Czech - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History of the Czech language

Czech develops at the end of the first millenium, starting from the Protoslave. Some features of this protoslave survive in old Czech, like the jery , the Nasalisation (ę and ǫ), the palatalization or the system of conjugation with four times of last (Aoriste, accomplished/unaccomplished Aspect, Plus-que-parfait). These features remain until the end of the 15th century.

They exist only little of written testimonys of the oldest period. Indeed, few people could read and write. It is Latin who rempit then the literary role of language and sometimes the Slavic old man. The first written testimony of Czech consists of two sentences of the charter founder of the chapter of Litoměřice in 1057: Pavel dal jest Ploškovicích zemu. Vlach dal jest Dolas zemu Bogu I svjatemu Scepanu dvema dušníkoma Bogucos has Sedlatu.

At the 14th century, Czech penetrates in the literature and the administration. The first Czech books appear. Charles IV of the Holy roman Empire is made make the first translation of the Czech bible. Between the XIV° and the XV°, appears ue reform proposal of the orthography. It introduces into Czech the diacritics. The propagator of this proposal was Jan Hus. It is however not certain that he was the author.

The written Czech literature experiences an important development after the discovery of printing works with the XVI° century. The bible of Kralice becomes a literary example of Czech then. After 1620 Czech knows a certain decline, because of the forced emigration of the noncatholic intellectuals (Comenius, Pavel Stránský etc…). Little by little German, takes the step, and tends to becoming the language of education and science.

Thanks to the efforts of the members of the Czech national rebirth, the Czech language is again exaltée with. The school makes important efforts to remake a literary language of it. The language is detached from archaisms going back from the bible to Kralice. It is at that time that literary Czech obtains his current form.

Writing

The Czech alphabet is resulting from the Latin alphabet, to which letters modified by signs Diacritique S were added, in particular on certain consonants like C, S, Z, and that one enriched by the digraph “CH”.

The orthography of Czech is etymological and phonetic. The great majority of the letters decide.

Alphabetical order and value of the Graphèmes

The transcription follows the uses of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The letters “I” of “there” note both the phoneme I , by indicating the hard character respectively (velar articulation) or soft (palatal articulation) of the consonant which precedes (cf " System sonore" , will infra ); this distinction affects the vocalic stamp little itself. However, this orthographical process is valid only for the consonants dental consonants t-d or alveolar N and, in addition, is not observed in a systematic way in the loanwords. It follows that the choice between “I” and “there” constitutes an orthographical difficulty.
In the words of foreign origins, di decides like. The consonant D is not soft. For example, dietní decides.

In the same way the letters “E” and “ě are opposed” noting. For example, " tě" represent " tˇe" , that is to say.

In all the other cases, wetting is represented by the addition of the sign Háček (“ˇ” known as Charon - Circumflex accent reversed) on " t" , " d" and " n": “ť”, “ď”, “ň” (capital “Ť” “Ď” “Ň”); these last are not treated like letters of the alphabet with whole share.

In the surmounted letters of the Háček represented in the alphabet, this sign does not mark the phonetic feature of wetting (one will see low than they are however comparable with the soft ones in the variations):

“č” ( /ʧ/ ) as in “ tch èque”

“ř” ( /r̝/ ) as in “Dvo ''' ř ''' ák”

“š” ( /ʃ/ ) as in “ CH ameau”

“ž” ( /ʒ/ ) as in “ J ouer”

Lastly, the alphabet does not grant a place specific to the letters accentuated vowels, which represent long vocalic sounds:

/i: / is represented by the letters í and ý: díl "partie" - dým " fumée"

/u: / is represented by the letters ů (and ú with initial of the morphemes and in the foreign words): dům "maison" - úhel " angle"

/ɛ: / is represented by the letter E

/a: / is represented by the letter á

/o: / is represented by the letter ó

Sound system

The relevant features which make easily recognizable Czech are the difference between long and short vowels, the noted difference between hard and soft consonants (in spite of its poor yield) and the consonants " ř" and " h" , the initial fixed accent. One classifies below the phonemes according to the traditional dichotomy consonants vs. vowels, although it is difficult to implement Czech (cf diphthongs and sounding them).

Vowels

The Czech vowels are either short, or long, which affects their stamp little:

This difference in length makes it possible to oppose words (it is phonologiquement relevant ), as the minimal pair show it following:

sad ~ sát

ball ~ bál

kaž ~ káš

lek ~ lék

len ~ lén

sled ~ slét'

bor ~ bór

chor ~ chór

word ~ mód

sir ~ sýr

Žid ~ žít

kil ~ kýl

dul ~ důl

nuž ~ nůž

ruš ~ růž

The nature of this opposition divides the specialists:

some estimate that 10 vowels should be counted; would the feature length be qualitative (thus founded on a difference of stamp?);
of others estimates that it is primarily an opposition of quantity: the long ones are famous one duration roughly twice higher than short;
the diagram above, which emphasizes the character appreciably palatal of, suggests a clean treatment for the former vowels of minimal aperture: that would make 6 vowels in all.

In any event, this length is not a simple redoubling of vowels: there is no direction to interpret/á/like /a/ followed by another /a/, i.e. to break up the long syllables into two mores): indeed, the word stress striking a long vowel applies without reference to mores (a contrario the Serb one, of Croatian or the old Greek)

Diphthong

There are three Diphtongue S in Czech:

/a ʊ̯/ represented by with the (almost only in the words of foreign origin)

/e ʊ̯/ represented by have (only in the words of foreign origin)

/o ʊ̯/ represented by or

According to the morphology of the word, or is a digraph representing the diphthong /o ʊ̯/ , as in mouka (two syllables: mouk-a) " farine" , or two graphèmes accounts for pertaining to two parts of words as in nedouk (three syllables: the -C-U.K.) " half-savant".

Consonants

To note particularly:

the letter “ř” represents a phoneme considered specific to Czech. Mazon describes this " ř so characteristic of the tchèque" . It combines the vibrations of the language of a “R” rolled and the noise of friction of hushing “the J”: it is a rolled consonant dorsoalvéolaire whose principal alternative is voiced, which is transcribed like /r̝/ (or /ɼ/ in the system API of before 1989).

the fricative one voiced /ɦ/ is produced by tightening of the oral channel on the level of the larynx during the emission of the voice. (It should not be confused with the fricative deaf person - said " expirée" - of English “ H oliday”). She is noted " h" in front of vowel.

the digraph “CH”, but also " h" elsewhere than in front of vowel, the deaf correspondent of the preceding one notes, that is to say: /X/ ; its realization is comparable with German: “A' ch' ! ”, but softer.

Moreover, as one said, there exists a correlation of wetting for the dental consonants occlusive and sounding; the soft consonants are very clearly palatalized:

“ď” ( /ɟ/ ) is close to the france “ D ieu”
“ň” ( /ɲ/ ) is close to “rossi' gn' ol”
“ť” ( /C/ ) to “ T iare”

is close

Sounding, and can function like top of syllable (following the example vowels):

zmrzl “it has cold”
ztvrdl “it hardened”
scvrkl “it narrowed”
čtvrthrst “quarter of handle”
“idiotic” blb
vlk “wolf”
smrt “death”
sedm “seven”

This property is illustrated in a famous Virelangue: Strč prst skrz krk “Mets your finger across the throat”.

Czech considers it, it and like semivowels. When they play this part, they are always hard. For example, the rule of the addition of euphonic vowels between two words does not apply if the word starts with one of these two phonemes:

v' e' kterém (in which)
v kleci (in the cage)

At the end of the words and in front of deaf persons, the sound consonants (voiced) are deafened:

Lev "Lion" decides * Batoh " sac" decides

Initial of the words

Several phenomena intervene with initial of the words.

Insertion of a glottal stop in front of vowels. This glottal stop is treated like a deaf consonant, and involves consequently the deafening of the voiced consonants (sound) which precede: pod oknem "under the fenêtre". The pronunciation, considered more slackened, meets when the flow is faster.

In the familiar language, in front of initial O develops sometimes the Prothèse: thus okno often says v okno .

These phenomena make it possible to distinguish the initial absolute one from the word from initial of the broader group, including the dull particles (clitic), which carries the accent, cf below.

Accent

The accent is always related to the first syllable of the mot. It exists exceptions:

monosyllabic prepositions forming a unit with the following word (if this one is not longer than three syllables). The accent is then placed on the preposition: for example ˈ Pra ha (Prague) --> ˈ C Prahy (towards Prague). This rule is not applied for the long words, for example: ˈ Na ˈ KB lo ˌ ná dě .
Of the monosyllabic words (for example: semi (me), Ti (you), to (that), , if (even), jsem (am), jsi (be), etc) are Clitique S. They does not have an accent and forms a unit with the preceding words they. Clitique cannot be the first word of a sentence. Another word must precede it. For example: ˈ Na psal jsem Ti ˈ ten ˈ C worse , I wrote this letter to you.

The words moreover two syllables have other accents. Placed on the odd syllables, they are much marked than the first accent, of which they constitute a d'" kind; écho". For example: ˈ nej .krás . ˌ něj .ší (most beautiful).

The accent does not influence the length of the vowels. This offers four possibilities, characteristic of the Czech rate/rhythm:

accentuated short vowel
inaccentuée short vowel
accentuated long vowel
inaccentuée long vowel

Morphology

The parts of speech are:

Name (podstatné jméno)
Adjectival (přídavné jméno)
Pronoun (zájmeno)
Numeral (číslovka)
Verb (sloveso)
Adverb (příslovce)
Preposition (předložka)
Conjunction (spojka)
Particle (částice)
Interjection (citoslovce)

One can notice that there does not exist Article in Czech. To ensure emphase, it is always possible to use a conclusive pronoun.

The numeral nouns, adjectives, pronouns and are declined. The verbs are combined. The adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections are invariable.

Variations

Classification of the cases

The Czech language comprises seven Cas that the children at the school memorize as follows:

However, the French Slavist Claude Kastler proposes a table modernized of the variations in his handbook the Czech language .

He excludes the vocative from the variations. He also regards the locative as a particular form of the dative, adopted by certain words after the prepositions: Na, v, při, O, Po.
For the needs for memorizing, it adopts following classification:

Personal
Accusative
Genitive
Instrumental Dative

This presentation, which reflects the phenomena of synchretisms (formal coincidences) joining together certain forms of personal, of the accusative and genitive, is not other than that used of long time by the specialists in Slavic compared grammar and was acclimatized in the French-speaking description of the Slavic modern idioms by the russisants. It is followed by many Czech handbooks for the foreigners, or in single Czech grammar of the Czech for the foreigners: Čeština jazyk cizí of Ivan Poldauf and Karel Šprunk. It is this one which is adopted in this article.

About the Vocative, one notes his progressive disappearance of the tables of variations, as well as use. It also disappeared besides in other Slavic languages, like the Russian . It tends to the oral examination with being replaced by the Nominatif. There remains used with the writing, like in the formal oral situations of communication.
It is possible to use the vocative for objects. One proceeds then to a Personnification.

In addition to these seven cases, the variations are characterized by the number (singular and plural), the three kinds (masculine, female, neutral) or rather four since the masculine has two forms standard: animated masculine (men or animals) and inanimate masculine (object). The variation also differs according to the last consonant (“hard” or “soft”) from the root of the mot. the variations standard are thus of a great grammatical complexity.

Factors forcing the choice of the case

the preceding preposition.

Certain prepositions ( předložky ) force the use of a particular case.

Genitive : během (During), podle/dle (according to), vedle (at side), kolem (around), okolo (around), C (in), od (E) (of), Z (E) (of), bez (E) (without), místo (in the place of).
Datif' : K (E) (towards), proti (against), díky (thanks to), naproti (contrary to).
Accusative : skrz (E) (through), pro (for), Na (on).
Rental : O (about), Na (on), při (in), v (in), Po (afterwards).
Instrumental : za (behind), před (in front of), mezi (between), pod (E) (under), S (E) (with), nad (E) (above).

the preceding verb.

Certain verbs also force precise cases. Same manner, certain French verbs the use of a preposition.

To ask = Zeptat
To wonder somebody = Zeptat někoho (génétif)
To help itself = Pomoct
To help somebody = Pomoct někomu (Dative)

the kind and the number

Various exemplary variations

For each kind, there exists an exemplary variation " dure" and " molle". In addition to this pair, one needs some atypical variations. They generally non-productive, and are used for " terms; archaïques". There exists for example the female one in “_ost” and the neutral quasi-invariant in “_í”. Czech grammars propose exemplary variations, which are used as models with the variation of the other words.

Male animated

pán (student), syn, voják
muž, cizinec, rodič
předseda, paňáca (rikša)
soudce
génius
hajný (which is declined like the adjective mladý )
průvodčí (which is declined like the adjective jarní )

inanimate Masculin

hrad, the
stroj
cyklus

Féminin

žena, Máňa, lidičky
růže (nůše/tabule/židle)
píseň (skříň)
kost (místnost), lidé
idea
hajná (which is declined like the adjective mladý )
průvodčí (which is declined like the adjective jarní )

Neutre

město, středisko (hledisko), jablko (brko), pončo
moře, bojiště, vejce
kuře
stavení (nádraží)
rámě
muzeum
drama
vstupné (which is declined like the adjective mladý )
telecí (which is declined like the adjective jarní )

Moreover, Czech has a system parallel of variations suitable for the spoken language, which is added to this complex unit.

Variation of the substantives

Animated masculine

The majority of the male substantives end in a consonant.

Inanimate masculine

Female

The majority of the female substantives end in the vowels " a" or " e".

Neutral

The majority of the neutral substantives end in the vowel " o".

Words of Latin origin ending in - um is declined according to the model město : muze' um' , muze' a' , muze' u' , muze' um' … Some of these words were " acclimatés" and have a usual Czech variation.

The numeral ones are also declined. The figure " deux" , for example, declines itself in the following way:

This numeral has a variation is identical to that of " oba" , vestige of the Indo-European duel. This variation with the characteristic to have a dative, not similar to the locative, but with the instrumental one.

Variation of the adjectives

The adjectives are declined according to the kind and the number of the substantive to which they are referred:

mlad' ý muž (young man) (male)

mlad á žena (young woman) (female)

mlad E víno (young wine) (neutral)

There exist also exemplary variations of adjectives:

mladý (dobrý) - bases lasts

jarní - bases soft

otcův - adjectival of membership masculine

matčin - adjectival of membership female

Variation in base lasts

Variation in soft base

Adjective of membership

The adjectives of membership are formed starting from the animated substantives of male or female kind, in the singular:

otec - > otcův

matka - > matčin

Examples:

otcův dům (the house of my father)

matčino car (the car of my mother)

Several plurals

Vestige of the Indo-European duel , Czech preserves a pronoun oba (us two or them two) which is declined. One finds the same variation for the substantives indicating of the parts symmetrical of the human body, like ruka (the hand), noha (the leg) or oko (the eye).

ruka - personal singular
ruce - personal and accusative plurals
rukou - plural genitive
rukou - rental plural
rukama - Instrumental plural

Czech declines differently the leg of an human being and the foot of a table, although the two words have the same personal singular: noha" " (the leg).

He comprises moreover two plurals according to the Numéral which precedes the substantive. From two to four one uses normal plural , i.e. the case suitable in the plural. From five and beyond that, one uses only the plural Génitif (c.f. the French form much of … or full with …). Certain terms like spousta (much), tolik (so much) also force the use of this génétif plural.

jeden hrad (a castle)

dva hrady, tři hrady, čtyři hrady (two, three, four castles)

pět hradů, šest hradů … (five, six castles…)

Verbal forms

The Conjugaison has several modes: infinitive, the code, subjunctive, the requirement, gerund.

Infinitive

Infinitive has the termination - T . In literary Czech, one finds possibly the termination - Ti ; even here for some verbs in " - ct". For example, " pouvoir" can say itself: Moct or Moci.

Code

Claude Kastler proposes several times for the code: personnel, past and future.

Personnel

The code has single a time simple, entitled personal in the grammar of Claude Kaster. It has value of present for the verbs imperfectifs. For the perfective verbs, it generally has value of future, but also of présent.
It bends of number (singular/plural) and anybody (1, 2,3):

The Czech verbs are classified among five groups, according to their termination at the present.

Passed

The past is built with the assistance:

of a combined particle (form reduced in the pronunciation and sometimes omitted verb " être") whose role is to indicate the person and the number;
and of a form suffixée in - L of the verb granted in kind and nombre.

Suffix in " - l":

Example of conjugation to the last one:

It is noted that the auxiliary " être" with the third nobody is used.

Future compound

There exists also a future compound for the verbs imperfectifs. It is consisted of the verb " être" combined and of the infinitive of the verb, necessarily imperfectif.

The verbs of mouvment build their future using the prefixes Po / pů- which are added to the present:

pů jdu , Po nesu , Po vezu .

Subjunctive

In addition to the modes infinitive, indicative and imperative, it is necessary to announce conditional (sometimes indicated " subjonctif" because it does not have only one hypothetical value).

Subjunctive present

It is formed using the combined particle - by and of the form in - L granted verb.

Last subjunctive

Little used in the spoken language, it tends to being replaced by the subjunctive present. It is composed of the verb " être" with the subjunctive, as well as form in - L granted verb.

Requirement

The imperative is trained for the second anybody of the singular and plural, like for first person plural.

For the second nobody of the singular , the verbs whose radical ends in only one consonant have a termination in -0 , while the verbs whose radical ends in two consonants have a termination - I-ej (according to the group of the verb).

For the second nobody of plural , one adds the termination - you-be-ejte .

For the first nobody of the singular one adds the termination - me-eme/-ejme .

Examples:

buď! buďte! buďme!

spi! spěte! spěme!

dělej! dělejte! dělejme!

The requirement of the third nobody is expressed using the conjunction at' .

Gerund

Gerund is used only with the writing in a constant language. It varies in kind and of number with the sujet.
The verbs imperfectifs form their gerund using the suffix: - ouc . The perfective verbs form it using the suffix: - vš-

Liability

There exist two forms of the liability:

Using the verb " être" (být) and of the predicative liability:

Město bylo založeno ve 14. století. (the city was built with the XIV° century)

pronominal liability, when the verb is accompanied by the pronominal particle:

Ono neudělalo. (that is done) To vyrábí v Číně. (that is built in China)

Negation in Clitique

The negation is expressed using the prefix " ". To the future and the past, this prefix is added to the auxiliary " être" :

dělat

dělám

dělej!

dělal jsem

budu dělat

dělal bych

byl bych udělal nebo byl bych udělal

ní děláno

The Czech sentences accumulate the negative terms:

NIC mám. (I have anything)

Neither kdy to nor komu říkej. (never say it to anybody)

Verbal groups

Czech has five classes of verbs. There exist exceptions, such as, jíst, vědět, vidět, mít, chtít and jít .

- E :

* the base is finished by a hard consonant, in front of the form in " - l" past, is the vowel " a" :

** nese - nesl
** bere - bral
* the base is finished by a soft consonant.
** maže - mazal
** peče - pekl
** umře - umřel (tře - třel)
verbs formed with the suffix - nout with the infinit and the termination - at the present.
* tiskne - tiskl
* mine - minul
* začne - začal
the verbs whose termination with the third nobody of the present is I
* kryje - kryl
* kupuje - kupoval
the verbs whose termination with the third nobody of the present is the long vowel - í
* prosí - prosil
* trpí - trpěl
* sází - sázel
the verbs whose termination with the third nobody of the present is the long vowel - á
* dělá - dělal

First group

The majority of the verbs have the terminations 0-you-me with the requirement. The verbs with a radical finishing by two consonants have as terminations with the requirement: - I-be-eme .

Second group

Third group

Fourth group

The majority of the verbs have the terminations - I-be-eme with the requirement. The verbs with a radical finishing by two consonants have as terminations with the requirement: - - I-ěte/-ěme .

Fifth group

Irregular

The following verbs have irregular futures

jít - půjdu, půjdeš, půjde; půjdeme, půjdete, půjdou
být - budu, budeš, bude; budeme, budete, budou

Irregular negation:

být - third nobody of the singular: není (not neje )

Aspects

Like the other Slavic languages, the Czech verb has two aspects: the Perfective and the Imperfectif.

One also announces processes of derivation formerly described as of the aspects although it nothing but do be added again to principal division into perfective and imperfectif: with iterative value , accomplished or inchoative. By changing aspect the verb can undergo a complete change of the radical. It is this characteristic which is one of the difficulties of Czech for the student of the countries of Western Europe.

For example:

dělat "faire" is imperfectif simple: dělál jsem to - I did it.
dělávat is imperfectif with iterative value, obtained by suffixation: dělávál jsem to - I did it regularly.
udělat is perfective, obtained by addition of a préverbe: udělal jsem to - I did it (and that did not last).
dodělat is perfective with accomplished value (" to make until the bout" - préverbe C ): dodělál jsem to - (that is there…) I finished doing it.
dodělávat is imperfectif derived from the precedent by suffixation: dodělával jsem to - I finished doing that (here with what I was yesterday occupied).

etc

In these examples, the root of the verb translated " faire" is the same one everywhere, which is not always the case: brát “to take” is the corresponding imperfectif one of vzít .

Let us note that the Czech conjugation makes sound to the anybody, subject of the verb and makes the pronouns useless. They exist nevertheless and are used to insist:

ona to udělala : it is it which did it

in opposition to:

udělala to : it did it

The verb " être" can imply itself. By taking again our example above:

jsem to udělal : I did it (literally: that am faire+passé)
já to udělal : it is me which did it (literally: I that faire+passé)

Syntax

The syntactic Fonction of the words is essentially indicated by the variation. The word order is thus available to indicate the insertion of the statement in its énonciatif context. It is what the Czech grammairiens call the " current division of the phrase" ( aktuální větné členění ). It is in this direction that the word order can be known as free : it is not constrained by elementary syntax. On the other hand, it follows the rules, pressing, of current division.

Current division of the sentence

The statement can be divided into topic (" that of which one parle") and rhème (" what one says of the thème"), according to a general great principle: when there is an explicit topic, then it precedes, in general, the rhème. French assigning as for him a syntactic function with the word order, returns the effects of Czech current division by various processes of emphase (sentences known as " clivées" in it is… which , for example), or by the choice of determinants (definite articles/indefinite) etc cf Détermination.

Češi udělali revoluci : " the Czechs made the révolution"
Revoluci udělali Češi : " They are the Czechs who made the révolution"
Češi revoluci udělali : " The Czechs really made the révolution"

In the same way, one will compare:

Včera zemřel slavný herec . " Yesterday died an actor of reputation "

slavný herec (" actor of renom") is the rhème. The implied question is: Who died?

(Ten) známý herec zemřel will včera. " This actor of reputation died hier"

will včera (yesterday) is the rhème. The implied question is: When did he die?

An element pertaining to the rhème of a sentence can be included with the topic of the second, as it is the case of král " the roi" who is introduced into the rhème jeden král :

Byl jednou jeden král. Ten král měl tři dcery. " He was once a king. This king had three filles"

One identifies sometimes this opposition between topic and rhème with the difference between the " information ancienne" and the " information nouvelle". However, a pronoun of recovery - carrier of " information ancienne" - can be in position of rhème:

To udělal one - " It is him which made cela"

Patronyms

The Family name of a woman is put at female, Jana Tichá carries the same patronym as Miloš Tichý. In this case, tichý is an adjective and the female form of this adjective is tichá . When family name is a substantive, it is generally derived from the masculine by the addition from “- ová”: Eva Romanová is the sister of Pavel Roman. The form “- ová” is grammatically a Génitif and implies, to the great displeasure Féministes, the idea of possession (Mrs Nováková is literally the wife or the girl of Mr Novák).

Until there is this form little obligatory, was imposed by the Czechoslovakian law then Czech. One can see in this obligation, a vexatious measurement towards the German minorities or Hungarian women, forced, after having dominated the country, to adopt the Slavic uses. For example, Kateřina Neumannová is the girl of Mister Neumann. From now on, the Czech wife of a foreign national or a member of a linguistic minority of the Czech Republic can choose between:

to keep its name of birth
to join its name of birth with that (unchanged) of its husband
to join his name of birth with the name slavized of his/her husband
to adopt the name, slavized or not, of its husband

In 2006, the coming into effect of the Czech equivalent of the Civil pact of solidarity, since it makes it possible the Czech partner of amenable foreign to adopt its family name (as for the wives in a traditional marriage) which, for a Czech ear will be inevitably “male”, caused a reaction homophobe or misogynist (in any event, sexist). Certain legislators reactionaries tried to be opposed to this patronymic freedom granted to the lesbians - in vain.

Dialects and sociolectes

Dialects

Two regional dialects coexist which recut the border between Bohemia and Moravie. Each one of these dialects is subdivided in as many identifiable local speeches to the Czech speaker with the first access. There exist also specific alternatives to each big city.

the Pilsen ois are famous for their singing accent. They add a suffix Pa after the interrogative pronouns. Jak máš? (how are you?) Jak' pa' máš becomes ?

the inhabitants of Ostrava do not lengthen the syllables.

In Moravie, nechci (I do not want) becomes nechcu .

In Bohemia of the south east, the ť is marked J after a vowel. For example: (zaplaťte > zaplajte)

Sociolecte

There exists an important difference between the familiar Czech ( obecná čeština ) and the language known as “literary” ( spisovná čeština , which translates the German term Schriftsprache ). This last preserve certain archaisms inherited its standardization by J. Dobrovský, which was based largely on the models of XVIe and XVIIe centuries. During all the XXe century continued an animated debate between " puristes" (represented by the newspaper Naše řeč , published by the Institute of the Czech language) and " rénovateurs" (to be started with the great figures of the Circle of Prague: Vilém Mathesius, Bohuslav Havránek).
Let us note that if “spoken” Czech ( hovorová čeština ) reduced the number of variations, that amounts nevertheless adding a whole battery of case to be memorized in addition to the enumeration above. Here some examples of variations " populaires" :

the personal plural of the animated male names is not in " í" with wetting of the root, but in " y".

the plural locative is also done without wetting of the root:

v čůrcích thus becomes v čůrkách .

instrumental plural is the same one, whatever the kind, the “hardness” of the last consonant, etc…

Vocabulary

Some current words

French bibliography

Claude Kastler, the Czech language practices and reasoned , Ophrys, Paris, 1995 (second amended edition),

André Mazon, Grammaire of the Czech language , 3rd edition, IES, Paris, 1952

Yves Millet, the postverbal ones in Czech , IES, Paris, 1958

Patrice Pognan, automatic morphosyntaxic Analyze of the Czech scientific speech , Dunod, Paris, 1975

Jan Šabršula, Problèmes of compared stylistics Frenchwoman-Czech and Czech-Frenchwoman , SPN, Praha, 1986

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