page_title: Czech language
section_title: Varieties
hierarchical_section_title: Czech language / Varieties
caption_attribution_description: English: Antonín Machek - Portrait of Josef Jungmann, 1833
context_page_description: Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of mutual intelligibility to a very high degree, as well as Polish. Like other Slavic languages, Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German.
  The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main non-standard variety, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, but is now spoken as an interdialect throughout most of the Czech Republic. The Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are also classified as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak.
context_section_description: The modern literary standard and prestige variety, known as "Standard Czech" (spisovná čeština) is based on the standardization during the Czech National Revival in the 1830s, significantly influenced by  Josef Jungmann's Czech–German dictionary published during 1834–1839. Jungmann used vocabulary of the Bible of Kralice (1579–1613) period and of the language used by his contemporaries. He borrowed words not present in Czech from other Slavic languages or created neologisms. Standard Czech is the formal register of the language which is used in official documents, formal literature, newspaper articles, education and occasionally public speeches. It is codified by the Czech Language Institute, who publish occasional reforms to the codification. The most recent reform took place in 1993. The term hovorová čeština (lit. "Colloquial Czech") is sometimes used to refer to the spoken variety of standard Czech.
  The most widely spoken vernacular form of the language is called "Common Czech" (obecná čeština), an interdialect influenced by spoken Standard Czech and the Central Bohemian dialects of the Prague region. Other Bohemian regional dialects have become marginalized, while Moravian dialects remain more widespread and diverse, with a political movement for Moravian linguistic revival active since the 1990s.
  These varieties of the language (Standard Czech, spoken/colloquial Standard Czech, Common Czech, and regional dialects) form a stylistic continuum, in which contact between varieties of a similar prestige influences change within them.
caption: Josef Jungmann, whose Czech-German dictionary laid the foundations for modern Standard Czech.
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