Word order is grammatically free with no particular fixed order for constituents marking subject, object, possessor, etc. The inflectional system takes care of keeping clear grammatical relations and roles. Constituents with old information precede constituents with new information, or those that carry most emphasis. It has distinctive palatalization. Voiced consonants at the end of words are devoiced.
Stress is invariably on the first syllable.
Czech has borrowed extensively from German. Czech has an extensive literature with a long standing historical foundation. There is a very strong tradition of translating into Czech and Slovak. For example, the German influence on Czech, seen in the substantial number of loan words from German, derives from the period when Austria dominated Bohemia and Moravia. Slovak, on the other hand, shows signs of Hungarian influence, due to political domination by the Hungarian Empire.