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64-594: The Czechoslovak-Polish War , widely known in Czech sources as the Seven-Day War ( Czech : Sedmidenní válka ) was a military confrontation between Czechoslovakia and Poland over the territory of Cieszyn Silesia in early 1919. Czechoslovak forces invaded the Polish part (with an interim local civilian government, and with a strong majority support for allegiance to Poland, in reflection of earlier views, with

128-635: A distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak. With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century, Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through 17th centuries, rebelling against the Counter-Reformation (the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non- Latin languages). Czech philologists studied sixteenth-century texts and advocated

192-506: A dozen additional counties in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, North Dakota and Minnesota . As of 2009, 70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, after Turkish and before Swedish ). Standard Czech contains ten basic vowel phonemes , and three diphthongs. The vowels are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/ , and their long counterparts /aː/, /ɛː/, /iː/, /oː/ and /uː/ . The diphthongs are /ou̯/, /au̯/ and /ɛu̯/ ;

256-413: A large influx of migrant workers, mostly from western Galicia . Traditionally the area in most parts was inhabited by Silesian Lachs speaking Cieszyn Silesian dialect . After World War I and fall of Austria-Hungary the region of Cieszyn Silesia including the territory of Freistadt political district became disputed land between Czechoslovakia and Poland . This led to Polish–Czechoslovak War and

320-571: A more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below). The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used. The function of the written language was initially performed by Old Slavonic written in Glagolitic , later by Latin written in Latin script . Around

384-514: A realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, Josef Jungmann and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival. Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, í in place of the former j and j in place of g ), the use of t (rather than ti ) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German). These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak. Modern scholars disagree about whether

448-489: A slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase. In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns, with few exceptions. Relative clauses are introduced by relativizers such as the adjective který , analogous to the English relative pronouns "which", "that" and "who"/"whom". As with other adjectives, it agrees with its associated noun in gender, number and case. Relative clauses follow

512-513: A substantial Polish minority in Czechoslovakia in the region later called Trans-Olza because the demarcation line ran through the Olza river . The events, including later Czechoslovak policies in the territory led to further disputes including the 1938, Polish annexation. During the final months of World War I , Polish and Czechoslovak diplomats met to discuss the common border between

576-474: A verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb. Enclitics (primarily auxiliary verbs and pronouns) appear in the second syntactic slot of a sentence, after the first stressed unit. The first slot can contain a subject or object, a main form of a verb, an adverb, or a conjunction (except for the light conjunctions a , "and", i , "and even" or ale , "but"). Czech syntax has a subject–verb–object sentence structure. In practice, however, word order

640-694: A volunteer battalion from Bohumín and a volunteer battalion from Orlová . The operations of the Czechoslovak forces were joined by other local volunteers, formed in the National Guard approximately 5,000 men strong. From the north-west of Slovakia came the main force that was sent to support the 35th Regiment from Italy , led by the Italian Colonel Graselli and later reinforced with the Rifle Regiment from Italy. During

704-753: Is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group , written in Latin script . Spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic . Czech is closely related to Slovak , to the point of high mutual intelligibility , as well as to Polish to a lesser degree. Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order . Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German . The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in

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768-636: Is a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. This branch includes Polish , Kashubian , Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak . Slovak is the most closely related language to Czech, followed by Polish and Silesian . The West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by

832-634: Is a recognized minority language in Slovakia, Slovak citizens who speak only Czech may communicate with the government in their language in the same way that Slovak speakers in the Czech Republic also do. Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is a Less Commonly Taught Language in U.S. schools, and is taught at Czech heritage centers. Large communities of Czech Americans live in

896-422: Is also relevant to the declension patterns of nouns, which vary according to whether the final consonant of the noun stem is hard or soft. Voiced consonants with unvoiced counterparts are unvoiced at the end of a word before a pause, and in consonant clusters voicing assimilation occurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/. The phoneme represented by

960-432: Is flexible and used to distinguish topic and focus , with the topic or theme (known referents) preceding the focus or rheme (new information) in a sentence; Czech has therefore been described as a topic-prominent language . Although Czech has a periphrastic passive construction (like English), in colloquial style, word-order changes frequently replace the passive voice. For example, to change "Peter killed Paul" to "Paul

1024-629: Is one of the EU's official languages and the 2012 Eurobarometer survey found that Czech was the foreign language most often used in Slovakia. Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012 European Day of Languages . The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were the Czech Republic (98.77 percent), Slovakia (24.86 percent), Portugal (1.93 percent), Poland (0.98 percent) and Germany (0.47 percent). Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it

1088-575: Is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊], a sound somewhere between Czech r and š . The consonants /r/, /l/, and /m/ can be syllabic , acting as syllable nuclei in place of a vowel. Strč prst skrz krk ("Stick [your] finger through [your] throat") is a well-known Czech tongue twister using syllabic consonants but no vowels. Each word has primary stress on its first syllable , except for enclitics (minor, monosyllabic, unstressed syllables). In all words of more than two syllables, every odd-numbered syllable receives secondary stress. Stress

1152-499: Is unrelated to vowel length; both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed. Vowels are never reduced in tone (e.g. to schwa sounds) when unstressed. When a noun is preceded by a monosyllabic preposition, the stress usually moves to the preposition, e.g. do Prahy "to Prague". Czech grammar, like that of other Slavic languages, is fusional ; its nouns, verbs, and adjectives are inflected by phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and

1216-522: The Czech lands with Slovakia . Furthermore, in the north-western part of Cieszyn Silesia, the railroad junction of Bohumín served as a crossroad for international transport and communications. The leaders of Czechoslovakia had insisted forcibly on the indivisibility of the former Austrian Crownlands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and their unwillingness to compromise on Cieszyn Silesia has been suggested by Mary Heimann to have been due to their desire to keep

1280-681: The Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries as it was used as a model for the standard language. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt (of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which

1344-622: The Leskovec-Dresden Bible , also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities. Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation . Jan Hus contributed significantly to the standardization of Czech orthography , advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after

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1408-742: The high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival . The most widely spoken non-standard variety , known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague , but is now spoken as an interdialect throughout most of Bohemia . The Moravian dialects spoken in Moravia and Czech Silesia are considerably more varied than

1472-406: The voiced velar fricative consonant (/ɣ/) and consistent stress on the first syllable. The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete Bible translation ,

1536-528: The 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of the Frankish Empire . The West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of the Czech-Slovak group within West Slavic began around that time, marked among other things by its use of

1600-608: The Polish national movement in the region was active since the Spring of Nations in 1848, whereas the influx of Galician Poles began in 1870s. On 5 November, 1918, the Polish National Council and the Czechoslovak Committee concluded an agreement on the demarcation line for administrative and military purposes, and divided their respective spheres of influences at the municipal level, roughly along

1664-576: The Polish units. The Czechoslovak army prepared for an attack on Skoczów assuming that it would lead to the collapse of the Polish defenses. On 31 January 1919, because of the pressure from the Triple Entente representatives, the attack on Skoczów was cancelled, and the Czechoslovak army ceased fighting. The Czechoslovak army withdrew to the new Green Line, established by the International Commission Agreement on

1728-727: The Sudetenland region in Czechoslovakia. To allow Cieszyn Silesia to join Poland because it had a Polish majority would create a precedent for the German-speaking Sudetenland to join Germany, and it was largely for this reason the Czechoslovak government insisted that all of the former Duchy of Teschen was part of Czechoslovakia. The Czech argument was that the Poles were "not local" but an "incoming" population, and that

1792-611: The abolished legal districts. Political districts were re-established in 1868. Freistadt became then the seat of the newly established Freistadt political district. It consisted of two legal districts: Freistadt and Oderberg (Czech: Bohumín, Polish: Bogumin; before 1855 belonging to Friedek political district ). In 1880 Freistadt political district was administratively divided into 40 municipalities (23 in Freistadt legal district and 17 in Oderberg). Before 1890 Muglinau (Muglinov)

1856-593: The area of the district of Cieszyn, the railway station of Cieszyn, Karviná and coal mines, Třinec with ironworks, and the entire Bohumín - Jablunkov railway line. Some 140,000 Poles were left on the Czech side. On 26 January, Czechoslovak forces killed 20 Polish POWs in the village Stonava , which has been documented on photos. According to some sources, they were bayonetted to death. A monument has been erected in their memory in Stonava. According to Polish claims an unspecified number of Polish POWs were also killed in

1920-650: The basis of the Czechoslovak–Polish Treaty, concluded on 3 February 1919 in Paris. The disputed territory was placed under international control. The final division of Cieszyn Silesia came in July 1920 as a result of the Spa Conference . In conclusion, the railway line connecting the Czech lands with Slovakia and the territory to the south of it were assigned to Czechoslovakia, while the territory north of

1984-577: The command of Franciszek Latinik were weaker than the Czechoslovak forces. At the end of World War I , Poland was fighting in border disputes with all its neighbors, and during the war with Czechoslovakia the main force was committed to the fighting in Eastern Galicia with the Ukrainians . The Polish forces were composed of six infantry battalions, two cavalry squadrons and an artillery battery. Other forces included approximately 550 members of

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2048-434: The conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use. Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread informal interdialectal variety), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of

2112-427: The dialects of Bohemia. Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising ten monophthongs , three diphthongs and 25 consonants (divided into "hard", "neutral" and "soft" categories). Words may contain complicated consonant clusters or lack vowels altogether. Czech has a raised alveolar trill , which is known to occur as a phoneme in only a few other languages, represented by the grapheme ř . Czech

2176-405: The easily separable affixes characteristic of agglutinative languages are limited. Czech inflects for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect, mood , person and subject number and gender in verbs. Parts of speech include adjectives, adverbs , numbers, interrogative words , prepositions , conjunctions and interjections . Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking

2240-566: The end of January. The bulk of the Polish army was engaged in the Polish–Ukrainian War at the time, and the Polish forces faced a numerically superior and better equipped Czech Army in Cieszyn Silesia. The Entente had pushed for an armistice. The result of the war was the new demarcation line, which expanded the territory controlled by Czechoslovakia. It led to a new division of the region of Cieszyn Silesia in July 1920, and left

2304-484: The ethnolinguistic identification lines. The Frýdek district and a small part of the Fryštát district was left on the Czech side, the remainder was accorded to the Poles. The Czechoslovak side was led by Josef Šnejdárek . Czechoslovak military forces had been formed from the three legionnaire battalions of the 21st Rifle Regiment from France , the 54th Infantry Battalion of Olomouc , the 93rd Infantry Battalion of Fryštát,

2368-593: The exception of the Frýdek , which had a Czech majority since 19th century settlement, and which had not at the time been claimed or controlled by the locals or the Polish side or a Polish political movement) of Cieszyn Silesia to prevent elections to the Polish Legislative Sejm in the disputed territory and to prevent the local population's contributions to the Polish army. The Czechoslovak army made rapid advancements, capturing most of Cieszyn Silesia by

2432-644: The feudal fragmentation of the earlier Duchy of Silesia . The Duchy had been suzerain to the Kingdom of Bohemia , part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown beginning in 1335. Latin, German, Czech, Moravian and finally Polish served as an official language of the region, however throughout the ages many historical sources indicate the local population remained mostly or overwhelmingly Polish-speaking, with everyday speech being Cieszyn Silesian dialect , regardless of

2496-477: The final ý or í of the base form and replacing it with e , ě , y , or o . Negative statements are formed by adding the affix ne- to the main verb of a clause, with one exception: je (he, she or it is) becomes není . Because Czech uses grammatical case to convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying on word order , as English does), its word order is flexible. As a pro-drop language , in Czech an intransitive sentence can consist of only

2560-496: The gendarmerie and around 4,000 (Polish claim) to 6,500 (Czech claim) local Polish volunteers. Polish forces were reinforced during the war. On 23 January 1919 at 11:00 in Cieszyn Silesia Polish commander Franciszek Latinik and Czechoslovak officer Josef Šnejdárek met with a group of officers, consisting of British, French, Italian and U.S. representatives (at the request of the Czechoslovak party). The Polish side

2624-401: The indigenous or 'autochthonous' population had been Czech, claiming local Poles were merely immigrants attracted to employment in coal mines throughout the 18th century. Those claims were not corroborated by Austrian population censuses throughout the 19th century. The influx of Poles from Galicia was directed mainly to Ostrava and surroundings, which lie outside of Cieszyn Silesia. Moreover,

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2688-494: The language. Czech is spoken by about 10 million residents of the Czech Republic . A Eurobarometer survey conducted from January to March 2012 found that the first language of 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest proportion of a population in the European Union (behind Greece and Hungary ). As the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of the European Union since 2004), Czech

2752-844: The last two are found only in loanwords such as auto "car" and euro "euro". In Czech orthography, the vowels are spelled as follows: The letter ⟨ ě ⟩ indicates that the previous consonant is palatalized (e.g. něco /ɲɛt͡so/ ). After a labial it represents /jɛ/ (e.g. běs /bjɛs/ ); but ⟨mě⟩ is pronounced /mɲɛ/, cf. měkký ( /mɲɛkiː/ ). The consonant phonemes of Czech and their equivalent letters in Czech orthography are as follows: Czech consonants are categorized as "hard", "neutral", or "soft": Hard consonants may not be followed by i or í in writing, or soft ones by y or ý (except in loanwords such as kilogram ). Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak". This distinction

2816-474: The late December 1849 Austrian Silesia was re-established and was initially subdivided into seven political districts, additionally divided into legal districts (German: Gerichtsbezirk). Freistadt became a seat of legal district in Teschen political district . In the era of Bach's neo-absolutism political districts were abolished and replaced by district offices (German: Bezirksamt) encompassing territories of

2880-451: The letter ř (capital Ř ) is very rare among languages and often claimed to be unique to Czech, though it also occurs in some dialects of Kashubian , and formerly occurred in Polish. It represents the raised alveolar non-sonorant trill ( IPA : [r̝] ), a sound somewhere between Czech r and ž (example: "řeka" (river) ), and is present in Dvořák . In unvoiced environments, /r̝/

2944-522: The local population or the status the local dialect as a dialect of the Polish language (which they used in their newspapers), but rather gradually becoming superior to the Polish culture in the Kingdom of Poland, thanks to becoming part of the German cultural sphere. The chief importance of Cieszyn Silesia was the rich coal basin around Karviná and the valuable Košice-Bohumín Railway line which linked

3008-484: The most popular party in the region. The region's many coal mines were operated by mostly Polish-identified and Polish-speaking workers, who expected the areas, with the exception of the Frýdek region, to be part of an independent Polish state in the future. The last Austrian census of 1910 (determining nationality according to the main communication language ( German : Umgangssprache ) of the respondents), showed that it

3072-467: The noun they modify. The following is a glossed example: Chc-i want- 1SG navštív-it visit- INF universit-u, university- SG . ACC , na on kter-ou which- SG . F . ACC chod-í attend- 3SG Freistadt District (Austrian Silesia) Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire led to various social, legal and also administrative reforms. In

3136-551: The official language governing, even after the settlement of Czechs, in large part professionals, white-collars workers during the 19th century industrialization of the region. The region had hosted no local Czech independence organizations, but had been the site of a Polish association since the early 19th century, and had been the site of a branch of the Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Cieszyn Silesia , mentioned in its full name, which had been

3200-409: The railway line was assigned to Poland. Vast majority of the coal mines, as well as Třinec Iron and Steel Works were on the territory assigned to Czechoslovakia. In precise terms, Poland was given one-third of the population (142,000 out of 435,000), less than half of the territory (1002 km out of 2222), and the town of Cieszyn. Czechoslovakia received the districts of Fryštát and Frýdek, most of

3264-582: The return of the language to high culture . This period is known as the Czech National Revival (or Renaissance). During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian Josef Dobrovský released a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitled Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache ('Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language'). Dobrovský had intended his book to be descriptive , and did not think Czech had

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3328-441: The spoken language. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century. In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on Western Slovak dialects. The publication of

3392-465: The states of Texas , Nebraska and Wisconsin . In the 2000 United States Census , Czech was reported as the most common language spoken at home (besides English ) in Valley , Butler and Saunders Counties , Nebraska and Republic County, Kansas . With the exception of Spanish (the non-English language most commonly spoken at home nationwide), Czech was the most common home language in more than

3456-568: The two new countries. By the time the armistice was declared, most of the border was worked out except for three small politically sensitive areas in Upper Silesia and Upper Hungary , which were claimed by both countries. Cieszyn Silesia or the Duchy of Teschen ( Polish : Cieszyn and Czech : Těšín ) was a small area in south-eastern Silesia, one of the Duchies of Silesia after

3520-424: The upper classes. Modern standard Czech originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period contain no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty. At some point before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned

3584-705: The village of Bystřice and a number of civilians killed in Karviná . Several thousand people were forced to flee to Poland, who returned in 1938 with the Polish annexation of Trans-Olza and in turn started taking revenge on the local Czech populace. There is a monument in Orlová , commemorating the Czech victims of the war. Czech language Czech ( / tʃ ɛ k / CHEK ; endonym : čeština [ˈtʃɛʃcɪna] ), historically also known as Bohemian ( / b oʊ ˈ h iː m i ə n , b ə -/ boh- HEE -mee-ən, bə- ; Latin : lingua Bohemica ),

3648-402: The war the Czechoslovak army was reinforced by the newly formed 2nd Brigade with a strength of six battalions, with the support of two artillery batteries, and one cavalry squadron. The Czechoslovak army was further strengthened by the 1st Battalion of the 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Btn. of the 3rd Infantry Reg., 2nd Btn of the 93rd Infantry Reg. and 5 volunteer battalions. Polish forces under

3712-631: Was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years' War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among

3776-584: Was given an ultimatum, that they evacuate the area to the Biała River in less than two hours. After the expiry of this period, the Czechoslovak army started its operations at 13:00 following its operational guidelines to seize Bohumín /Bogumin and Karviná /Karwina. From the east, at the same time, an attack was launched by the Italian legionnaire unit. The Czechoslovak army moved forward, and took Bohumín (at 16:00), Orlová/Orłowa and Karviná/Karwina. Cieszyn Silesia

3840-529: Was killed by Peter" the order of subject and object is inverted: Petr zabil Pavla ("Peter killed Paul") becomes "Paul, Peter killed" ( Pavla zabil Petr ). Pavla is in the accusative case , the grammatical object of the verb. A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upward intonation indicates that the sentence is a question: In parts of Bohemia (including Prague ), questions such as Jí pes bagetu? without an interrogative word (such as co , "what" or kdo , "who") are intoned in

3904-471: Was predominantly Polish-speaking in three districts ( Cieszyn (Teschen) , Bielsko (Bielitz) , and Fryštát (Freistadt) ) and mainly Czech-speaking in the fourth district of Frýdek (Friedek). Part of the Lechitic-speaking population (the Ślązakowcy – named after the newspaper Ślązak , Schlonsaken ) claimed a distinct, Silesian identity, however never fully denying the old Polish roots of

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3968-461: Was separated from Herzmanitz (Heřmanice) and Dittmannsdorf (Dětmarovice) was moved from Oderberg legal district to Freistadt legal district. On 1 January 1904 7 municipalities were excluded from Oderberg legal district to form a new Polnish Ostrau (Polská/Slezská Ostrava) legal district in Friedek political district . Before 1910 also Wirbitz (Vrbice) was separated from Pudlau (Pudlov), which

4032-549: Was taken over by Czechoslovak forces on 27 January 1919. Polish troops retreated to the Vistula river. On 30 January 1919 Josef Šnejdárek received the order to cross the Vistula and secure the railway line between Bohumín and Jablunkov /Jabłonków. They crossed the river and the Polish troops retreated to Skoczów , where the front line was stalled. Further Czechoslovak reinforcements arrived, which gave Šnejdárek an advantage over

4096-401: Was then merged with Oderberg. After this changes Freistadt political district consisted of 34 municipalities (24 in Freistadt legal district and 10 in Oderberg). According to the censuses conducted in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 this 34 municipalities (317 km²) had a combined population of: Such a large growth in population was owing to an industrial development within the district luring

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