Languages
Native
Czech
95%
Secondary languages
English
27%
German
15%
Slovak
12%
Language Samples
Ahoj, jak se máš?
Hello, how are you?
Mám se dobře, díky.
I am very well, thanks.
Jedna, dva, tři, čtyři, pět, šest, sedm, osm, devět, deset.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Czech is a West Slavic language spoken by about 10 million people. It descends from Old Czech, which developed in Bohemia from the 10th century onward. The scholar and church reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415) standardised Czech spelling by introducing diacritical marks such as the háček (ˇ), making the alphabet far more phonetically consistent than most European languages. The language declined under Habsburg rule but was revived vigorously in the 18th and 19th century Czech National Revival (Národní obrození). Czech and Slovak were sister official languages of Czechoslovakia from 1918 until the peaceful 'Velvet Divorce' of 1993, and the two languages remain mutually intelligible today.
Similar Languages
Slovak
91%
Polish
74%
Russian
70%
Slovenian
68%
Media
Prague Castle (Hradčany) viewed from Malá Strana — the largest ancient castle complex in the world.
Photo: Lumidek at English Wikipedia · CC BY 3.0
Did You Know
01
The word 'robot' was coined by Czech playwright Karel Čapek in his 1920 play R.U.R., derived from the Czech word 'robota' meaning drudgery or forced labour.
02
Czech is the only language in the world to use the letter 'ř', a sound described as a simultaneous 'r' and 'ž' that most non-native speakers find extremely difficult to pronounce.
03
Czech has no articles (no equivalents of 'the' or 'a'), relying instead on word order and case endings to convey grammatical relationships.