Language Centre Resources

An Indo-European language and a member of the West Slavonic group, spoken by some 12 million people chiefly in the Czech Republic, where it is the official language, as well as in the neighbouring parts of Poland, Austria, Germany and Slovakia. There are sizeable émigré communities speaking Czech as a second language in the USA, Canada, Israel, and elsewhere. The closest linguistic affiliation is with Slovak.

The earliest written documents date from the 13th century. Jan Hus (1373-1415) had a prominent role in the formation of a standardized literary language. Czech literature is rich and extensive with a long-standing historical foundation.

Modern Czech is spoken in four major dialectal groups, which are all mutually intelligible: Bohemian, Central Moravian, Eastern Moravian and Silesian. The Prague dialect is the basis for the Modern Standard Czech. It is a richly inflected language, spelt in the Roman alphabet with diacritics.