Czech - Persée

Czech

Světla ČMEJRKOVÁ

and

František DANEŠ (1)

1. The identity

1.1. The name

The ethnonym Čech ‘ Czech’, from which the name čeština ‘ Czech language’ was derived, originally signified only one West Slavic tribe which settled in the center of contemporary Bohemia, in the central Elbe (Labe) region, during the 6th century A. D. at the latest. The Czechs battled the other Slavic tribes, and integrated the conquered territory into their empire. The origin of the ethnonym

Čech (Češi or Čechové in plural) is not entirely clear. The most likely etymological interpretation of the word Čech is that it comes from the base * čel-,

which we can find in the words čeleď ‘ tribe, family’ or člověk ‘ man, person’ (the

l> ch change is explained as hypocoristic expressivity) and which originates from the Indo-European root * kel-/ kol-‘ clan, generation’. At that time, Czech meant a member of the family, one of us. When a unified Czech state was created in the 10th century, the name of the Czechs gradually expanded to include the country’s other inhabitants, and after the creation of the Czech nation, it included the Moravians and Silesians as well. The territorial name Čechy, however, remained reserved for the territory of the former Czech kingdom (i. e. it did not include Moravia and Silesia). In German, the name Čechy corresponds to Böhmen, from the Germanic Baiahaimon, i. e. the homeland of the Bojs, the Celtic former inhabitants of Central Europe, in Latin and also in English Bohemia. Today, the official name Česká republika or Česko ‘ Czech Republic, Czechia’ is used for the entire territory inhabited by the Czechs, i. e. including Moravia and Silesia.

1.2. The family affiliation

Czech belongs to the western subgroup of the Slavic languages. The most closely related language is Slovak, with which Czech is mutually intelligible. Closely related are the remaining West Slavic languages, Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian, and the extinct Polabian. More distantly related are the

(1) Světla Čmejrková is deputy director of the Czech Language Institute of the Czech Republic Academy of Sciences. She now heads the project “ Spoken Czech”, aimed at building up the “ Dialog Corpus”. She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books on Czech in various communication domains, such as everyday conversations, literature, media, advertising, etc. František Daneš, Professor emeritus of the Charles University, since 1946 was researcher in the Czech Language Institute (twice as its director). His research interests are Czech language and general linguistics. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books on Czech grammar, textlinguistics and sociolinguistics. His Selected Writings appeared in several volumes.