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TheCzech language developed at the close of the 1st millennium from commonWest Slavic. Until the early 20th century, it was known asBohemian.
Among the innovations in commonWest Slavic is thepalatalization ofvelarch >š (vьšь 'all'), whiles (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 thephonological contrast of palatalized (softened) and unpalatalizedconsonants, and resulted in alterations of epenthetice and∅ (null-phoneme). The contrast of the vowel quantity (length) was also strengthened. The depalatalization of consonants precedinge andä 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 andä > a took place at the end of the 12th century.
The vowels were front (ä, e, i, ě) and back (a, o, u), and the front ones had their back variants (allophones), and vice versa.[clarification needed] 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, Upper Sorbian (but not Polish or Lower Sorbian) and minority of Slovene dialects. This innovation appears to have travelled from east to west, and is sometimes attributed to contact withScytho-Sarmatian.[1] It is approximately dated to the 12th century in Slovak, the 12th to 13th century in Czech and the 14th century in Upper Sorbian.[2]
In the nominaldeclension, the traditional division according to the word-stem ending was progressively replaced by thegender principle (masculine, feminine and neuter) There were also threegrammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural.
The dual is also applied in verb conjugations. The past is expressed byaorist,imperfect,perfect andpluperfect. Thefuture tense is not fixed yet; the present tense is often used instead. The contrast of perfective and imperfectiveaspects is not fully developed yet, there are also biaspectual and no-aspectual verbs. The Proto-Slavicsupine was used after verbs of motion, but it was replaced by theinfinitive. However, the contemporary infinitiveending-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 theLitoměřice chapter at the beginning of the 13th century:
The earliest texts were written inprimitive orthography, which used the letters of theLatin alphabet without any diacritics, resulting in ambiguities, such as in the letterc representing thek /k/,c /ts/ andč /tʃ/ phonemes.Later during the 13th century, thedigraph orthography begins to appear, although not systematically. Combinations of letters (digraphs) are used for recording Czech sounds, e.g.rs forř.
Large changes take place in Czech phonology in 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 syllabicl changed tolu (Chlmec > Chlumec, dĺgý > dlúhý 'long'), as opposite to softl’. The change ofg to[ɣ], and later to[ɦ], had been in progress since the 12th century.Laterassibilation of palatalized alveolars (t’ > c’, d’ > dz’ andr’ > rs’) occurred. However,c’ anddz’ disappeared later, but the change ofr’ > rs’ > ř became permanent.
The relatively modern vowel length system was developed during the Old Czech period. It was mainly characterised by shortening of Proto-Slavic long vowels and lengthening of short neoacute vowels (*ò, è), e. g. PSl.*nògъ > Czechnóh 'legs (gen. pl.)'. Acute vowels retained their length in mono- and disyllabic nouns, e. g. PSl.*vòrna > Czechvrána 'crow',*sìla >síla 'strength',*vě̀ra > Old Czechviera >víra 'faith', but ins. sg.*vòrnojǫ >vranú >vranou,*sìlojǫ >silú >silou,*vě̀riti >věriti 'to believe'. Length was also retained in trisyllabic nouns with an acute vowel after a weak yer, e. g.*lъžìca >žlíce 'spoon',*pьsàti >psát 'to write',*sъpàti >spát 'to sleep'. During the later development stages of Czech many words experienced secondary generalization of vowel quantity, e. g. length in oblique cases ofbříza 'birch'; shortness in nom. sg. ofryba 'fish' (Old Czechrýba). This process also led to the emergence of doublets such asmísto 'place' andměsto 'city',dívka 'girl' andděvka 'whore'.[4]
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. Theolder digraph orthography:ch = ch; chz = č; cz = c; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = ž orš; w = v; v = u; zz = s; z = z; ie, ye = ě; the graphemesi andy 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, thelater digraph orthography was applied:ch = ch; cz = c orč; g = j; rs, rz = ř; s = s orš; ss = s orš; w = v; v = u; z = z orž, syllable-finaly =j;ie, ye = ě. The graphemesi andy remain interchangeable. Thepunctuation mark 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-calledmain historical depalatalization, initiated in the 13th century, was finished. Palatalized (softened) consonants either merged with their hard counterparts or becamepalatal (ď, ť, ň). The depalatalization did not temporarily concern hard and softl, which merged to one middlel later at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. In this context, the phonemeě [ʲe] disappeared. The shortě either changed toe or was dissociated toj + e (pěna [pjena] 'foam') before labial consonants in the pronunciation. The longě wasdiphthongized toie (chtieti 'to want',čieše 'goblet',piesek 'sand'). At the same time, the longó was diphthongized touo (sól > suol 'salt').In pronunciation,regressive assimilation of voice was enforced (with the exception ofh, ř andv). The voicedness became the main contrastive feature of consonants after the disappearance of palatalization. The original pronunciation ofv was probablybilabial (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 the unvoicedlabiodentalf. Protheticv- has been added to all words beginning witho- (voko instead ofoko 'eye') in the Bohemian dialects since this period.
In morphology, the future tense of imperfective verbs was fixed. The typebudu volati 'I will call' became preferred to other types (chc’u volati 'I want to call',jmám volati 'I have to call', andbudu volal 'I will have called'). The contrastive feature of imperfectiveness was also stabilized. The perfectivization function ofprefixes and the imperfectivization function ofsuffixes are applied. As a consequence of this, aorist and imperfect start disappearing little by little and are replaced by the perfect (now calledpreterite, since it became the only past tense in Czech). The periphrasticpassive voice is formed.
The period of the 15th century from the beginning ofJan Hus's preaching activity to the beginning of Czechhumanism. The number of literary language users enlarges. Czech fully penetrates the administration.
Around 1406, a reform of the orthography was suggested inDe orthographia bohemica, a work attributed to Jan Hus – the so-calleddiacritic orthography. For recording of soft consonants, digraphs are replaced by a dot above letters. The acute is used to denote the vowel length. The digraphch and the graphemew are preserved. The interchangeability of the graphemesi andy 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 ofy andi merged. This change resulted in the diphthongization ofý > ej inCommon Czech (the widespread Bohemian interdialect). There are also some other changes in this period: the diphthongization ofú > ou (writtenau, the pronunciation was probably different from today), the monophthongization ofie > í (miera > míra 'measure') anduo > ú. The diphthonguo was sometimes recorded aso in the form of a ring above the letteru, which resulted in the graphemeů (kuoň > kůň). The ring has been regarded as a diacritic mark denoting the length since 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.
Middle Czech is spoken from about 1500 AD to c.1775 AD and is often divided into humanistic and baroque period.
The period of the mature literary language from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century. The orthography in written texts is not still unified, digraphs are used predominantly in various forms. After the invention of book-printing, the so-calledBrethren orthography stabilized in printed documents. TheBible of Kralice (1579–1593), the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages by theUnity of the Brethren, became the pattern of the literary Czech language. The orthography was predominantly diacritic; the dot in soft consonants was replaced by thecaron which was used inč, ď, ň, ř, ť, ž. The letterš was mostly written in the final positions in words only, the digraphʃʃ was written in the middle. The graphemeě became used in the contemporary way. Vowel length was denoted by the acute accent, except forů developed from originaluo. The longí was doubledii for technical reasons; later it was denoted asij, and finally asj. Pronounced [j] was recorded asg ory, pronounced [g] was sometimes recorded by the graphemeǧ. The doublew was preserved, the simplev denoted the word-initialu. The diphthongou was denoted asau. The hardy was always written afterc, s, z (cyzý 'strange'). The complicated syntax, influenced by Latin texts, required some improvement of the punctuation. However, thecomma was used according to pauses in pronunciation, not the syntax. Thefull stop, thecolon, thequestion mark and theexclamation mark are used. The first grammars are published for typographers' purposes.
In the pronunciation, the change ofý > ej was established, but it occurred in lesser prestige style text only. The diphthongization ofú > ou was also stabilized (butau still remained in graphics). In initial positions, it was used in lesser prestige or specialized styles only. Writtenmě [mje] starts to be pronounced as [mɲe]. The change of tautosyllabicaj > ej (daj > dej 'give (2. sg. imperative)',vajce > vejce 'egg') took place, but it was not applied in heterosyllabicaj (dají 'they will give',vajec 'egg (gen. pl.)').
In morphology, the differentiation of animate and inanimate masculines was completed (vidím psa rather than the earliervidím 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 theBattle of White Mountain. The function of the literary language was limited; it left the scientific field first, the discerning literature later, and the administration finally. Under the rule ofHoly 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.[5] However, puppeteers continued to use Czech for publicmarionette shows, and popular legend has it that this preserved the Czech language from extinction at home.[6]
Meanwhile, prestigious literary styles were cultivated by Czech expatriates abroad. The zenith and, simultaneously, the end of the florescence of prestigious literary styles are represented by the works ofJan 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 the same orthography as in the previous period. Only the two kinds ofl are not differentiated any more. Thesemicolon occurs as a punctuation mark for better and clear organization of excessive and complicatedcomplex 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 isDissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica praecipue Bohemica ("The defence of the Slavic language, of Czech in particular"), written in Latin byBohuslav Balbín.
The period from the 1780s to the 1840s. The abolition of serfdom in 1781 (byJoseph II) caused migration of country inhabitants to towns. It enabled the implementation of the ideas of the Czech national awakeners for the renewal of the Czech language. However, the people's language and literary genres of the previous period were strange to theenlightened 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 the language ofgermanisms (both real and fictitious) had been occurring by that time. The publication ofJosef Jungmann’s five-partCzech-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 the etymology,si, zi orsy, zy came to be written,cy was replaced byci. Antiqua was introduced instead of fractura in printing, and it led to the removal of the digraphʃʃ and its replacement by the letterš. The longí replacedj, andj replacedg (gegj > její 'hers'). In the 1840s, the doublew was replaced byv andou replaced the traditionalau. Thus, the orthography became close to its contemporary appearance. According to 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 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 writingz instead ofs and marking 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.
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