I found a very old book (from the 1840s) of “May” by K.H. Mácha — but I am puzzled by the different orthography.
Why are some of these words spelt like this? I am new to studying the Czech language.
Czech as a language came through huge developement over the centuries.
​
For example in medieval times you’d get “ie” used a lot, something that has dissapeared entirely. Likewise before John Hus introduced ěščřž in his language reform, we wrote them using two letters (for example č would be cz), like Polish language does.
​
As for this period, well obviously there would be lot of Polish and German influences on the language still, W was very commonly used in Czech but it eventualy essentialy dissapeared from the language, same with how g is used a lot, something that we barely use nowadays.
​
Keep in mind this might not be 100% accurate, I am not a linguist by far but you get what I mean.
It’s cuz Czech is pretty new language. It’s similar to todays English and Shakespeare’s English. It’s the same, yet different…
It’s the old Czech language, we call it ” staročeština “, Czech language has changed a lot throughout the history.
Edit: I’m dumb, it’s not the old Czech language…
Well this is just old spelling, if you find another book from first half of 19th century you’ll find same spelling,. It was probably later in 19th century when the modern spelling was introduced
The shift from g = j, w = v, happened around 1850 according to wiki. It was continuous shift from older forms to modern czech. Same with au=ou and j=í. Weird, but still readable.
A good third of the comments here are just r/badlinguistics
This is similar to old Romans not having J and U and thus writing “IESVS” instead of “JESUS”. Or something like that.
Letters didn’t always signify the sounds they do today. If you look at really old English books, they might use v instead of u, for example.
So here, j is í, w is v etc. It’s just how the orthography worked back then.
První večerní mág? To je nějaké fantasy ne? 😀
I have a book written in Czech (scientific book about the origins of mankind) from the 1840s and the language is similar. Reading this actually makes me tired, the brain has to run “autotranslate” into the modern language..
In the 1840s the codified modern Czech wasn’t fully implemented into the literature yet. Some people used the old High Czech (Veleslavin Czech) from the 16th and 17th century, some people used their local dialect, some used more modern Czech, but for writing used letters more common in German and Polish.
This a glimpse into an era in which the language was reborn after over 200 years of germanisation.
Because it’s too old. There were some changes in the orthography during the 19th century, including: W->V, J->Í, AU->OU, G->J.
n=u
OH MY GOD I’VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THIS SO LONG
My great grandmother was singing this to me when I was young but she passed away in 2019 and I never got to ask her the names of all the songs
prwnj mág
(the first mage)
In Poland we use w like this.
Je to starý sloveny. Muže být před 1900 nebo přes první republiky (?)
It is an old version of this wonderful language
thats actually how old czech was writen, but the words are pronounced the same
We had this kind of language to 1849, then we changed it with other rules and made it more easier. You can find it on wikipedia.
20 comments
I found a very old book (from the 1840s) of “May” by K.H. Mácha — but I am puzzled by the different orthography.
Why are some of these words spelt like this? I am new to studying the Czech language.
Czech as a language came through huge developement over the centuries.
​
For example in medieval times you’d get “ie” used a lot, something that has dissapeared entirely. Likewise before John Hus introduced ěščřž in his language reform, we wrote them using two letters (for example č would be cz), like Polish language does.
​
As for this period, well obviously there would be lot of Polish and German influences on the language still, W was very commonly used in Czech but it eventualy essentialy dissapeared from the language, same with how g is used a lot, something that we barely use nowadays.
​
Keep in mind this might not be 100% accurate, I am not a linguist by far but you get what I mean.
It’s cuz Czech is pretty new language. It’s similar to todays English and Shakespeare’s English. It’s the same, yet different…
It’s the old Czech language, we call it ” staročeština “, Czech language has changed a lot throughout the history.
Edit: I’m dumb, it’s not the old Czech language…
Well this is just old spelling, if you find another book from first half of 19th century you’ll find same spelling,. It was probably later in 19th century when the modern spelling was introduced
The shift from g = j, w = v, happened around 1850 according to wiki. It was continuous shift from older forms to modern czech. Same with au=ou and j=í. Weird, but still readable.
A good third of the comments here are just r/badlinguistics
This is similar to old Romans not having J and U and thus writing “IESVS” instead of “JESUS”. Or something like that.
Letters didn’t always signify the sounds they do today. If you look at really old English books, they might use v instead of u, for example.
So here, j is í, w is v etc. It’s just how the orthography worked back then.
První večerní mág? To je nějaké fantasy ne? 😀
I have a book written in Czech (scientific book about the origins of mankind) from the 1840s and the language is similar. Reading this actually makes me tired, the brain has to run “autotranslate” into the modern language..
In the 1840s the codified modern Czech wasn’t fully implemented into the literature yet. Some people used the old High Czech (Veleslavin Czech) from the 16th and 17th century, some people used their local dialect, some used more modern Czech, but for writing used letters more common in German and Polish.
This a glimpse into an era in which the language was reborn after over 200 years of germanisation.
Because it’s too old. There were some changes in the orthography during the 19th century, including: W->V, J->Í, AU->OU, G->J.
n=u
OH MY GOD I’VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THIS SO LONG
My great grandmother was singing this to me when I was young but she passed away in 2019 and I never got to ask her the names of all the songs
prwnj mág
(the first mage)
In Poland we use w like this.
Je to starý sloveny. Muže být před 1900 nebo přes první republiky (?)
It is an old version of this wonderful language
thats actually how old czech was writen, but the words are pronounced the same
We had this kind of language to 1849, then we changed it with other rules and made it more easier. You can find it on wikipedia.