ISO 8859-2

CZECH PRONUNCIATION IN BRIEF

CZECH LANGUAGE AND ITS POSITION AMONG OTHER SLAVONIC LANGUAGES:

West Slavic (8)

 

Czechoslovak (3)

CZECH (Czechia)

KNAANIC (Czechia)

SLOVAK (Slovakia)

Lechitic (3)

KASHUBIAN (Poland)

POLABIAN (Germany)

POLISH (Poland)

Sorbian (2)

LOWER SORBIAN (Germany)

UPPER SORBIAN (Germany)

South Slavic (6)

 

Eastern (3)

BULGARIAN (Bulgaria)

MACEDONIAN (Macedonia)

OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC (Russia)

Western (3)

SLOVENIAN (Slovenia)

SERBIAN (Yugoslavia)

CROATIAN (Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina)

East Slavic (4)

 

BELORUSSIAN (Belarus)

RUSSIAN (Russia)

RUSYN (Ukraine)

UKRAINIAN (Ukraine)

 

Czech is somewhat the most conservative in its inflections among other languages of the West Slavic group. Czech differs from some other Slavic languages also in the characteristic sentence intonation, the first-syllable word accent, the absence of elision, the use of the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic, the exceptionally free word order, and the prominence given to vocalic r and l. The quality of a ringing, staccato speech distinguishes it from other Western Slavic languages. Also we can notify the unique sibilant sound [r^] as the distinguishing feature of Czech. Before the 11th century Czechs wrote in Old Church Slavonic, the first Slavic literary language, which had been developed by Saints Cyril and Method for missionary work in the Great Moravian Empire (<830-906 AD). In the 11th century two important linguistic events took place: In the West, including Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, Latin replaced Old Church Slavonic for church and literary use, and the regional Slavic dialects began to develop into separate languages. After centuries in which Czech was a despised and suppressed peasant tongue, the 14th-century Bohemian religious reformer John Huss (Jan Hus) standardized Czech spelling. The work of Huss was consolidated and advanced during the 15th and 16th centuries by the Unity of Brethren, a Protestant sect later known as the Moravian Brethren. The writings of this sect stabilized the Czech language and determined its future as a literary language. Except for the growth of vocabulary, the Czech and Slovak languages have not changed significantly since the 16th century.

Alphabet

A B C Č D E F G H Ch I J K L M N O P Q R Ř S Š T U V W X Y Z Ž

a b c č d e f g h ch i j k l m n o p q r ř s š t u v w x y z ž

Other Graphemes

Á Ď Ě É Í Ň Ó Ť Ú Ů Ý á ď ě é í ň ó ť ú ů ý

CZECH PRONUNCIATION:

Czech is a Slavic language with a fairly straightforward relation of spelling to pronunciation, which means that

• if you know a spelling, you can also be confident of the pronunciation, and inversely
• if you hear a pronunciation, you can guess at the spelling from a very limited set of options.

This is not to imply that you always hear what you read, and write what you hear. Rules there are, simple as they might seem. You should not believe tourist guide instructions claiming that Czech spelling is phonetic. Though it is far from being truly phonetic, its underlying principles are simple and easily mastered.

Vowels

Generally, Czech has no more than 5 vowel qualities: A E I O U. These can be either short or long. Additionally, there are three diphthongs. All Czech vowels maintain a fairly steady vocalic quality throughout the entire articulation, i.e. without any trace of gliding or diphthongization (obviously, unless explicit diphthongs).

short vowels

The I & Y

is moderately close, pronounced slightly higher than in English (the difference of Cz 'styl' or 'klik' from Eng 'still' or 'click' is perceptible) - but far from being so high as in French for example. The pronunciation of written 'I' and 'Y' is the same.

 

The A

is open and central - not too front, not too back. It definitely does not resemble the back English "a", as in 'father', 'palm-tree'. Rather, it is similar to the "a" element in 'down', 'out'. Or, you can liken it to the Southern British Standard central open 'U' in writing, as in 'tuck', 'puck' (Cz words 'tak', 'pak' seem to be quite near).

 

The E

falls somewhere in the mid between A and I. You can do with the English "e" of 'lest', 'step', 'den' (Cz 'lest', 'step', and 'den', though widely different in meaning, sound almost the same).

As there is no "ae" phoneme in Czech (no "hats", "cats" and "mats"), you can therefore hear fairly open versions of E sound sometimes, esp. in Prague. However, you are advised not to imitate that careless pronunciation of the open E.

E sometimes carries a hachek, a diacritic sign that alters, or adds to, the preceding sound - the quality of the short "e", however, remains the same.

The O

comes, again, in between the U and A. It somewhat resembles the British short "o" in 'hot', 'cross'. The standard British "o" seems to be articulated slightly higher (which may not be true of other varieties). Strangely, the English "o" is traditionally described by English phoneticians as being 'extremely open', while the Cz "o" has been recognized as 'middle'. The point is that the Eng 'extreme open' seems comparatively closer than Cz 'middle'.

 

The U

is high, back - and rounded. Never forget to purse your lips. It is uttered more back in mouth than the English short "u" (Eng 'book', 'look' differ perceptibly from Cz 'buk', 'luk').

long vowels

The 5 vowels can all be long (as well as short) in Czech:  A E I O U. Vocalic length is the sole distinction in many words; it is indispensable to make it a clear difference both in speech and writing. Czech spelling marks the long vowel with an ´ acute-shaped macron (Cz "čárka"), thus: 'á', 'é', 'í', 'ó', 'ú'. The U vowel gets sometimes marked with a ° degree-like circle (Cz "kroužek"): 'ů' - whichever symbol there is, it makes no difference; the "u" is long anyway. To bridge over possible encoding differences, we introduce a simple shorthand: u/c for circled 'ů' and u/l for macroned 'u' or other vowels.

The long I & Y

in Czech is slightly more front and less spread than its English counterpart, though not substantially. Again, whether the letter is spelled 'I' or 'Y' does not matter for this purpose.

While Czech long I seems slightly closer (higher) than the short one, all the other long vowels can be regarded as just prolonged versions of their short correlatives: essentially the same in quality and only held twice as long as the short ones.

The long A

unlike the Eng "a" as in 'father', 'palm-tree', is open (low) central, not back. Cz 'pást' (a/l) and Eng 'past', Cz 'sám' (a/l) and Eng 'psalm' do not sound the same. The AmEng counterpart of BrEng short "o" comes quite close the open central quality with some speakers. Cf Cz 'lák' (a/l) to AmEng 'lock', Cz 'plát' (a/l) to AmEng 'plot'.

 

The long E

has no Eng counterpart. It is just a prolonged version of the short one. So, it comes middle between I and A.

The long O

Again, it falls just between A and U. It is mid, back, and rounded. Still, it is not so back as the Eng long "o" as in 'all', 'caught', 'paw'; and it is not so rounded either. The long O as a recent development in the language was absent in the old vocabulary. Note that the original long "o" changed into long "u".

The long U

(either circled or quote-unquote accented) is high, back - more back than in Eng, and rounded. Lazy articulation makes it sometimes less closed and less rounded; you shouldn't. Hence the difference between Cz 'dům' (u/c) and Eng 'doom', Cz 'stůl' (u/c) and Eng 'stool' is quite conspicuous.

The long vowels take up roughly twice as much time as the short ones. Pairs e.g. 'rada' \ 'ráda' (a/l), 'vila' \ 'víla' (i/l) are clearly different.) The distinction in duration between short and long vowels is then greater than in English where the analogous ratio is roughly 2:3.

diphthongs

The same is true concerning Czech diphthongs. There are three:  AU   EU   OU. They are double the length of any short vowel (at the same speech rate) since they are, in fact, compounds A+u, E+u, O+u. For speakers of English especially it must be stressed that no mere gliding is enough. The "u" has to keep its full sound. Some languages, and English is one, have diphthongs with the weaker element of the two being very slight. Czech, in turn, keeps the weaker element of a diphthong quite explicit. The two vocalic elements share almost half each their common diphthong space.

The single indigenous diphthong in Cz is

OU

It is widely dissimilar to the British "ou" - as it is clear, rounded O + U compound. (Eng 'mow', 'loach', 'dote' sound quite different from Cz 'mou', 'louč' (c/h) and 'dout'.) Standard American "ou" seems somewhat closer to its Czech counterpart.

The other two occur in borrowed wordstock:

AU

is quite frequent. As might be expected, and unlike English, its U element is always clearly sounded.

 

EU

in turn is so infrequent that some native speakers in some words pronounce it as 2 syllables. Certain words, e. g. 'euro', 'eufonie' tend always to have a diphthong, while others, esp. words starting with negative prefix 'ne-' are prone to di-syllabize with some speakers: 'ne|utrální' (a/l, i/l), but also 'fe|udál' (a/l), etc.)

In Czech, you can also find, quite frequently, combinations of vowel + J ('j' pronounced as Eng 'y'):

AJ, EJ, IJ & YJ, OJ, UJ

In the system of Czech phonology, they are not counted in diphthongs, though in sound, you may actually hear them as diphthongs. Anyway, what has been said concerning AU, EU, OU, applies here also: while in Eng the J element may appear quite weak, in Cz it usually is much stronger and sounded in full. The difference can be audibly perceived in pairs such as Eng 'sigh' \ Cz 'saj', Eng 'day' \ Cz 'dej', Eng 'boy' \ Cz 'boj'. Furthemore, Czech clearly preserves the distinction of length: 'baj' - 'báj' (a/l) \ unlike 'buy'; 'boj' - 'bój' (o/l) \ unlike 'boy'.

vocalic length

Characteristically, the vocalic length in Czech is largely independent of stress, and also of whatever sound there follows. A vowel can be long in any position, stressed or unstressed. It can be long regardless of whether anything voiced or voiceless follows - unlike English. In English, the vowel gets shortened (clipped) in front of 'voiceless' (t, k, p, ...), and lengthened elsewhere, e.g.: 'beat' < 'bead', 'bit' < 'bid', 'bet' < 'bed', 'bat' < 'bad', 'but' < 'bud', 'Bart' < 'bard'; with diphthongs: 'bite' < 'buy', 'boat' < 'beau'.) The vowel in Czech, on the other hand, is always pronounced (or should be) in its full length and quality.

general articulatory setting

Languages have secret ingredients mixed in to tell the stranger from the native. A secret ingredient in the set-up of genuine Czech articulation is the tip of the tongue. The point is the tip of your tongue gets lazy. It leans toward your lower front teeth any possible moment. And if somebody is lazy, almost any moment seems possible... The tongue, as often as it can, leaves its work up to be done by its 'back office'. In Czech, it is not the tongue tip that is the most active, rather it is either the blade of the tongue (the top of the front), or the dorsal portion of its body (the top of the back). It is the top of the tongue that bulges against the gums or the roof of the mouth. This is a very general trend, it applies for vowels and consonants alike.

Consonants

To start with, we can compare the stock of consonantal phonemes in Czech and in English (broken down to a few categories, however crude and underspecified).

So the two systems are well comparable. The differences can be mastered easily.

The first difference on our list is C,

a voiceless pre-alveolar affricate. You can think of compounded "t+s", even though it is not a compound; much the same as Č, spelled as 'c' with hachek, c/h. It is no compound of "t+š" (+sh), in spite of that some transcribe it that way). Both c and č (c/h) occur in places where no two sounds are allowed, only a single one. Furthemore, you can make a clear, audible distinction between e.g. 'práce' (Eng: «work») and 'prát se' (Eng: «to fight»).

 

DZ & DŽ (dz/h)

In some positions, the C and Č (c/h) sounds change (not in spelling) into their voiced counterparts, DZ and DŽ ('d'+'z' w/ hachek, dz/h): 'leckdy, léčba' (c/h). DŽ (dz/h) may be even spelled out explicitly: 'džbán' (dz/h), 'džungle' (dz/h), though very rarely.

 

Next difference is Ř

('r' w/ hachek, r/h), a fricative alveolar trill. There are two kinds of this sound - voiced and voiceless, related to its position. For the rules relevant for the distribution of voiced and voiceless, see a later section.

The instructions how to achieve the pronunciation are simple - if you know how to say a trilled r:

• Clench your jaws more firmly than with "r".
• Apply enough force and try to roll your "r".
• What you receive should be a strong "r" with a sibilant noise: "ř" (r/h).

 

The Cz R

is a voiced alveolar trill. The Eng "r" differs from Cz in that it is (mostly) an approximant (or fricative, in some contexts). In Cz, the tip of the tongue departs from the alveolar ridge and makes a rapid move, or two, or even three if it sounds long enough. Unlike with "d", it is just the very tip of the tongue, not the whole rim.

Other points of difference between the two sets of consonants are:

the palatal plosives Ť & Ď and the related nasal Ň

You can think of Ť, Ď, Ň (mostly written as 't', 'd', 'n' w/ hachek, t/h, d/h, n/h) as a kind of "t", "d", and "n" articulated on the place where you say "j" (Eng 'y'). Some of you may know 'n' or 'gn' from Spanish, French, or Italian.

 

The last extra in Cz is CH

- possibly transcribed as kh, a voiceless uvular fricative. Some English speakers may know it from Spanish ('jota'), some because of Scottish 'loch'. German speakers are also quite familiar with it (they even distinguish two such sounds of the kind). The articulation takes place where you say "k" but the tongue never touches your soft palate.

P, T as well as K,

are never aspirated. You should pronounce "p", "t", "k" as you do in, e.g. 'spike', 'steak', 'skip'.

 

Concerning V

you may be surprised to learn how weak a sound it gives in many positions, almost frictionless, more resembling a kind of slight labio-velar plosive (esp. when initial). In fact, it is only before another consonant where "v" keeps its full friction. Weak in 'vana', 'láva' (a/l), 'tvar'; while more English-like only in, e.g. 'pravda', 'stavba', 'vlajka'.

 

In pronouncing L

the so-called clear version is to be kept throughout, as in 'lip', 'lens', 'lure' - never use the dark l, as in 'pull', 'people'.

 

Do you always need a vowel to make a syllable?

A good many people can do without -- sometimes. (Speakers of English more often than they probably realize.) English has, or can have, vowelless syllables in such words as 'people', 'bottle', 'liken', 'harden' ... In Cz, L and R are frequent syllable-carriers. E. g. (L) 1 syll.: 'vlk', 'mls', 2 syll.: 'vlna', 'plno', 'bodl', 3 syll.: 'odmlka', 3+2 syll.: 'úplně zblbl' (u/l, e/h); (R) 1 syll.: 'brk', 'čtvrt' (c/h), 2 syll.: 'brzo', 'krtek', 'bratr', 'nádrž' (a/l, z/h), 'litr', 3 syll.: 'teprve', 4 syll.: 'jitrnice'; (L, R) 2 syll.: 'trkl', 'zdrhl'. Such syllables are by no means exceptional. You can make complete sentences without using a single vowel: 'Strč prst skrz krk.' (c/h) - 'Blb vlk zhltl mls.' (They are not very intelligent but they are not particularly short either: «Thrust thumb through throat», and: «Stupid wolf devoured sweets», as the foregoing examples say. FYI: the longest Czech vowelless word is 'scvrnkl' (2 syll.), «he flipped down away from».)

 

In contrast, M carries no syllables (though Cz speakers can syllabify it easily due to neighbouring German, and German personal and place names). It is M that can create syllable. It does so, however, in only two Cz words: 'sedm', 'osm' (both of 2 syll.). You would, however, almost never hear them this way as their "-m" gets commonly replaced by "-um": "sedum", "osum".

 

The only position you can meet "ng"

is before "k", or "g": 'banka', 'sklenka', 'mango'. It spells as a regular 'n' though in fact it is a different sound.

 

And finally - H

is voiced, not voiceless as in Eng, and many other languages. Rather than explaining what manoeuvre your vocal cords must do (you probably could not control it intentionally, anyway), just try to imagine how exactly you would say "aha" - and try to vibrate your "h", not just breathe out, but instead almost as if not interrupting your "a", sort of overlaying it with an "h" sound uttered simultaneously with "a". Czech "h" is sonorous in any position.

The voiced \ voiceless correlation is most prominently distinguished by voice. Not so much by tension (lax or tense), not so much by duration. Please note that in Eng, 'voiceless' sounds clip the preceding vowel off, they make it slightly shorter. It is not so in Cz. From the preceding vowel, you cannot tell "p" and "b" apart. Moreover, given that "p" does not aspirate in Czech (for aspiration see "p", "t", "k"), it is only voicing and devoicing that you can make judgments from.