Czech (language)

Czech
Bohemian
čeština, český jazyk
Native to	Czech Republic
Native speakers	10.6 million (2012)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Czech–Slovak Czech
Writing system	Latin script (Czech alphabet) Czech Braille
Official status
Official language in	Czech Republic  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Austria  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Croatia  Poland  Romania  Slovakia
Regulated by	Institute of the Czech Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	cs
ISO 639-2	(B)  (T)
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	czec1258
Linguasphere	53-AAA-da < 53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-daa to 53-AAA-dam)
regions where Czech is the language of the majority   regions where Czech is the language of a significant minority
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Czech (/ˈtʃɛk/; čeština Czech pronunciation: [ˈt͡ʃɛʃcɪna]), historically also Bohemian (/boʊˈhiːmiən, bə-/;lingua Bohemica in Latin), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, that is extensively influenced by Latin and German. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being mutually intelligible to a very high degree.

The Czecho-Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the high medieval period, and the standardisation of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerges in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, but is now spoken throughout most of the Czech Republic. The Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak.