Misplaced Pages

#102897

47-672: Among the innovations in common West Slavic is the palatalization of velar ch > š ( vьšь 'all'), while s ( vьsь ) developed in the East and South Slavic dialects. Within West Slavic, Czech and Slovak separated from Polish around the 10th to 12th centuries. Some other changes took place during roughly the 10th century: The disappearance of the odd yers strengthened the phonological contrast of palatalized (softened) and unpalatalized consonants , and resulted in alterations of epenthetic e and ∅ (null- phoneme ). The contrast of

94-422: A breathy-voiced counterpart of the following vowel from a phonetic point of view. However, its characteristics are also influenced by the preceding vowels and whatever other sounds surround it. Therefore, it can be described as a segment whose only consistent feature is its breathy voice phonation in such languages. It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish ), making it

141-437: A group from the other Slavic languages' (Sussex & Cubberley 2006). Czech and Slovak are more closely related to each other than to the other West Slavic languages, and also closer to each other than Polish and Sorbian are. Czecho-Slovak (Slovak in particular) shares certain features with other Slavic languages, such as Slovene and BCMS . Some distinctive features of the West Slavic languages, as from when they split from

188-548: A subdivision of the Slavic language group . They include Polish , Czech , Slovak , Kashubian , Silesian , Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian . The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompassing the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Poland , the westernmost regions of Ukraine and Belarus , and a bit of eastern Lithuania . In addition, there are several language islands such as

235-567: Is Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica praecipue Bohemica ("The defence of the Slavic language, of Czech in particular"), written in Latin by Bohuslav Balbín . The period from the 1780s to the 1840s. The abolition of serfdom in 1781 (by Joseph II ) caused migration of country inhabitants to towns. It enabled the implementation of the ideas of the Czech national awakeners for the renewal of

282-540: Is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically , but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ɦ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\ . In many languages, [ɦ] has no place or manner of articulation. Thus, it has been described as

329-405: Is also applied in verb conjugations. The past is expressed by aorist , imperfect , perfect and pluperfect . The future tense is not fixed yet; the present tense is often used instead. The contrast of perfective and imperfective aspects is not fully developed yet, there are also biaspectual and no-aspectual verbs. The Proto-Slavic supine was used after verbs of motion, but it was replaced by

376-580: Is not still unified, digraphs are used predominantly in various forms. After the invention of book-printing, the so-called Brethren orthography stabilized in printed documents. The Bible of Kralice (1579–1593), the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages by the Unity of the Brethren , became the pattern of the literary Czech language. The orthography was predominantly diacritic;

423-565: Is sometimes attributed to contact with Scytho-Sarmatian . It is approximately dated to the 12th century in Slovak, the 12th to 13th century in Czech and the 14th century in Upper Sorbian. In the nominal declension , the traditional division according to the word-stem ending was progressively replaced by the gender principle (masculine, feminine and neuter) There were also three grammatical numbers : singular, dual and plural. The dual

470-500: Is sometimes used in various shapes. Its function is to denote pauses. The changes of ’u > i ( kl’úč > klíč 'key') and ’o > ě ( koňóm > koniem '(to) horses') took place. The so-called main historical depalatalization , initiated in the 13th century, was finished. Palatalized (softened) consonants either merged with their hard counterparts or became palatal (ď, ť, ň). The depalatalization did not temporarily concern hard and soft l , which merged to one middle l later at

517-563: The East Slavic and South Slavic branches around the 3rd to 6th centuries AD (alternatively, between the 6th and 10th centuries ), are as follows: Although influences from other language families have contributed a lot of loanwords , and to a lesser extent to verb morphology and syntax, the Slavic languages retained a distinctly Slavic character, with clear roots in Indo-European. The West Slavic languages are all written in

SECTION 10

#1732765568103

564-634: The Latin script , while the East Slavic branch uses Cyrillic and the South Slavic branch is mixed. The early Slavic expansion reached Central Europe in c. the 7th century, and the West Slavic dialects diverged from Common Slavic over the following centuries. West Slavic polities of the 9th century include the Principality of Nitra and Great Moravia . The West Slavic tribes settled on

611-502: The infinitive . However, the contemporary infinitive ending -t formally continues the supine. The earliest written records of Czech date to the 12th to 13th century, in the form of personal names, glosses and short notes. The oldest known complete Czech sentence is a note on the foundation charter of the Litoměřice chapter at the beginning of the 13th century: The earliest texts were written in primitive orthography , which used

658-664: The 12th and 13th centuries. Front and back variants of vowels are removed, e.g. ’ä > ě ( ie ) and ’a > ě ( v’a̋ce > viece 'more', p’äkný > pěkný 'nice'). In the morphology, these changes deepened the differences between hard and soft noun types ( sedláka 'farmer (gen.)' ↔ oráčě 'ploughman (gen.)'; města 'towns' ↔ mor’ě 'seas'; žena 'woman' ↔ dušě 'soul') as well as verbs ( volati 'to call' ↔ sázěti 'to plant out'). The hard syllabic l changed to lu ( Chlmec > Chlumec, dĺgý > dlúhý 'long'), as opposite to soft l’ . The change of g to [ ɣ ] , and later to [ ɦ ] , had been in progress since

705-524: The 12th century. Later assibilation of palatalized alveolars ( t’ > c’, d’ > dz’ and r’ > rs’ ) occurred. However, c’ and dz’ disappeared later, but the change of r’ > rs’ > ř became permanent. In the 14th century, Czech began to penetrate various literary styles. Official documents in Czech exist at the end of the century. The digraph orthography is applied. The older digraph orthography : ch = ch; chz = č; cz = c; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = ž or š; w = v; v = u; zz = s; z = z; ie, ye = ě ;

752-424: The Czech language. However, the people's language and literary genres of the previous period were strange to the enlightened intelligentsia. The literary language of the end of the 16th century and of Komenský’s work became the starting point for the new codification of literary Czech. Of the various attempts at codification, Josef Dobrovský ’s grammar was ultimately generally accepted. Purists' attempts to cleanse

799-477: The German model, the punctuation leaves the pause principle and respects the syntax. The artistic literature often resorted to archaisms and did not respect the natural development of the spoken language. This was due to attempts to reach the prestige literal styles. Literary Czech has not been an exclusive matter of the intellectual classes since the 1840s. Journalism was developing and artistic works got closer to

846-678: The Sorbian areas in Lusatia in Germany , and Slovak areas in Hungary and elsewhere. West Slavic is usually divided into three subgroups— Czech–Slovak , Lechitic and Sorbian —based on similarity and degree of mutual intelligibility . The groupings are as follows: Polish Kashubian Slovincian † Polabian † Lower Sorbian Upper Sorbian Czech Slovak The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology classifies

893-543: The West Slavic languages within their Glottolog database as follows: Czech Slovak Polish Silesian Kashubian Polabian † Lower Sorbian Upper Sorbian Some linguists include Upper and Lower Sorbian in the Lechitic branch, but other linguists regard it as a separate branch. The reason for this is that 'the Sorbian dialects are extremely diverse, and there are virtually no linguistic features common to all Sorbian dialects which distinguish them as

940-480: The beginning of Czech humanism . The number of literary language users enlarges. Czech fully penetrates the administration. Around 1406, a reform of the orthography was suggested in De orthographia bohemica , a work attributed to Jan Hus – the so-called diacritic orthography . For recording of soft consonants, digraphs are replaced by a dot above letters. The acute is used to denote the vowel length. The digraph ch and

987-425: The change in pronunciation. The contrast of animateness in masculine inflection is not still fully set, as it is not yet applied to animals ( vidím pána 'I see a lord'; vidím pes 'I see a dog'). Aorist and imperfect have disappeared from literary styles before the end of the 15th century. The period of the mature literary language from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century. The orthography in written texts

SECTION 20

#1732765568103

1034-462: The differentiation of animate and inanimate masculines was completed ( vidím psa rather than the earlier vidím pes ). The period from the second half of the 17th century to the second third of the 18th century was marked by confiscations and emigration of the Czech intelligentsia after the Battle of White Mountain . The function of the literary language was limited; it left the scientific field first,

1081-409: The diphthongization of ú > ou (written au , the pronunciation was probably different than today), the monophthongization of ie > í ( miera > míra 'measure') and uo > ú . The diphthong uo was sometimes recorded as o in the form of a ring above the letter u , which resulted in the grapheme ů ( kuoň > kůň ). The ring has been regarded as a diacritic mark denoting the length since

1128-554: The discerning literature later, and the administration finally. Under the rule of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II , who also reigned as king of Bohemia, the use of Czech was discouraged due to its association with Protestantism, and relegated to a spoken peasant tongue. However, puppeteers continued to use Czech for public marionette shows, and popular legend has it that this preserved the Czech language from extinction at home. Meanwhile, prestigious literary styles were cultivated by Czech expatriates abroad. The zenith and, simultaneously,

1175-645: The domination of the Holy Roman Empire and were strongly Germanized . The Bohemians established the Duchy of Bohemia in the 9th century, which was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire in the early 11th century. At the end of the 12th century the duchy was raised to the status of kingdom , which was legally recognized in 1212 in the Golden Bull of Sicily . Lusatia , the homeland of

1222-415: The dot in soft consonants was replaced by the caron which was used in č, ď, ň, ř, ť, ž . The letter š was mostly written in the final positions in words only, the digraph ʃʃ was written in the middle. The grapheme ě became used in the contemporary way. Vowel length was denoted by the acute accent, except for ů developed from original uo . The long í was doubled ii for technical reasons; later it

1269-721: The eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire , along the Limes Saxoniae . The Obotrites were given territories by Charlemagne in exchange for their support in his war against the Saxons . In the high medieval period, the West Slavic tribes were again pushed to the east by the incipient German Ostsiedlung , decisively so following the Wendish Crusade in the 11th century. The Sorbs and other Polabian Slavs like Obodrites and Veleti came under

1316-536: The end of the florescence of prestigious literary styles are represented by the works of Jan Amos Komenský . The changes in the phonology and the morphology of the literary language ended in the previous period. Only the spoken language continued its development in the country. As a consequence of strong isolation, the differences between dialects were deepened. Especially, the Moravian and Silesian dialects developed divergently from Common Czech. Printed documents used

1363-470: The etymology, si, zi or sy, zy came to be written, cy was replaced by ci . Antiqua was introduced instead of fractura in printing, and it led to the removal of the digraph ʃʃ and its replacement by the letter š . The long í replaced j , and j replaced g ( gegj > její 'hers'). In the 1840s, the double w was replaced by v and ou replaced the traditional au . Thus, the orthography became close to its contemporary appearance. According to

1410-562: The front ones had their back variants ( allophones ), and vice versa. The consonants were divided into hard (b, p, v, m, t, d, r, l, n, c, z, s, k, g, ch) and soft – palatal or palatalized (t’, d’, ř, l’, n’, c’, s’, z’, č, š, ž, j, ň). This division was cardinal for the later development. The spirantisation of Slavic /g/ to /h/ is an areal feature shared by Ukrainian (and some southern Russian dialects), Belarusian, Slovak, Czech, Sorbian (but not Polish) and minority of Slovene dialects. This innovation appears to have travelled from east to west, and

1457-559: The grapheme w are preserved. The interchangeability of the graphemes i and y is cancelled. The suggestion is a work of an individual person, therefore this graphic system was accepted slowly, the digraph orthography was still in use. As a consequence of the loss of palatalization, the pronunciation of y and i merged. This change resulted in the diphthongization of ý > ej in Common Czech (the widespread Bohemian interdialect). There are also some other changes in this period:

History of the Czech language - Misplaced Pages Continue

1504-487: The graphemes i and y are interchangeable. The vowel length is not usually denoted, doubled letters are used rarely. Obligatory regulations did not exist. This is why the system was not always applied precisely. After 1340, the later digraph orthography was applied: ch = ch; cz = c or č; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = s or š; ss = s or š; w = v; v = u; z = z or ž , syllable-final y = j ; ie, ye = ě . The graphemes i and y remain interchangeable. The punctuation mark

1551-413: The language of germanisms (both real and fictitious) had been occurring by that time. The publication of Josef Jungmann ’s five-part Czech-German Dictionary (1830–1835) contributed to the renewal of Czech vocabulary. Thanks to the enthusiasm of Czech scientists, Czech scientific terminology was created. Step by step, the orthography was liberated from the relics of the Brethren orthography. According to

1598-415: The letters of the Latin alphabet without any diacritics, resulting in ambiguities, such as in the letter c representing the k /k/, c /ts/ and č /tʃ/ phonemes. Later during the 13th century, the digraph orthography begins to appear, although not systematically. Combinations of letters ( digraphs ) are used for recording Czech sounds, e.g. rs for ř . Large changes take place in Czech phonology in

1645-402: The punctuation. However, the comma was used according to pauses in pronunciation, not the syntax. The full stop , the colon , the question mark and the exclamation mark are used. The first grammars are published for typographers' purposes. In the pronunciation, the change of ý > ej was established, but it occurred in lesser prestige style text only. The diphthongization of ú > ou

1692-532: The remaining Sorbs, became a crown land of Bohemia in the 11th century, and Silesia followed suit in 1335. The Slovaks , on the other hand, never became part of the Holy Roman Empire, being incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary . Hungary fell under Habsburg rule alongside Austria and Bohemia in the 16th century, thus uniting the Bohemians, Moravians, Slovaks, and Silesians under a single ruler. While Lusatia

1739-511: The same orthography as in the previous period. Only the two kinds of l are not differentiated any more. The semicolon occurs as a punctuation mark for better and clear organization of excessive and complicated complex sentences . Digraphs with irregular elements of diacritics are still used in hand-written texts. The first ideas of the National Revival were in so-called defences of the Czech language. The most likely first such work

1786-467: The spoken language, especially in syntax. In 1902, Jan Gebauer published the first Rules of Czech Orthography, which also contained an overview of the morphology. These rules still preferred older forms in doublets. During the 20th century, elements of the spoken language (of Common Czech especially) penetrated literary Czech. The orthography of foreign words was changed to reflect their German pronunciation, especially writing z instead of s and marking

1833-462: The turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. In this context, the phoneme ě [ʲe] disappeared. The short ě either changed to e or was dissociated to j + e ( pěna [pjena] 'foam') before labial consonants in the pronunciation. The long ě was diphthongized to ie ( chtieti 'to want', čieše 'goblet', piesek 'sand'). At the same time, the long ó was diphthongized to uo ( sól > suol 'salt'). In pronunciation, regressive assimilation of voice

1880-527: The unvoiced labiodental f . Prothetic v- has been added to all words beginning with o- ( voko instead of oko 'eye') in the Bohemian dialects since this period. In morphology, the future tense of imperfective verbs was fixed. The type budu volati 'I will call' became preferred to other types ( chc’u volati 'I want to call', jmám volati 'I have to call', and budu volal 'I will have called'). The contrastive feature of imperfectiveness

1927-402: The vowel length (e.g. gymnasium > gymnázium 'grammar school'). Social changes after World War II (1945) led to gradual diminishing of differences between dialects. Since the second half of the 20th century, Common Czech elements have also been spreading to regions previously unaffected, as a consequence of the media's influence. West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages are

History of the Czech language - Misplaced Pages Continue

1974-408: The vowel quantity (length) was also strengthened. The depalatalization of consonants preceding e and ä took place later, thus the frequency of occurrence of palatalized consonants was lowered, but it strengthened the palatalization contrast at the same time. The change of ’ä > ě and ä > a took place at the end of the 12th century. The vowels were front (ä, e, i, ě) and back (a, o, u), and

2021-431: Was also stabilized (but au still remained in graphics). In initial positions, it was used in lesser prestige or specialized styles only. Written mě [mje] starts to be pronounced as [mɲe]. The change of tautosyllabic aj > ej ( daj > dej 'give (2. sg. imperative)', vajce > vejce 'egg') took place, but it was not applied in heterosyllabic aj ( dají 'they will give', vajec 'egg (gen. pl.)'). In morphology,

2068-499: Was also stabilized. The perfectivization function of prefixes and the imperfectivization function of suffixes are applied. As a consequence of this, aorist and imperfect start disappearing little by little and are replaced by the perfect (now called preterite , since it became the only past tense in Czech). The periphrastic passive voice is formed. The period of the 15th century from the beginning of Jan Hus 's preaching activity to

2115-405: Was denoted as ij , and finally as j . Pronounced [j] was recorded as g or y , pronounced [g] was sometimes recorded by the grapheme ǧ . The double w was preserved, the simple v denoted the word-initial u . The diphthong ou was denoted as au . The hard y was always written after c, s, z ( cyzý 'strange'). The complicated syntax, influenced by Latin texts, required some improvement of

2162-402: Was enforced (with the exception of h, ř and v ). The voicedness became the main contrastive feature of consonants after the disappearance of palatalization. The original pronunciation of v was probably bilabial (as preserved in some Eastern-Bohemian dialects in syllable-final positions: diwnej 'peculiar', stowka 'a hundred'), but in the 14th century, the articulation was adapted to

2209-606: Was lost to Saxony in 1635 and most of Silesia was lost to Prussia in 1740, the remaining West Slavic Habsburg dominions remained part of the Austrian Empire and then Austria-Hungary , and after that remained united until 1992 in the form of Czechoslovakia . Over the past century, there have been efforts by some to standardize and to recognize Silesian , Lachian , and Moravian as separate languages . Voiced glottal fricative The voiced glottal fricative , sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition ,

#102897