Czech orthography is a system of rules for proper orthography in Czech. The earliest form of a separate Latin script specifically designed to suit Czech was devised by Czech theologian and church reformist Jan Hus, the namesake of the Hussite movement, in one of his seminal works, De orthographia bohemica (On Bohemian orthography).
The modern Czech orthographic system is diacritic, having evolved from an earlier system which used many digraphs (although one digraph has been kept – ch). The caron (known as háček in Czech) is added to standard Latin letters to express sounds which are foreign to Latin. The acute accent is used for long vowels.
The Czech orthography is considered the model for many other Balto-Slavic languages using the Latin alphabet; Slovak orthography being its direct revised descendant, while the Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet and its Slovene alphabet offspring are largely based on it. The Baltic languages, such as Latvian and Lithuanian, are also largely based on it. All of them make use of similar diacritics and also have a similar, usually interchangeable, relationship between the letters and the sounds they are meant to represent.
Alphabet The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters. +Czech alphabet Majuscule forms (uppercase/capital letters) A Á B C Č D Ď E É Ě F G H Ch I Í J K L M N Ň O Ó P Q R Ř S Š T Ť U Ú Ů V W X Y Ý Z Ž Minuscule forms (lowercase/small letters) a á b c č d ď e é ě f g h ch i í j k l m n ň o ó p q r ř s š t ť u ú ů v w x y ý z ž
+Czech alphabet (detail) Letter Name Letter Name Uppercase Lowercase Uppercase Lowercase A a á Ň ň eň Á á dlouhé á; á s čárkou O o ó B b bé Ó ó dlouhé ó; ó s čárkou C c cé P p pé Č č čé Q q kvé D d dé R r er Ď ď ďé Ř ř eř E e é S s es É é dlouhé é; é s čárkou Š š eš Ě ě ije; é s háčkem T t té F f ef Ť ť ťé G g gé U u ú H h há Ú ú dlouhé ú; ú s čárkou Ch ch chá Ů ů ů s kroužkem I i í; měkké i V v vé Í í dlouhé í; dlouhé měkké í;í s čárkou; měkké í s čárkou W w dvojité vé J j jé X x iks K k ká Y y ypsilon; krátké tvrdé ý L l el Ý ý dlouhé ypsilon; dlouhé tvrdé ý;ypsilon s čárkou; tvrdé ý s čárkou M m em Z z zet N n en Ž ž žet
The letters Q, W, and X are used exclusively in foreign words, and the former two are respectively replaced with KV and V once the word becomes "naturalized" (assimilated into Czech); the digraphs dz and dž are also used mostly for foreign words and are not considered to be distinct letters in the Czech alphabet.
Orthographic principles Czech orthography is primarily phonemic (rather than phonetic) because an individual grapheme usually corresponds to an individual phoneme (rather than a sound). However, some graphemes and letter groups are remnants of historical phonemes which were used in the past but have since merged with other phonemes. Some changes in the phonology have not been reflected in the orthography. +VowelsGraphemeIPA valueNotesaáeéě, Marks palatalization of preceding consonant; see usage rules belowiPalatalizes preceding , , or ; see usage rules belowíPalatalizes preceding , , or ; see usage rules belowoóOccurs mostly in words of foreign origin.uúSee usage rules belowůSee usage rules belowySee usage rules belowýSee usage rules below +ConsonantsGraphemeIPA valueNotesbc Unofficial ligatures are sometimes used for the transcription of affricates: . The actual IPA version supports using two separate letters which can be joined by a tiebar.č dRepresents before ; see belowďfOccurs mostly in words of foreign origin. gOccurs mostly in words of foreign origin. hchjklmnRepresents before ; see belowňprř The "long-leg R" is sometimes used to transcribe voiced (unofficially). This character was withdrawn from the IPA and replaced by the "lower-case R" with the "up-tack" diacritic mark, which denotes "raised alveolar trill".sštRepresents before ; see belowťvxOccurs only in words of foreign origin; pronounced in words with the prefix 'ex-' before vowels or voiced consonants.zž
Voicing assimilation
All the obstruent consonants are subject to voicing (before voiced obstruents except ) or devoicing (before voiceless consonants and at the end of words); spelling in these cases is morphophonemic (i.e. the morpheme has the same spelling as before a vowel). An exception is the cluster , in which the is voiced to only in Moravian dialects, while in Bohemia the is devoiced to instead (e.g. shodit , in Moravia ). Devoicing changes its articulation place: it becomes . After unvoiced consonants is devoiced: for instance, in 'three', which is pronounced . Written voiced or voiceless counterparts are kept according to the etymology of the word, e.g. odpadnout (to fall away) - od- is a prefix; written is devoiced here because of the following voiceless .
For historical reasons, the consonant is written k in Czech words like kde ('where', < Proto-Slavic *kъdě) or kdo ('who', < Proto-Slavic *kъto). This is because the letter g was historically used for the consonant . The original Slavic phoneme changed into in the Old-Czech period. Thus, is not a separate phoneme (with a corresponding grapheme) in words of domestic origin; it occurs only in foreign words (e.g. graf, gram, etc.).
Final devoicing Unlike in English but like German, Dutch and Russian, voiced consonants are pronounced voicelessly in the final position in words. In declension, they are voiced in cases where the words take on endings.
Compare: led – ledy (ice – ices) let – lety (flight – flights)
"Soft" I and "hard" Y The letters and are both pronounced , while and are both pronounced . was originally pronounced as in contemporary Polish. However, in the 14th century, this difference in standard pronunciation disappeared, though it has been preserved in some Moravian dialects. In words of native origin "soft" and cannot follow "hard" consonants, while "hard" and cannot follow "soft" consonants; "neutral" consonants can be followed by either vowel:
+Hard and soft consonantsSoftž, š, č, ř, c, j, ď, ť, ňNeutralb, f, l, m, p, s, v, zHardh, ch, k, r, d, t, n, g
When or is written after in native words, these consonants are soft, as if they were written . That is, the sounds are written instead of , e.g. in čeština . The sounds are denoted, respectively, by . In words of foreign origin, are pronounced ; that is, as if they were written , e.g. in diktát, dictation.
Historically the letter was hard, but this changed in the 19th century. However, in some words it is still followed by the letter : tác (plate) – tácy (plates).
Because neutral consonants can be followed by either or , in some cases they distinguish homophones, e.g. být (to be) vs. bít (to beat), mýt (to wash) vs. mít (to have). At school pupils must memorize word roots and prefixes where is written; is written in other cases. Writing or in endings is dependent on the declension patterns.
Letter Ě The letter is a vestige of Old Czech palatalization. The originally palatalizing phoneme /ě/ became extinct, changing to or , but it is preserved as a grapheme which can never appear in the initial position. are written instead of , analogously to are usually written instead of In words like vjezd (entry, drive-in) objem (volume), are written because in such cases –je- is etymologically preceded by the prefixes v- or ob- is usually written instead of , except for morphological reasons in some words (jemný, soft -> jemně, softly) The first-person singular pronouns mě (for the genitive and accusative cases) and mně (for the dative and locative) are homophones —see Czech declension
Letter Ů There are two ways in Czech to write long : and . cannot occur in an initial position, while occurs almost exclusively in the initial position or at the beginning of a word root in a compound.
Historically, long changed into the diphthong (as also happened in the English Great Vowel Shift with words such as "house"), though not in word-initial position in the prestige form. In 1848 at the beginning of word-roots was changed into in words like to reflect this. Thus, the letter is written at the beginning of word-roots only: úhel (angle), trojúhelník (triangle), except in loanwords: skútr (scooter).
Meanwhile, historical long changed into the diphthong . As was common with scribal abbreviations, the letter in the diphthong was sometimes written as a ring above the letter , producing , e.g. kóň > kuoň > kůň (horse), like the origin of the German umlaut. Later, the pronunciation changed into , but the grapheme has remained. It never occurs at the beginning of words: dům (house), domů (home, homeward).
The letter now has the same pronunciation as the letter (long ), but alternates with a short when a word is inflected (e.g. nom. kůň → gen. koně, nom. dům → gen. domu), thus showing the historical evolution of the language.
Agreement between the subject and the predicate
The predicate must be always in accordance with the subject in the sentence - in number and person (personal pronouns), and with past and passive participles also in gender. This grammatical principle affects the orthography (see also "Soft" I and "Hard" Y) – it is especially important for the correct choice and writing of plural endings of the participles.
Examples: GenderSg.Pl.Englishmasculine animatepes byl koupenpsi byli koupenia dog was bought/dogs were boughtmasculine inanimatehrad byl koupenhrady byly koupenya castle was bought/castles were boughtfemininekočka byla koupenakočky byly koupenya cat was bought/cats were boughtneuterměsto bylo koupenoměsta byla koupenaa town was bought/towns were bought
The mentioned example shows both past (byl, byla ...) and passive (koupen, koupena ...) participles. The accordance in gender takes effect in the past tense and the passive voice, not in the present and future tenses in active voice.
If the complex subject is a combination of nouns of different genders, masculine animate gender is prior to others and the masculine inanimate and feminine genders are prior to the neuter gender.
Examples: muži a ženy byli - men and women were kočky a koťata byly - cats and kittens were my jsme byli (my = we all/men) vs. my jsme byly (my = we women) - we were
Priority of genders: masculine animate > masculine inanimate & feminine > neuter
Punctuation
The use of the full stop (.), the colon (:), the semicolon (;), the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!) is similar to their use in other European languages. The full stop is placed after a number if it stands for ordinal numerals (as in German), e.g. 1. den (= první den) – the 1st day.
The comma is used to separate individual parts in complex-compound sentences, lists, isolated parts of sentences, etc. Its use in Czech is different from English. Subordinate (dependent) clauses must be always separated from their principal (independent) clauses, for instance. A comma is not placed before a (and), i (as well as), ani (nor) and nebo (or) when they connect parts of sentences or clauses in copulative conjunctions (on a same level). It must be placed in non-copulative conjunctions (consequence, emphasis, exclusion, etc.). A comma can, however, occur in front of the word a (and) if the former is part of comma-delimited parenthesis: Jakub, můj mladší bratr, a jeho učitel Filip byli příliš zabráni do rozhovoru. Probírali látku, která bude u zkoušky, a též, kdo na ní bude. A comma also separates subordinate conjunctions introduced by composite conjunctions a proto (and therefore) and a tak (and so).
Examples: otec a matka – father and mother, otec nebo matka – father or mother (coordinate relation – no commas) Je to pravda, nebo ne? – Is it true, or not? (exclusion) Pršelo, a proto nikdo nepřišel. – It was raining, and so no one came. (consequence) Já vím, kdo to je. – I know who it is. Myslím, že se mýlíš. – I think you are mistaken. (subordinate relation) Jak se máš, Anno? – How are you, Anna? (addressing a person)