CZECH (ch6k) or BOHEMIAN LAN GUAGE. The Czech language, like the Polish, Kashubian, and Sorbian, belongs to the north western group of the Slavic languages (q.v.). The number of persons speaking Czech, exclusive of the Slovaks, is about (3,000,000. Of these 3,650,000 are found in Bohemia, 1,550,000 in Moravia, 130,000 in Austrian Silesia, 300,000 in other Austro-Hungarian provinces. 30,000 in Rus sia, 100,000 in Germany, and 250,000 in America. The Czechs occupy the quadrangle bounded by the Bohemian Forest, the Erzgebirge, the Sudetie Mountains, and the Little Carpathians. They are thus surrounded on three sides by Germans, and only on the eastern side do the Czechs come in contact with Slays: in Silesia with the Poles, and in southeastern :Moravia and Hungary with the Slovaks, their nearest kindred, with whom the Czechs are usually grouped into the Czecho Slovakian division. Within the quadrangle the Czechs are interspersed with Germans, against whom they have maintained a continuous strug gle. (See CZECH LITERATURE.) Literary Czech is most nearly related to the dialect of the Prague district, but taken as a whole the Czech language presents a great variety of well-defined dialects.
The first mention of the existence of Czech dialects is found in Jan Blahoslav's Grammar (1571), published by JireCek in 1557. The Slavic alphabets used in the earliest times were super seded by the Roman characters on 'the establish ment of Roman Catholicism instead of the ear lier Greek Orthodox faith. The Latin alphabet was insufficient to reproduce all the native sounds, and diacritical letters were introduced. Thus, 6= Engl. eh, = Engl. (as in pleasure). = sit, while the acute accent is used to denote long vowels. Among the phonetic characteristics of the language may be noted: (1) Disappearance of the old Slavic sounds 5, 1, and their transition into e: Old Church Slavic situ sleep, dial, day. lion, lima (id., gen. sing.) = Czech sea, den, ler, lea. (2) Substitution of open sounds a. a and a, e for the old Slavic nasal vowels a and e : mulca, torture, nesu, I carry = Old Church Slavic make, mesa: patcro, five, dcset, older dcsjt, ten=Old Church Slavic peter°, de sea. (3) The so-called transvocalization, where
by a becomes e (e), a, .ie i) : zcme, land, for duge, soul, for*diaia, while a, ab = /5, become f, 1: dial, for *duhi (ace. sing., cp. Russian dusha), dull for didii (abl. sing., ep. Russian dushoyu), lid for *lud, people (Russian lyud). (4) The obliteration of distinction be tween y (= Engl. 7) and i (Engl. in pro nunciation: 741,•, bull, mg§, mouse, stir, cheese, are pronounced as if spelled Lilo, mig, sir: byl, I was, and Lil, I beat, are pronounced precisely alike. (5) Syllabic or vocalic r, 1, m, n: zrno, grain, srdce, heart. vine, wave, wool, slop, strong, correspond to Russian :crno, serdtse, lio:aberg Liemburk, represent German Rosenberg, Luxemburg. This peculiarity is com-. mon also to the Slovakian and Serbo-Horvatan (Serbo-Croat). (6) Long and short vowels: Short. a, e, i, o, u, y: long, d, e, I. g. (7) The primary accent is expiratory or stressed, and is always on the first syllable of the word, as in Slovakian. Serbo-Lusatian, and South Kasbubian. This accent has been proved to be an historical de velopment of the primitive Slavic free accent.
See SLAVIC LANGUAGES.
The quantitative system of versification based on the Latin has been almost entirely super seded of late by the tonic system—more proper to the spirit of the Slavic languages. Among the inflectional peculiarities of the language the following are most noteworthy: In declension of nouns—loss of dual; confusion of various stems; confusion of case-endings; change of quality and quantity of the root-vowels. In conjuga tion it comes very close to the primitive Slavic, retaining both the infinitive and the supine. All past tenses are periphrastic, and the forms of the future are either periph•astic—in verbs of in complete or imperfective action—or are repre sented by the present in verbs of completed or perfect ive act ion.
From the point of view of euphony, the Czech language stands lower than the Russian or Polish, although superior to the latter in some particulars, as in the comparative rarity of sibilants and the absence of nasal vowels.