Editing Czech language (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of the Czech language}}
{{see also|History of the Czech lands}}

===Medieval/Old Czech===
[[File:Kralice.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.7|The [[Bible of Kralice]] was the first complete [[Bible translations into Czech|translation of the Bible into the Czech language]] from the original languages. Its six volumes were first published between 1579 and 1593.|alt=A Gothic-style book with ornate, flowery designs on the cover]]
The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used. The function of the written language was initially performed by [[Old Church Slavonic|Old Slavonic]] written in [[Glagolitic script|Glagolitic]], later by [[Latin]] written in [[Latin script]]. 

Around the 7th century, the [[early Slavs|Slavic expansion]] reached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of the [[Frankish Empire]]. The West Slavic polity of  [[Great Moravia]] formed by the 9th century. The [[Christianization of Bohemia]] took place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of the [[Czech-Slovak languages|Czech-Slovak]] group within [[West Slavic languages|West Slavic]] began around that time, marked among other things by its use of the [[voiced velar fricative]] consonant (/ɣ/)<ref>{{Harvnb|Liberman|Trubetskoi|2001|p=112}}</ref> and consistent stress on the first syllable.<ref>{{Harvnb|Liberman|Trubetskoi|2001|p=153}}</ref>

The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete [[Bible translations into Czech|Bible translation]], the [[Leskovec-Dresden Bible]], also dates to this period.<ref name="Sussex Cubberley 2011 98 99"/> Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities.<ref name="Piotrowski 2009 95">{{Harvnb|Piotrowski|2012|p=95}}</ref>

Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the [[Bohemian Reformation]]. [[Jan Hus]] contributed significantly to the standardization of [[Czech orthography]], advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after the spoken language.<ref name="Sussex Cubberley 2011 98 99">{{Harvnb|Sussex|Cubberley|2011|pp=98–99}}</ref>

=== Early Modern Czech ===
There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century. In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on Western Slovak dialects.<ref name="tuebingen">{{cite web |url=http://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/tilman.berger/Publikationen/CzechSlovak.pdf |title=Slovaks in Czechia – Czechs in Slovakia |publisher=[[University of Tübingen]] |last=Berger |first=Tilman |access-date=2014-08-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kamusella |first1=Tomasz |title=The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe |date=2008 |publisher=Springer |pages=134–135}}</ref>

The publication of the [[Kralice Bible]] between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries as it was used as a model for the standard language.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Michálek |first1=Emanuel |title=O jazyce Kralické bible |url=http://nase-rec.ujc.cas.cz/archiv.php?art=6140#_ftn1 |website=Naše řeč |publisher=Czech Language Institute |access-date=2021-11-02 |language=Czech}}</ref>

In 1615, the Bohemian ''[[Diet (assembly)|diet]]'' tried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After the [[Bohemian Revolt]] (of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which was defeated by the [[Habsburg]]s in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the [[Thirty Years' War]] had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among the upper classes.<ref name="Cerna 2007 26">{{Harvnb|Cerna|Machalek|2007|p=26}}</ref>

=== Modern Czech ===
[[File:Jan Vilímek - Josef Dobrovský.jpg|thumb|right|[[Josef Dobrovský]], whose writing played a key role in reviving Czech as a written language|alt=In a detailed pencil sketch, a middle-aged man in a suit looks idly into the distance.]]
{{see also|Czech National Revival}}
Modern standard Czech originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century.<ref>{{Harvnb|Chloupek|Nekvapil|1993|p=92}}</ref> By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period contain no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty.<ref>{{Harvnb |Chloupek |Nekvapil|1993|p=95}}</ref> At some point before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned a distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak.<ref name="Maxwell 2009 106"/>

With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century, Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through 17th centuries, rebelling against the [[Counter-Reformation]] (the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non-[[Latin language|Latin]] languages).<ref>{{Harvnb|Agnew |1994 |p=250}}</ref> Czech [[Philology|philologists]] studied sixteenth-century texts and advocated the return of the language to [[high culture]].<ref name="Agnew 1994 251–252">{{Harvnb|Agnew|1994|pp=251–252}}</ref> This period is known as the Czech National Revival<ref name="Wilson 2010 18">{{Harvnb|Wilson|2009|p=18}}</ref> (or Renaissance).<ref name="Agnew 1994 251–252"/>

During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian [[Josef Dobrovský]] released a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitled ''Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache'' ('Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language'). Dobrovský had intended his book to be [[descriptive linguistics|descriptive]], and did not think Czech had a realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, [[Josef Jungmann]] and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival.<ref name="Wilson 2010 18"/> Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, ''í'' in place of the former ''j'' and ''j'' in place of ''g''), the use of ''t'' (rather than ''ti'') to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German).<ref name="Maxwell 2009 106">{{Harvnb|Maxwell|2009|p=106}}</ref> These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak.<ref>{{Harvnb|Chloupek|Nekvapil|1993|p=96}}</ref> Modern scholars disagree about whether the conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use.<ref name="Wilson 2010 18"/>

Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread informal interdialectal variety), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of the language.<ref>{{Harvnb|Chloupek|Nekvapil|1993|pp=93–95}}</ref>