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Chapter




                                                 Czech












                   GENERAL INFORMATION

                     Number of speakers:  9.2 million speakers in Czech Republic and 9.5 million worldwide


                     Writing system:  Latin alphabet with diacritic marks above some letters that indicate

                       longer or softer sounds.  There are three different diacritical marks.  There is a one‐to‐


                       one correspondence between letters and sounds.

                     Language Family:  Indo‐European–Slavic—West—Czech‐Slovak


                     Official language in: Czech Republic


                   PHONOLOGY AND PHONOTACTICS


                    Patterns of Native Language Influence:     Example:
                    Replacement of voiceless “th” (θ) with /t/    thumb – tum
                    Replacement of voiced “th” (ð) with /d/ or   they – dey OR zey
                    /z/
                    Replacement of /w/ with /v/                what – vat
                                                               why – vy
      19
                    /ɹ/ distorted in all positions, often      rabbit ‐ rrrabbit                                 19
                    resembling a trilled /r/ in initial position
                    Voiced consonants (i.e. /d/, /v/) are devoiced  dog – dok
                    in the final position of words             five – fife



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