Put the flour from the mill in the cart). Central Moravian dialects: Dé móku ze mléna na vozék. East Moravian dialects: Daj múku ze mlýna na vozík. Silesian dialects: Daj muku ze m?yna na vozik. SpecificsThe Czech language has one completely specific consonant, which is denoted by the letter ?. Another characteristic feature is the syllabic sounds of r and l. Thanks to these, we can pronounce words like vrh (throw), vlk (wolf), strhl (ripped/torn down), svršky (goods/chattels), etc. without any problem. But Czech also amasses other consonants in a manner that causes considerable trouble for foreigners: zvláš? (separately/particularly), vzplane (to catch fire) or even: pštros s pštrosicí (an ostrich with an ostrich hen).Listening to CzechCzech always places the emphasis on the first syllable of the word. For the most part, it has a declining sentence intonation. It only rises at the end in questions for which we expect a yes or no answer.Czech spellingCzech spelling is based on the phonetic principle each phone usually corresponds to one letter.The use of diacritics is characteristic of our contemporary spelling system, i.e. the carka or acute accent for indicating the length of vowels (thus we are able to distinguish between the meanings of words such as pravá (right/right-hand) and práva (rights/law)), and the hacek, which looks like a breve mark and is primarily found above the letters š, ž, ?, ?, ?, as well as ?, ? and ?. It is used to indicate those phones for which the required letter cannot be found in the original Latin alphabet. This rule very cleverly respects the phonetic affinity of consonants. Its principles were formulated as far back as the 15th century by Jan Hus in his work De ortographia Bohemica. However, we also have one other diacritical mark: the kroužek, or little circle above the long ?. This is a peculiarity motivated by purely historical reasons, and from todays perspective the pronunciation of the letters ? and ú are not differentiated both marks cause the same lengthening of the vowel.Many people in Czech republic have book Rules of Czech language. The book is popular not only between students. Is absolutely ordinary searching for a word... grammatical.
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