The Czech language is one of the West Slavic languages, along with Slovak, Polish, Pomeranian, and Sorbian. It is spoken by most people in the Czech Republic and by Czechs all over the world (about 12 million native speakers in total). Czech is very close to Slovak or Polish, Czech and Slovak speakers are usually able to understand each other. National motto: Truth prevails ( Czech: Pravda vítězí) Official language Czech Capital Praha ( Prague) President Václav Klaus Prime Minister Stanislav Gross Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 114th 78,866 km² 2% Population  - Total ( 2003)  - Density Ranked 76th 10. ... This is a list of bodies that regulate languages. ... ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ... SIL International is a non-profit, faith-based, scientific organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. ... As with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition. ... The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) comprise the languages of the Slavic peoples. ... The Slovak language (slovenčina, slovenský jazyk) is an Indo-European language, more precisely a West Slavic language (together with mainly the Czech, Polish, and Sorbian languages). ... Polish (polski, język polski) is the official language of Poland. ... Pomeranian is a group of Lekhitic dialects, sometimes called also the dialects of Polish. ... This article or section should be merged with List of Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages are members of the West Slavic branch of languages spoken in eastern Germany. ... National motto: Truth prevails ( Czech: Pravda vítězí) Official language Czech Capital Praha ( Prague) President Václav Klaus Prime Minister Stanislav Gross Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 114th 78,866 km² 2% Population  - Total ( 2003)  - Density Ranked 76th 10. ...

Because of its complexity, Czech is said to be a difficult language to learn. The complexity is due to extensive morphology and highly free word order. As in all Slavic languages, many words (esp. 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. The word order 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, it is nevertheless different, because the permutations differ in the topic-focus articulation. As an example we can show: Češi udělali revoluci (The Czechs made a revolution), Revoluci udělali Češi (It was the Czechs who made the revolution), and Češi revoluci udělali (The Czechs did make a revolution). As with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... This article is about inflection in linguistics. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... A colloquialism is an informal expression, that is, an expression not used in formal speech or writing. ... This article is about permutation, a mathematical concept. ... A clause is a group of words consisting of a subject (often just a single noun) and a predicate (sometimes just a single verb). ... Topic-focus articulation is a field of study in linguistics. ...

Czech's phonology may also be very difficult for speakers of many other languages. For example, some words do not appear to have vowels: zmrzl, ztvrdl, scvrkl, čtvrthrst. A popular example of this is the phrase "strč prst skrz krk" meaning "stick a finger through your throat". The consonants l and r, however, function as sonorants and thus fulfill the role of a vowel (a similar phenomenon also occurs in American English, for example bird is pronounced as [brd] with a syllabic r). It also features the consonant ř, a phoneme that is said to be unique to Czech (it also existed in Proto-Norse) and quite difficult for foreigners to pronounce. To a foreign ear, it sounds very similar to zh, though a better approximation could be rolled (trilled) r followed by zh, which was incidentally sometimes used as an orthography for this sound (rž) e.g. in the royal charter of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1609. Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech) is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... See also consonance in music. ... In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (i. ... Proto-Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic or Proto-North Germanic was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century, and was spoken until ca 800, when it evolved into the Old Norse language. ... The orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the writing system of a language. ... Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II Rudolf II Habsburg was an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, king of Bohemia, and king of Hungary. ... Events April 4 – King of Spain signs an edit of expulsion of all moriscos from Spain April 9 – Spain recognizes Dutch independence May 23 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia. ...

Morphology

Parts of speech

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

Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, 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). A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word that usually takes the place of a noun or noun phrase that was previously mentioned (such as she, it) or that refers to something or someone (I, me, you). Pronouns are often one of the basic parts of speech of the... A numeral is a symbol or group of symbols that represents a number. ... A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... An adverb is a part of speech that normally serves to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, clauses, and sentences. ... In grammar, a preposition is a word that establishes a relationship between an object (usually a noun phrase) and some other part of the sentence, often expressing a location in place or time. ... A conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, phrases, or clauses together. ... In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ... An interjection, sometimes called a filled pause, is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. ...

Declension

The noun cases are typically referred to by number, and learned by means of the question to which they are the answer, as follows:

1. who/what? - Nominative
2. (without) whom/what? - Genitive
3. (to) whom/what? - Dative
4. (I see) whom/what? - Accusative
5. (addressing/calling) Vocative
6. (about) whom/what? - Locative
7. (with) whom/what? - Instrumental

The numbers are singular, plural, and remains of dual. The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... The dative case is a grammatical case for nouns and/or pronouns. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed, found in Latin among other languages. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ... In linguistics, the instrumental case indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ... Dual is the grammatical number used for two referents. ...

The genders are masculine animate, masculine inanimate, feminine, and neuter. In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once. ...

Software

Coding of Czech letters with accents (especially those with háček) is not uniform and sometimes causes incorrect display and printing of texts. The following sentence is commonly used to test all special characters: Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy ("a very yellow horse screamed hellish odes"; needs to be tested with small and capital case). HACEK organisms are a subgroup of bacteria. ...

See also:

Czech alphabet, háček, Frequently used Czech verbs The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters (or more precisely - graphemes): 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... HACEK organisms are a subgroup of bacteria. ... This is a list of verbs in the Czech language být: to be mít: to have moci: to be able to muset: to have to vědět: to know (facts) chtít: to want jít: to go říci: to say, tell vidět: to see dát: to give přijít: to come myslet: to...

External links

• UniLang Wiki:
  • Czech pronunciation (http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Czech_pronunciation)
  • Czech basic phrases (http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Czech_basic_phrases)
  • Czech months (http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Czech_months)
  • Czech days (http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Czech_days)
• Omniglot page for Czech (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/czech.htm): Contains pronunciation and history
• All free Czech dictionaries (http://www.fdicts.com/dictlist1.php?k1=21)
• Bohemica.com (http://www.bohemica.com): Language and culture resource;including
  • Yellow Pages of The Czech Language (http://www.bohemica.com/czechonline/reference/referencetop.htm)
• Overview of the Czech language (http://www.czech-language.cz)
• Online dictionary (http://www.wordbook.cz)
• Project maintaining free Czech dictionaries (http://www.fdicts.com/czech)
• Multilingual Dictionary (http://www.slovnik.cz)
• LocalLingo.com (http://www.locallingo.com): Another useful portal with clear audio
• Czech for Linguists (http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~hana/Czech.html)
• Czech - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Czech-english/): from Webster's Online Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org) - the Rosetta Edition.
• Diacritics Project - All you need to design a font with correct accents (http://diacritics.typo.cz)