Czech orthography is primarily
phonemic (rather than phonetic) because an individual
grapheme usually corresponds to an individual
phoneme (rather than a
sound). However, some graphemes and letter groups are remnants of historical phonemes which were used in the past but have since merged with other phonemes. Some changes in the
phonology have not been reflected in the orthography. In words of native origin "soft" and cannot follow "hard" consonants, while "hard" and cannot follow "soft" consonants; "neutral" consonants can be followed by either vowel: When or is written after in native words, these consonants are soft, as if they were written . That is, the sounds are written instead of , e.g. in
čeština . The sounds are denoted, respectively, by . In words of foreign origin, are pronounced ; that is, as if they were written , e.g. in
diktát, dictation. Historically the letter was hard, but this changed in the 19th century. However, in some words it is still followed by the letter :
tác (plate) –
tácy (plates). Because neutral consonants can be followed by either or , in some cases they distinguish
homophones, e.g.
být (to be) vs.
bít (to beat),
mýt (to wash) vs.
mít (to have). At school pupils must memorize word
roots and
prefixes where is written; is written in other cases. Writing or in
endings is dependent on the
declension patterns.
Letter Ě The letter is a vestige of
Old Czech palatalization. The originally palatalizing
phoneme /ě/ became extinct, changing to or , but it is preserved as a
grapheme which can never appear in the initial position. • are written instead of , analogously to • are usually written instead of • In words like
vjezd (entry, drive-in)
objem (volume), are written because in such cases
–je- is etymologically preceded by the prefixes
v- or
ob- • is usually written instead of , except for morphological reasons in some words (
jemný, soft ->
jemně, softly) • The first-person singular pronouns
mě (for the genitive and accusative cases) and
mně (for the dative and locative) are homophones —see
Czech declension Letter Ů There are two ways in Czech to write long : and . cannot occur in an initial position, while occurs almost exclusively in the initial position or at the beginning of a word
root in a compound. Historically, long
changed into the
diphthong (as also happened in the English
Great Vowel Shift with words such as "house"), though not in word-initial position in the
prestige form. In 1848 at the beginning of
word-roots was changed into in words like to reflect this. Thus, the letter is written at the beginning of word-roots only:
úhel (angle),
trojúhelník (triangle), except in loanwords:
skútr (scooter). Meanwhile, historical long changed into the diphthong . As was common with
scribal abbreviations, the letter in the diphthong was sometimes written as a
ring above the letter , producing , e.g.
kóň > kuoň > kůň (horse), like the origin of the German
umlaut. Later, the pronunciation changed into , but the grapheme has remained. It never occurs at the beginning of words:
dům (house),
domů (home, homeward). The letter now has the same pronunciation as the letter (long ), but
alternates with a short when a word is inflected (e.g. nom.
kůň → gen.
koně, nom.
dům → gen.
domu), thus showing the historical evolution of the language.
Agreement between the subject and the predicate The
predicate must be always in accordance with the
subject in the sentence - in
number and
person (personal
pronouns), and with past and passive
participles also in
gender. This
grammatical principle affects the orthography (see also
"Soft" I and "Hard" Y) – it is especially important for the correct choice and writing of plural endings of the
participles. Examples: The mentioned example shows both past (byl, byla ...) and passive (koupen, koupena ...) participles. The accordance in gender takes effect in the past
tense and the passive
voice, not in the present and future tenses in active voice. If the complex subject is a combination of nouns of different genders, masculine animate gender is prior to others and the masculine inanimate and feminine genders are prior to the neuter gender. Examples: :
muži a ženy byli - men and women were :
kočky a koťata byly - cats and kittens were :
my jsme byli (my = we all/men) vs.
my jsme byly (my = we women) - we were
Priority of genders: :masculine animate > masculine inanimate & feminine > neuter ==Punctuation==