Czechia Languages

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Most of the people in the Czech Republic speak the Czech language. Czech is a Slavic language related to Slovak, Polish and Russian. However, Czech was not recognized as an official language until 1877 in Bohemia and 1905 in Moravia. It was seldom used as a written language until the late 1800s. Except for modern records of the 1900s, records in the Czech Republic were written mostly in Latin and German. Other languages sometimes used in Czech records include Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.

Česká abeceda/The Czech Alphabet
A, a, Á, á B, b C, c, Č, č D, d, Ď, ď E, e, É, é, ě F, f G, g H, h Ch, ch I, i, Í, í J, j K, k L, l M, m N, n, Ň, ň O, o, Ó, ó P, p Q, q R, r, Ř, ř S, s, Š, š T, t, Ť, ť U, u, Ú, ú, ů V, v W, w X, x Y, y, Ý, ý Z, z, Ž, ž

The Czech alphabet uses several letters in addition to the 26 letters used in the English alphabet. These are á, ä, č, ď, é, í, ĺ, ľ, ň, ó, ô, ŕ, š, ť, ú, ý, ž. These are á, , , é, , í, , ó, , š, , ú, , ý, . The letter combination ch is also considered a single letter and is alphabetized after h. Letters q, w, x are used only in words of foreign origin. Czech dictionaries and indexes use the following alphabetical order:

a,á b  c    d,  e,é,  f  g  h  ch  i,í  j  k  l  m  n, o,ó p (q)  r    s  š  t,  u,ú,  v (w) ( x)  y,ý  z  

This word list follows the standard English alphabetical order. However, when working with alphabetized Czech records, use the Czech alphabetical order.

Letters q, w, and x are used only in words of foreign origin.

Czech dictionaries and indexes use the following alphabetical order:

a,á,ä b  c  č  d,ď  dz,dž  e,é  f  g  h  ch  i,í  j  k  l,ĺ,ľ  m  n,ň  o,ó,ô  p (q)  r,ŕ  s  š  t,ť u,ú  v (w) ( x)  y,ý  z ž See the following sections:

Czech Genealogical Word List

Latin Genealogical Word List

German Genealogical Word List