The Bohemian Alphabet—Česká Abeceda.
A. The Alphabet.
The Bohemian alphabet—abeceda—(called after the first four letters a, b, c, d) consists of 39 letters—písmen.
To these letters correspond individual sounds—hlásky—which go to make up the Bohemian words. The Bohemian language is very nearly phonetic, that is, for each sound there is a letter or, in other words, the spelling of words agrees with the pronounciation. These sounds are divided into: vowels—samohlásky—; and consonants—souhlásky.
B. The Vowels—Samohlásky.
The vowels are the word building sounds. Every vowel (and every consonant) has only one, unchanging pronunciation. The vowels are:
- a like final a in America,
- e like e in pen,
- o like o in obey,
- u like u in pull,
- y was formerly pronounced hard (as u in French, or ue in German), but it softened and is now almost equal to i.
Long and short vowels.—Dlouhé a krátké samohlásky.
The vowels a, e, i, o, u, y as given above are called short—krátké,—and their pronounciation is short. But the same vowels occur long—dlouhé and then they are marked with the long sign—čárka and are pronounced long.
Dlouhé samohlásky: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý