Czech orthography
Czech orthography is a system of rules for proper formal writing (orthography) in Czech. The earliest form of separate Latin script specifically designed to suit Czech was devised by Czech theologian and church reformist Jan Hus, the namesake of the Hussite movement, in one of his seminal works, De orthographia bohemica (On Bohemian orthography).
| Czech alphabet Česká abeceda | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Time period | Since Jan Hus' Orthographia bohemica (early 15th century – present) |
| Languages | Czech |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Slovak alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet |
| Unicode | |
| Subset of Latin | |
The modern Czech orthographic system is diacritic, having evolved from an earlier system which used many digraphs (although one digraph has been kept - ch). The caron is added to standard Latin letters to express sounds which are foreign to Latin. The acute accent is used for long vowels.
The Czech orthography is considered the model for many other Balto-Slavic languages using the Latin alphabet; Slovak orthography being its direct revised descendant, while the Serbo-Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet and its Slovene descendant system are largely based on it. All of them make use of similar diacritics and also have a similar, usually interchangeable, relationship between the letters and the sounds they are meant to represent.