Czech: Frequently Asked Questions

What is the relationship of Czech to English or other languages?

Despite surface appearances Czech and English are distant cousins removed by thousands of years of historical development. Along with German, French, Spanish and dozens of other languages they belong to the Indo-European family of languages. But even after all these years you can find striking family resemblances such as bratr - brother, matka - mother. Another source of similarities is Latin which brought us all words like škola -- school. Czech belongs to the Slavic branch (together with languages like Polish, Russian, Serbian or Bulgarian). The languages closest to Czech are Slovak and Polish (forming the West-Slavic group). Thanks to years of cohabitation Slovak and Czech are more or less mutually intelligible. Although the ability of Czechs to read Slovak has diminished greatly since the split. Slovaks have always been better at Czech than vice versa and even today most newsstands in Bratislava carry Czech dailies while finding a Slovak paper in Prague is quite a challenge.

What is the history of Czech?

The history of Czech, as it is known now, starts somewhere in the 15th and 16th century when the first Czech grammar and a new translation of the Bible were published. The beginnings of Czech spelling lie in the work of Master Jan Hus in the early 15th century. Of course, the history of Czech goes much further back in the past to the 9th century when the Slavic dialects that later gave birth to Czech were spoken in the area. The first written records come from the turn of the 13th and 14th century. The first translation of the Bible into Czech dates somewhere in the 1380s thus being the third in Europe after Italian and French. The use of Czech as a literary and official language receded slowly with the Thirty-Year War (in the 17th century). Czech was then replaced by German as the language used for official purposes in the Czech lands as the Hapsburgs took over. In the ensuing centuries, Czech was mostly spoken by lower classes (especially in the country). Compared to German and Latin, there are only a few literary works in Czech from the Baroque period. That is why by the end of the18th century Czech was believed to be a dying language.

The turn of the century, however, witnessed the birth of a cultural and political movement referred to as the National Revival (Národní Obrození). A new Czech grammar book and a large dictionary were published. Speaking Czech became fashionable, and many a work of literature was published in the language. As the century progressed, Czech found its place along with German as the official language, and was beginning to be taught in schools of higher education again. Since 1918 (founding of Czechoslovakia), Czech has been the sole official language in the Czech Republic.

What kind of language is Czech?

Inflecting, would be a linguist's answer. This linguistic term means that Czech words have different forms depending on their function.

In English (an analytic language but none the easier for that), words are either put in the right order (Charles loves Jane vs. Jane loves Charles kind of thing), or helping words such as have, do, of, etc*.* are used. Hence, instead of different forms and endings, you have to learn all the subtleties of word order to be able to use new words so that they mean what you want them to mean.

In Czech, Karel miluje Janu (Charles loves Jane) will mean the same even if you reverse them like this Janu miluje Karel. The endings take care of the meaning. So to say that Jane loves Charles you thus have to change the endings to Jana miluje Karla, and again the word order doesn't matter.

Which Czech words change their form and when?

The short and slightly depressing answer is: 'Most words in Czech change their form most of the time.' All nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and numerals change their forms according to case, gender, and number. Verbs change their forms according to person and tense (like in English). So, for instance, in mluv[ím]{.underline} ([I]{.underline} speak) -ím has the same role as [I]{.underline}.

The words that don't change their forms are adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

What is case and how many are there in Czech?

The word case refers to a word form used to describe relationships between things in the world. For instance, who does what to whom. In Czech, it is expressed through different endings. Nouns, pronouns, numerals and adjectives all use case to express things like being an object (receiver) or a subject (initiator), or belonging to something. With prepositions, case tells you about directionality and locality. Sometimes a case is required by other words like if something belongs to something. The examples with Jane and Charles above show how it works.

There are seven cases but they have different endings for singular and plural so in fact there are fourteen. However, not all the cases have separate endings. See below.

How many tenses does Czech have?

Here the news is good. Czech only has three tense: past, present and future. However, this rosy picture is marred by a feature of Czech grammar called aspect. Each verb can take one of two aspects: perfective and imperfective. They describe whether the action is in progress or has finished. This bland, slightly inaccurate grammatical statement, however, doesn't even begin to describe the disaster waiting for the luckless student of Czech. Indeed, aspect may be the only thing that is truly difficult about Czech because there are no clear-cut rules for using it. There is nothing in non-Slavic languages that aspect can be quite translated into. Thousands of pages have been written about it but we're no nearer describing it properly than when we started. Not quite unlike quantum mechanics.

How many endings does Czech have?

All in all, a lot but you will see that it is not so bad. Theoretically, for nouns there could be 196 different endings (14 different functions - 6 + 1 cases in singular and 6 +1 in plural - times 14 different models). In fact, there are only 24 different endings: -a, -e/ě, -i, -o, -u, -y; -ou; -é, -í, -ů; -ech, -ách, -ích; -em, -ám, -ím, -ům; -mi; -ami, -emi, -ími; -ovi, -ové, and 0 (nothing is also considered an ending). But you will see that they have much in common, for instance, m, ch, and v are always used for similar functions.

There are some more endings for adjectives but no more than ten. Overall, there are less than 40 endings for all nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals which is not much at all.

There are 4 basic verbal models which gives us 32 options (with sub-models 78) with about 18 different forms.

Then, there are about a dozen endings used for other purposes, and that's about it. Apparently, Czech, the language of endings, makes do with about 60 different endings altogether. If we consider that there are several hundred irregular words (both verbs and nouns) in English, this is not bad at all. This is not to say that endings is all that there is to learning Czech, just as irregular verbs are not all that there is to learning English.

Are there many dialects of Czech?

The answer to this question cannot be but oversimplified. Rather than go into dialectological debates, I want to talk about the popular perception. The few true dialects are confined to small regions, and are slowly dying out, mostly because of the influence of the media. Traces of historical dialects can be found in the standard language of different regions, but very few people speak a pure dialect. There are two widely recognized dialects, a distinct Moravian accent, with quite a few different words and expressions, and the mainstream Czech.

However, the difference between the literary, and colloquial language is often more pronounced than that between different dialects.

What is the difference between colloquial and literary Czech?

As is usual in most languages where this is the issue, the colloquial language has 'careless' pronunciation, and specific words and expressions. Unlike most languages, in Czech, the colloquial language also consistently uses different endings. For instance, you learn mlad[ý]{.underline} (young) and hear mlad[e]{.underline}j on the street, or you see Šumavský chléb (Šumava bread) written on a shelf in the bakery but people ask for Šumavskej chleba. As you see the difference is mostly in vowels. It is also noteworthy that the Moravian 'dialect', although by far not homogeneous, uses for the most part the literary endings.

Is there anything about Czech that is easy?

Yes, a number of things. The tenses, for instance. There is no sequence of tenses (a common threat to a learner of English of which you even may not be aware). Also, Czech does not have articles. It is very easy to learn Czech spelling, too. In some respects Czech is more regular than English. It has very few irregular verbs. On the other hand it does abound with exceptions in noun endings. The stress is always on the first syllable but there are short and long vowels that are independent on it.

All in all, it is almost impossible to say what is easy and what is hard. There are certainly many things in any language which are cursed by its learners but still, countless brave men and women are undertaking the dangerous venture, lured by the promise of acquiring the key which will fling the gates to another culture wide open.