Czech

Czech belongs to the west Slavic group of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family.

It is spoken by 10 million people in the Czech Republic. There are also expatriate Czech communities in Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Israel, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and USA. The worldwide population of Czech speakers is estimated at around 12 million (Ethnologue). Czech is very close to Slovak. In fact, Czech and Slovak speakers are usually able to understand each other.

Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic. The dialect of Prague, capital of the country, forms the basis for Standard Czech. Standard Czech is the language of government administration, all levels of education, the media, and of publication. It is used alongside Common Czech, the colloquial spoken language.

Dialects
Czech has four major mutually intelligible dialects:
•   Bohemian
•   Central Moravian
•   Eastern Moravian
•   Silesian

The standard literary language is based on the dialect of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The colloquial spoken language, or Common Czech, is based on the Central Moravian dialect but is also influenced by local dialects. The Eastern Moravian dialect is a transitional variety between Czech and Slovak, while the diverse Silesian dialects gradually blend into Polish dialects spoken along the border.

There is an increasing mutual influence between Literary Czech and Common Czech, so that the main remaining differences between the two varieties now have to do with grammar and pronunciation, rather than with syntax or vocabulary.

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